Category Archives: Hard-Core Quaker

Breaking: Split Plan for NC Quakers Drawn Up By “Gang of 9” Pastors

Meeting secretly since early April, a self-appointed group of nine pastors in North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM) has been negotiating a proposal to break up the YM, and sent an approved draft to the NCYM Executive Committee early last month.
The group reportedly regarded itself as representative of three “wings” of NCYM, the liberal meetings, “centrists,” and evangelical. Yearly Meeting officials and staff were also present at the meetings.
The full text of the proposal is below. Note that it was signed only by seven of the group; two participants strongly objected to the plan and “stood aside” from its approval.
A participant in the sessions stated that for the most part they proceeded amicably, but with differences clearly drawn. It was also said that letters were sent to pastors in other meetings about the sessions; but how widely these notices actually circulated is in question. . . .

Agony For Carolina Quakers: More On Its Sad Saturday

Agony For Carolina Quakers: More On Its Sad Saturday When it comes to guessing what will happen at Saturday’s Session of North Carolina Yearly Meeting’s Representative body, pick your rumor — there are plenty of them. But let’s not call them rumors; “scenarios” is more elegant: — First, it could yield the long-sought (by some) … Continue reading Agony For Carolina Quakers: More On Its Sad Saturday →

North Carolina Quakers: Another Sad Saturday Surprise?

This Saturday, June 4, another tense scene will unfold in North Carolina’s ongoing Quaker soap opera: NC Yearly Meeting-FUM (NCYM) will hold its spring Representative Body session.
For the past two years, these Seventh Day (Saturday) assemblies have staged one melodrama after another, all focused on a single burning (well, smoldering) question: Will NCYM purge the handful of liberal meetings?

A Quaker Memorial Day

While much of the rest of the U.S. population is involved in or watching Memorial Day events centered on those killed in our wars, I hope Quakers will make room for a different approach to this observance.
To be sure, Friends have much to remember, and many to memorialize in regard to war also. For one thing, there were many Quakers who, despite what is called the Peace testimony, felt obliged to take up arms in one war or another; their number is large, and we are best advised not to deceive ourselves about that.

At the same time, in all these wars, where Quakers were present, significant numbers of them have stuck to the testimony and declined involvement in combat. The specifics vary with the wars, and personalities; the stories are quite varied. But many underwent awful ordeals, and not a few paid for their testimony with their lives.

Reflecting on what I know of this, my thoughts turned to the most lethal of U.S. wars (so far), the Civil War of 1861-1865.

Women’s History: Angelina Grimké, Breaking Taboos, & Gaining Religious Liberty

Maintaining religious liberty within the Religious Society of Friends has not always been easy. For instance, contrary to popular Quaker legend, work in the abolitionist movement was very unpopular among Friends, and especially repugnant to the entrenched power structure of recorded ministers and elder. They thought it was “creaturely,” needlessly dangerous — and many highly-placed Friends, while not own slaves, yet had extensive business interests connected to the slave economy. These were threatened by connections with abolition “agitation.
The result was what I have called “The Great Purge”; many Friends were forced out of the Society, and others resigned, to uphold their antislavery principles. Even some meetings were laid down by “executive action” for being tainted by the reforming virus.

Some Friends did not wait for the Overseers and elders to show up to apply this “discipline.”