Friends Across a Religious Society

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7)

People who aren’t Quakers often see Friends as generally peaceable and easy to get along with bunch, but internally, the Quakerverse is a very small and deeply divided world.  The reasons for this are old and many, and I’ll revisit them again in detail sometime, but what is important to know now is that there are three main branches on the Quaker family tree.

1. Liberal (doesn’t speak to political belief)
2. Conservative (again, not talking politics)
3. Evangelical (Oooh oooh! Thats me!!!)

Being generally suspect of religious authority, Quakers don’t have a single unifying structure of figurehead, so you won’t be seeing any Quaker pope, and anyone who starts a sentence with “Quakers think that…” are generally going to exclude a significant number of them.  I guarantee you that I will be guilty of this at times in the future, we are a peculiar people indeed.   

The largest level of (BIG QUOTES) “authoritative” organization that you will find among Friends is what are called “Yearly Meetings”.  Think of Yearly Meetings as the equivalent word for “denomination”.  Yearly Meetings cover geographic areas, i.e. Great Britain Yearly Meeting, New England Yearly Meeting, Pacific Yearly Meeting, Canadian Yearly Meeting, Burundi Yearly Meeting…you get the picture.

A quick aside, in Quakerspeak you’ll hear a lot of meeting this and meeting that, but what does it mean?!? Well, Quakers gather in what are called “Meetinghouses”, because the Church is made up of people, calling a building church didn’t sit well with early Friends.  So when you hear a Quaker talk about their Meeting, they are talking about their “church”.  The lengths of time before the word Meeting speak to how often that group of Friends makes business decisions. Monthly Meetings conduct business once a month, Quarterly Meetings conduct business once a quarter, Yearly Meetings conduct business once a year.  Its simple…in a complex kind of way. 

Anyhoo, back to the Yearly Meetings.

I’ve been thinking about these kinds of divisions in Quakerism a lot this year, and truth be told, it is mostly because I can feel kinda lonely in Atlanta.  I’m attending Atlanta Monthly Meeting, and it is a Liberal unprogrammed meeting.

There are no Evangelical Friends in Atlanta.  Just me.

Sometimes it doesn’t feel like there is space to talk about my faith experience, because many here aren’t even aware that Evangelical Friends exist at all! Or, if they are somewhat aware, I can get reactions ranging from causal dismissal, curiosity, suspicion, to hostility.  This is a non-unique problem in Atlanta, and it goes back to the levels of organization.

Simply put, because Quakers organize geographically, often times there is only 1 type of Quaker in any given area.

No interaction=fertile ground for division

I imagine in areas where there are only Evangelical Friends and no Liberal ones, the same things I feel would be mirrored in that place. 

Thankfully, in Oregon, the problem is not as severe.  Oregon is a unique situation, because it has two geographically overlapping Yearly Meetings, which means large populations of two different kinds of Quakers living a stones throw away from each other.  Friends from the two Yearly Meetings gather to worship together once a month in what are called “Convergent Friends” meetings.

interaction=understanding

This isn’t to say that getting Convergent Friends started in Oregon was easy, quite the opposite! I hope to interview older Friends who can speak more to that process sometime, but it took many awkward and at times painful interactions to get to the place where we are now.  We still have a lot to do in Oregon, but I trust that the Spirit will get us to where we need to be.

So being here by myself can be challenging at times, but I know that this is where I’m supposed to be right now. One of the most powerful and unexpected moments that I experienced at Atlanta Monthly Meeting was during meeting for worship a couple weeks ago.  Atlanta is a part of Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting, and on this particular week it was being host to the youth of its Yearly Meeting.  The meetinghouse was filled with young people sitting all over the place, some even in the isles or in the center of the room on the floor.  

After about 15 minutes of worship, the different Monthly Meetings being represented were announced, and the youth stood when theirs was called.  I felt a deep sense of happiness when I saw them stand, these young Friends from all over the South.  Oh how I wished that I could have been blessed enough to be raised in the Quaker tradition.

It was then where I heard that still small voice, that for a moment was extremely clear…and not too small sounding.

“Pray for the health of this Yearly Meeting”

Well, when messages are that clear for me, not much else to do but be obedient to that.  I began to pray.

I prayed for all the Monthly Meetings, prayed for their young people, their old people, the Friends that had proceeded them and passed on, and the Friends who were yet unborn.  I prayed for their current ministries, and for ministers that had yet to be called.  I prayed that they would be unified in the years to come, and they would be blessings to those around them.  When I couldn’t think of anything else specific to pray, I simply thanked God that these Friends are who they are.

It was a worship experience unlike any I had experienced before, and I realized at the rise of the meeting something very important. 

So often, I find myself praying for the health of my own Northwest Yearly Meeting.  I pray for its churches, its ministries, and its unity.  However, what I feel like God was trying to teach me that day, was that I need to take heed not to let my vision get myopic.  There are others besides my own who need prayer, and the Religious Society of Friends doesn’t need to always exist in the divided paradigm that it does now.  I don’t know how things will change, and how many awkward and stumbling steps need to be taken to start that way, but it will be something that I intend to seek from now on.