Category Archives: Hard-Core Quaker

Friends’ History Coming Alive: The Quaker History Roundtable

Retirement is supposed to be when, with time growing short, one gets to work on the bucket list. And on my list, making some sense of the last century — half of which I spent among Friends — is pretty high. Much higher than going on a cruise.

Call me weird, but I think watching glaciers melt is like watching paint dry. Besides, I’ve checked, and not one of these boats has a decent Quaker library.
Working on Quaker history has been continually stimulating for me, and often fun. And not much has been done on the 20th century among Quakers — despite the fact that a LOT went on.

So about a year ago I started sounding out scholars and others I’ve met and heard about who are also Quaker history geeks, and suggested we do some work, then get together and share and discuss it; many were interested. And I had enough savings to underwrite it, so I did.

The outcome is the Quaker history Roundtable, which will debut on June 8-11, less than eight weeks hence. Many thanks are due to the Earlham School of Religion for agreeing to host it, and cooperate on the arrangements. Fortunately, history geeks are relatively simple to handle, logistics-wise: they mostly talk and argue (err, discuss), then eat and talk & “discuss” some more.

Read more →

Ringing Spring’s Bell for Continued Quaker Resistance

The talk was lively and nonstop, even with breaks. The gathering moved almost seamlessly into broader issue discussion, with resource people as participants, to consider ways to keep moving and build cooperation and momentum.
The Consultation was not aimed at producing resolutions or a new organization, but to assist in encouraging and facilitating cooperation for continued resistance. Encouragement also seemed in plentiful supply, and we closed with some music, from Scott Holmes, who doubles as an aggressive lawyer fighting mass incarceration when he’s not writing songs. He’d written a new resistance song just for us.
Perhaps this model of locally-driven multi-issue and multi-group consultations would be of use to other Meetings. It is neither expensive nor complicated, and the organizing was done by a small cadre of volunteers, using social media as the main means of promotion. And one of its most welcome outcomes was a lift in spirits. We’ll all need more of those; there’s still much to ring the resistance bell about.

Read more →

A Quaker Race Riot In Philadelphia?

So will anything come from all this at the PYM session on March 25?

It isn’t supposed to. Such sessions are typically very much scripted and scheduled in advance, with little time or space for anything spontaneous to happen. And the published schedule indicates that there will be some time for questions about the staff changes. This may leave room for some venting. But on the other hand, there have been disruptions at recent PYM sessions, so sometime things don’t go according to plan.

But the changes will not be up for review; wise or not, the General Secretary oversees (sic) the staff, and staffing decisions are her call. And with a legal action in the offing, Duncan-Tessmer has all the more incentive to listen and say little beyond, “Thank thee Friend.”

Yet even if the lid stays on this weekend, these rumblings are signs of a body in significant internal disarray. And frankly, with the burgeoning return of organized, high-power racism (not to mention numerous other plagues) all around it, this turmoil could not come at a more inopportune time.

Read more →

The Shoe Drops (Again) for North Carolina Yearly Meeting-FUM

To review, here’s the general idea from last summer. NCYM would be “reorganized, as an umbrella for two new subgroups, or associations.
Note that the two new “associations” would really have had very little day-to-day connection, other than being “under” (graphically speaking) NCYM. And NCYM would be drastically shrunken, reduced to little more than an investment bank account & a committee of trustees (drawn from the two subgroups), and its only staff a part-time bookkeeper.
But it turns out that for some evangelicals, even that slender residual “connection” is too much to bear. One can hear the tired refrains: “Be not unequally yoked . . .”; “what does Christ have to do with Satan or Belial (satan’s nickname),” yada yada antichrist, demons, homosexuals.” (Wake me when it’s over.)
So, as we reported in late January, a transition committee headed by longtime NCYM pastor Hugh Spaulding put out a letter insisting that the hardcore had reneged. They now said they must have “adequate separation into two groups,” or else they “will continue to splinter,” which would somehow be terrible. And even though Spaulding’s committee was not in unity to give in to this demand, he said we had to anyway. (See what I mean about who gives a fig for a fair Quaker process?)

In response, the Autonomites (the unofficial name for liberal meetings; we posted about them here), called a meeting last Saturday (February 25), in which they were urged by facilitator Mark Farlow to form a solid block of opposition to this plan at the upcoming Representative session this Saturday.

There was general agreement with this idea, but this observer noted something less than a tide of enthusiasm or high dudgeon in the room. Indeed, one suspects that even many Autonomites, after two-plus years of fending off wave after wave of these purge attempts, are feeling a good bit of purge fatigue. This sentiment could well have been deepened by the many other shocks they (and the country) have faced since January 20.
But I digress. What’s at stake in this internecine, increasingly obscure dispute?

As far as I can see, it’s mainly two things: first, the remaining shreds of integrity retained by the NCYM establishment. If they’re gong to toss out their own decision made in August and reaffirmed in November, in the face of yet another blackmail/extortion ultimatum, then for what it’s worth, their reputation will go down the drain with it.
Otherwise, the main concrete stake is money; but even that won’t really be affected much.

Read more →