FAQs for Friends– Part #9 (The Last Part): Jesus & The Golden Gate Bridge Since it’s been a few weeks since Part #8 was posted, we’ll repeat the last Query from #8, as a way of catching up. (To read earlier posts in this series, click here.) Q. Did Anybody Else Besides These Early Friends … Continue reading FAQs for Friends– Part #9 (The Last Part): Jesus & The Golden Gate Bridge
“As Friends, we must rise above the homophobic hysteria sweeping the country and seek to be a voice of reason, concern, and spiritual insight. We cannot afford to lose the soul of Quakerism by allowing ourselves to be caught up in the current compulsion to condemn and exclude. Naturally, we are stirred by the gay and lesbian rights movement. The civil rights movement of the sixties had much the same effect. Those of us who grew up in the South resisted and criticized it; we were hostile to it and felt threatened by it but, in the end, it compelled us to look within and what we found was raw prejudice that would not stand the objective scrutiny of the Inner Light.
The strength of Quakerism has always been found in our willingness to expose ourselves to that kind of examination and our further willingness to follow the revelation that the Light brings. It has been that willingness that has set us apart from other denominations and made us pioneers in areas of which we are now proud. It is time for us to hark back to our basic concepts in dealing with the present issue. The process has not failed us in the past. It will not fail us now if we have the courage to engage ourselves in it.”
Yadkin Valley Quarterly Meeting Ministry and Counsel approved the following minute:
“We expect that Meetings come to unity with Jesus Christ of the Scriptures and the Faith statements in Faith and Practice. If not we recommend that those Meetings be sanctioned and or disciplined, with possible disownment, by the November 2016 Representative Body session. Meetings of concern include: New Garden, Spring, First Friends of Greensboro, and Winston-Salem Friends.”
After hearing many questions, the group authorized the Executive Committee to study ways of further discussing how the division might proceed, and to bring a plan for those discussions to the NCYM annual sessions, in August.
Let me repeat this, for clarity: NCYM yesterday approved development of a plan for discussing how to divide the YM. It did not agree to a plan to divide.
UPDATE: NCYM Divorce Proposal – More Documents, More Questions Members of the “Gang of 9” pastors who drafted a “divorce” proposal for North Carolina YM have made available more documents from their sessions. These are below, along with some initial questions that remain unanswered. Some members of the group assert that they attempted to be … Continue reading UPDATE: NCYM Divorce Proposal – More Documents, More Questions