As Quakers, we have a wonderful, rich history,
full of learning. We have discovered principles and practices that
guide us in our spiritual life and our secular life; indeed, ideally
the two should become increasingly indistinguishable. There a
centuries of Quaker writing to inform and edify.
And yet the very start of the Quaker story was
railing against empty forms and notions. The idea that confession of
the creed and going through the motions at church weren't enough, not
even for those who tried to live virtuously and believed sincerely.
Today, we wouldn't make a blanket assertion of this, but it is our
experience for ourselves that true religious experience derives only
from seeking to know the Divine for ourselves, and acting in the
world out of sincere conviction stemming from this knowledge – not
from acceptance of knowledge and teachings received from others,
however wise and insightful. The story of Penn's Sword, however
dubious its historicity, is an illustration of this principle; while
wearing a sword was contrary to Quaker testimony, Fox did not urge
Penn to abandon it until it was a matter of personal conviction for
him. Even as a parable, this story is a great illustration of this
principle, along with the complementary fact that, if we are open to
it, the Spirit can transform us.
Here we stand today. Quakers in Britain have made
marvellous, wonderful statements, progress on so many issues. We led
the charge for allowing equal marriage, particularly in allowing
those faiths who choose to do so to conduct same-sex marriages. While
we might be little-known to the population at large, campaigners for
peace and disarmament, campaigners for sustainability, and
campaigners for social justice, are aware of us far more. We have
powerful spiritual practices and traditions that we know work, by our
own experience, when we do them faithfully and with due preparation.
We meet together in joy and solemnity and do what we need to do,
great things and small but necessary things.
I have no doubt that it is right that we do these
things. It is right that we champion the inclusion of the
marginalised and disadvantaged, that we champion peace and fairness,
that we look to the future of our planet and our species. But it is
not right that we do them because it is what we have always done. It
is not right that we do them because of an expectation that we do
them.
In 1926, the Young Friends Committee of London
Yearly Meeting (now Britain Yearly Meeting) said:
“[Our] work is based on the thought that ‘What you have inherited from your forefathers you must acquire for yourselves to possess it’. That is to say that each generation of young Friends by its experiments must discover for itself the truths on which the Society is built if it is to use those truths and to continue and enlarge the work of the Society.” (Quaker faith &practice, 21.04)
This is not merely true for each generation. It is
not merely true for Young Friends. It is true for each of us
individually. Our principles, our methods, our leadings and our
decisions must be rediscovered and confirmed anew for each of us.
This does not mean that we start from scratch. It does not mean that
we throw out all that has come before us; the lessons of our Quaker
forebears are important and valuable, and we should not throw out
what has worked for centuries just because we need to discover it for
ourselves. Rather, we should not assume that our forebears had the
final answer. The attitude to sex and relationships, including
same-sex relationships, has changed among Quakers in Britain
incredibly in the last 100 years. Early Friends held separate
business meetings for men and women. Quakers were slave-owners, and
even in areas where slave-owning was not legal, Quaker craftsmen and
businesses profited directly from the slave trade – and Friends who
spoke loudly against this situation, loud enough to be heard beyond
the Religious Society of Friends itself, were in some cases disowned
by their Meetings. It took generations for Quakers to divest
themselves from slavery and the slave trade, and then to start in on
advising the rest of wider society that slavery was an evil that
should be ended. Even affirmative conclusions of the past have been
reversed as our understanding grew and changed, such as the
relatively recent embracement of the arts as a valid interest, or
even occupation – never mind the idea that they may have a
spiritual role to play.
The only way to be sure we are right, and to be
sure that we are conducting ourselves in the right way, is to
continually question our conclusions and our methods. Usually, we
will be reassured. I have no doubt that, if Britain Yearly Meeting
were to review its attitude to same-sex relationships from scratch
next year, it would come to essentially the same conclusion that it
currently holds. Yet, even though I have no doubt about it, it is a
mistake to assume we have the last word. It is only by continually,
if gently, reassessing our commitment to peace, sustainability,
equality, and all the other issues, that we will see the areas we
need to improve, that we will see the areas where something has
changed and our approach needs to change to follow. It is only by
constantly re-examining our practices and processes that we will
understand them deep in the bone, understand why we do things the way
we do, see the ways we don't do them quite rightly, and see how to do
them better. The act of questioning and testing anew makes the
conclusions real for us today.
Our practices and our structures have changed
before, and they will change again. Maybe we should be introducing
programmed elements of worship now and then. Maybe we need to find a
way to prepare matters better before our business meetings. Maybe we
need to radically change our attitude to theological diversity. Maybe
we need to rethink our attitude to proselytisation. Maybe we need to
figure out why we have so few people among our Meetings between the
ages of 18 and 45 – and decide whether we're going to do something
about that, or that it doesn't matter.
I don't know whether we should be doing anything
along any of those lines. I have opinions about some of them, but
opinions are just opinions; what we do, corporately, has to be
determined by us all, corporately, with due deliberation and
prayerful discernment. But if we assume that we already have the
answers, we will, I am sure, be doomed to decay, leaving only a
fossilised remnant of a great and powerful faith tradition.
