Category Archives: Quaker Theology

Ultimatum in Northwest Yearly Meeting?? (Yawn.)

I mean, who gives a fig about blatant Russian hacking & corruption of a presidential election, when we can obsess some more over whether a Friends church or two in Oregon might actually marry a samesex couple, or even change a couple of restroom signs?

And in the nick of time, here it comes again: another ultimatum: pull the trigger to stop that, or else.

The occasion is the mid-year session of NWYM, set for this weekend (January 13-14, 2017), a conclave like unto the Roman college of cardinals, with attendance strictly limited to the properly-credentialed.

And high on the agenda will be the question that has smoldered and flared unbanked now through more than eighteen months, two yearly meeting sessions, several closed meetings in between, and yet another specially called, carefully vetted assembly last month: will NWYM carry out the decision to expel West Hills Friends in Portland. And then will it follow up by purging Camas Friends, which has recently adopted its own affirming stance? Plus impose firm order on any others who go wobbly?

Is North Carolina Yearly Meeting Giving Peace A Chance?

But as we have seen, NCYM is not the same. In August, when it rejected the split-in-two plan, the YM agreed to “reorganize” around two distinct sub-associations, with the NCYM structure as a kind of skeletal holding company managing common assets and property and not much more. So the other significant item presented to the body on Saturday was a tentative list of meetings under the two new provisional headings of the “Authority” group and the “Autonomy” group.

There were approximately a dozen meetings in the “Autonomy” grouping, and 37 in the “Authority” section. (I say “approximately,” because there are a few meetings which don’t wish to be put in either group, and their status is still to be worked out.)

The “Authority” group will function under the pending revision of NCYM’s Faith & Practice, which had inserted into it a year ago a provision making the yearly meeting supreme over the meetings.

The “autonomy” group members will decide what Faith & Practice they want, if any, but most seem inclined to go with the yearly meeting document minus the “supreme authority” insertion.
Within each group, funds, committees & programs will be handled separately .

How will these groups function?

Update-Northwest YM Gay Expulsion: The Power In Posing The Question

With the trial balloon of a joint statement being shot full of holes; the Administrative Council met on October 13, and set December 9-10 for a special meeting of meeting representatives (to include one “young Friend” from each group) to deal with the matter.

And at this point, we come back to the opening question about how what is called “Quaker process” can be, er, managed.

Basically, it’s quite simple, and based on this precedent: once a decision has been made, to change or repeal it requires that the body “reach unity” to do so.

So the technique comes down to how the decision is presented.

The Case of Pumpkin Spice Cake
For instance: suppose a meeting decided at one business session to serve pumpkin spice cake at the Fall Festival. But then at the next business meeting, some said they couldn’t stand pumpkin spice anything. To remove the pumpkin spice cake, the meeting would need to “reach unity” to reverse its earlier decision.

But what if the Clerk was a big fan of pumpkin spice cake, and wanted to make sure it stayed on the menu?

And what if the Clerk knew there were strong divided feelings about the matter?

Then the Clerk could pose the question in a way that would ensure her desired outcome. How?

Simple: The Clerk could ask:

“Does the meeting wish to RESCIND the decision to have pumpkin spice cake?”

[The ensuing discussion is divided.]

Clerk: “It’s clear there is NO UNITY to change the menu.”

[Ergo, Pumpkin Spice cake stays.]

The Northwest Gay Expulsion Impasse: Is A Break In Sight?

The Northwest Gay Expulsion Impasse: Is A Break In Sight? At its September business meeting, West Hills Friends (WHF) in Portland Oregon considered a statement accepting its expulsion from Northwest Yearly Meeting (NWYM) for having become a LGBT-welcoming congregation. If approved, the statement would be issued jointly with NWYM. The decision to expel West Hills was made … Continue reading The Northwest Gay Expulsion Impasse: Is A Break In Sight? →

Dog Days True Quaker Stories: The Party That Went On Too Long

Much of my initial “information” about the Communist Party came from watching a TV show, “I Led Three Lives,” after we got a TV in mid-1952. The show started the next year and ran for more than a hundred episodes. It was inspired by the true-life career of Herbert Philbrick of Boston.

For years, Philbrick was a seemingly ordinary white collar office worker. But he was also a secret member of the Communist Party, spying and planning to overthrow the American government — and even more secretly, a double agent helping the FBI foil the Communist schemes. In 1952, he published a best-selling book about all this; and Hollywood jumped on the story line.

(In an episode I sadly missed, one such –fictional– plot was about how the party was going to turn vacuum cleaners into handheld missile launchers. Sound, um, far-fetched? But J. Edgar Hoover approved that episode, as he did all of them, so it must have been thrilling.)

Now I know much better how, in the late 1940s and into the 1960s, “the Communists” were a very big deal for Americans. Hiss’s two trials marked a major turning point in U.S. public opinion, toward a hard anti-communism, of the sort I grew up absorbing like milk on cornflakes.