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| Sceptical Cat isn't sure you read the sense of the meeting aright. |
This is an interesting
question to look at, because both the theory and the practice vary
between communities of Friends, and have varied over time, somewhat
separately from one another. I shan’t attempt to summarise
everything done everywhere, nor identify when or where a practice was
or is common, but I will try and give an overview of different
approaches – and my opinion of them. First, however, we must
consider the different sorts of disagreement.
First, there is the
most straightforward – there is a factual error in the proposed
minute, or it doesn’t cover everything it needs to. This is most
common for the more transactional, procedural minutes – those
approving expenses or naming signatories for bank accounts, or
appointing people to roles. I’m not going to spend much time on
this one; quite simply, what to do in that case is nothing more or
less than to tell the clerk. If it is the practice in your Meeting to
stand to minister, you should probably stand, and respectfully
correct the error or point out the inadequacy. Such corrections are
not disagreements with the substance of the minute. If they
are very minor, however, you might simply make a note of them and
tell the clerk afterwards, so that it can be fixed as a matter of
‘dots and commas’.
The remaining two sorts
of disagreement are more difficult. They both require careful
consideration and weighing up if you are to act on them, for they
concern matters of substance and discernment. They are both cases of
disagreeing with the substance of the minute, but they are distinct
and you should be clear in yourself which of them you feel. It is,
however, straightforward in concept (although subtle in practice) –
either you disagree with the clerk’s reading of the sense of the
meeting, or you disagree that the sense of the meeting is ‘right’.
The latter sort falls into two camps itself, also of critical
importance: do you feel that the meeting has not correctly discerned
the guidance of the Divine (or, in more traditional language, the
will of God), or do you feel that the discernment was correct for the
meeting, but that your own personal leading differs and you cannot in
good conscience go along with the minute?
We thus have four sorts
of disagreement: the mechanical, uncontroversial, sort of
‘disagreement’; disagreeing with the clerk’s reading of the
sense of the meeting; disagreeing with the assumption that the sense
of the meeting reflects genuine leadings; and feeling that your own
leadings are incompatible with the sense of the meeting. In
discussing this post, my wife reminded me of a fifth sort, one we
have both experienced, that is a little bit from column ‘A’ and a
little bit from column ‘C’ – that the sense of the meeting may
well be clear and may or may not reflect genuine leadings, but it is
incompatible with law, governing document(s) or established
organisational policy. That one is quite specific and distinct, and
requires very careful handling – a matter I will return to after
considering the other categories.
You may feel reluctant
to voice concerns or seem to challenge the clerk. It is important
that we trust those we ask to serve our Meetings, including our
clerks, but it is also important to realise that we are all fallible.
Clerks can and do make mistakes, and while we shouldn’t be
back-seat drivers to the clerking table, we do need to do more than
nod through their offerings. Don’t nitpick grammar – even if you
subscribe to Victorian ‘Latin’ grammar for English, minutes don’t
need to conform to it – or stick your oar in on every minute, but
do reasonably reflect the fact that we all have responsibility for
clerking, just as we all have responsibility for eldership (ensuring
the right ordering of our meetings) and oversight (pastoral care).
Now, there are several
approaches to the various sorts of disagreement-in-substance that I
have either witnessed or seen advocated, heard of being used, and so
on. Some have proud Quaker traditions, even if they may no longer be
part of the discipline of Britain Yearly Meeting. The best known
example is the practice of ‘standing aside’ from a decision.
Where this is accepted practice, it is generally as simple as
standing when the minute is offered and stating that you wish to
stand aside from the decision; the clerk should record this with the
minute. It may give a clerk pause, but that is not the conceptual
purpose of the action; it is rather a formal and spiritual way of
distancing yourself from the decision. However, understandings and
interpretations, and indeed the practical impact of this step will
likely be understood differently in the different Meetings that still
practice it.
Another well-attested
tradition is simply declining to say “hope so”, or whatever the
equivalent in your Meeting might be (“hope so” being the British
practice at least, one that I have explored in some detail in another
post). We might call this ‘standing mute’, for ease of
reference. I have been in many meetings where a minute was met with
silence, or such sparse approval that it might as well have been. The
right step for a clerk at that point is certainly not to carry on and
record the minute, as it has not been deemed acceptable – though
precisely what the clerk should do will depend on the context. Of
course, I’m told there are Meetings where the practice is to ask
for objections, rather than to ask if the minute is acceptable; that
removes this possibility, and thus a certain degree of subtlety and
degrees of operation. However, while voiced objections are relatively
rare in Meetings that seek approval, one must assume they are more
usual in Meetings that ask for such objections.
Some Meetings – or
individuals, regardless of the practice of their Meeting – are in
the habit of voicing a general objection by saying “hope not” in
place of “hope so”. While one can certainly see the logic of
this, I do not recommend it. Firstly, if people are saying “hope
so”, it is hard to tell if any are saying “hope not” as well.
Second, it runs the risk of looking like a vote, with the ayes and
the nays standing opposed to one another. It also runs against the
philosophy behind the “hope so” formulation, because hoping
that the minute is acceptable is not a matter of approving of it as a
decision; it is a matter of agreeing that it reflects the discernment
of the group, and the hope that this discernment has accurately
captured the guidance of the Divine. If you have a concern about the
minute as offered, it is more helpful to be specific, but if you do
not feel able, or it does not seem appropriate to offer a specific
criticism, then it is better to stand mute than to give a confusing
and theoretically unsound non-specific verbal disagreement.
Now, if you are one of
only a very few standing mute, it will have little to no impact. Some
Meetings with which I have engaged in discernment only ever have a
minority verbally offering their hopes, so standing mute is unlikely
to have much impact. It may thus be appropriate to minister to a
minute even after it appears to have been found acceptable; indeed,
this may be the only option where the clerk is not in the habit of
leaving space for ministry after offering the minute and before
asking if it is acceptable. However, when ministering to a minute it
is important to remember that the time for ministry regarding the
matter itself is past; ministry must be to the minute, to how it
reflects the discernment of the meeting or whether it does what it
needs to do, not attempting to revisit the discernment itself. This
can take several approaches, for instance:
- You might argue that it has not fully reflected the sense of the meeting. There may have been some sense that you consider was clear from ministry, and that the clerk has neglected.
- Alternatively, you might argue that the minute doesn’t represent the right degree of certainty – that it is too certain, or too uncertain. You might feel that the sense of the meeting was very tentative and the minute states it with great confidence, or that it was decisive and the minute presents it very tentatively.
- The minute may also incorporate factors that don’t appear to have been in the matter as presented to the meeting, nor reflected in the ministry. You might say that it includes matters out of scope of the meeting’s deliberations, or that it overreaches beyond what the meeting considered.
- Perhaps the most simple case, you may feel the need to point out that some detail is wrong, or that something that needs saying – and can be said based on the meeting’s discernment – hasn’t been said, as in the case of administrative details.
If this does not have
the desired effect, and you cannot accept the reasons for things not
being changed, you still have the option of standing aside if that is
your Meeting’s practice. There are two further options, however,
that apply everywhere. One is to make a statement, to practically
stand aside even if you cannot do so formally, by physically leaving
the meeting. This should not be done lightly, any more than should
standing aside. It is a forceful statement that may be misread by
other Friends, but it may be the only way to express your conscience
on a matter. Another, which may follow this step or occur without it,
is potentially appropriate in cases where the decision has long-term
consequences, or is a particularly pronounced challenge to your
conscience – you may resign your membership of the Meeting, or
request release from a role or committee that relates to the
decision, or in which the decision was made. I am told there were
several cases of this following the decision of Britain Yearly
Meeting in 2009 to recognise same-sex marriage, and to seek to record
them in the same manner as opposite-sex marriages. It is a marked
action to indicate your inability to continue in membership, or in a
role, in good conscience following a decision.
Where such a
resignation or distancing is on an important matter of practice, or
of doctrine for those Meetings that have any sort of agreement on
doctrine, and where those who wish to separate in relation to it are
sufficiently numerous, it may lead to a schism. A worshipping group
of whatever sort may split in two due to a difference in how to
arrange matters around Meeting for Worship, or around what is
acceptable in Meeting for Worship, or even around current social
issues. This can extend to a Yearly Meeting, as has been seen in some
North American Meetings in recent times. It should not be taken
lightly, and yet sometimes it will be the most appropriate result. I
only offer my hope that, where it happens, it is done in love and in
a responsible way, with neither side seeking ‘victory’ over the
other. It might be seen as much like a divorce, which is always a sad
outcome but sometimes the right one, and how hurtful and damaging it
ends up being depends in part on how adversarial the parties make it.
So we have heard
several categories of disagreement with a minute, and several steps
that might be taken to address them. How do these relate to one
another? There’s no step-by-step guide that can reasonably be
written, but there are some possible rules of thumb. For instance,
correcting factual errors or pointing out that the minute needs to
actually say someone is appointed or that expenses can be paid are
generally best addressed through ministry to the minute, and will
rarely be rejected. Pointing out a legal problem is a little more
thorny, as you may feel it necessary to disassociate yourself from a
decision that will run into legal problems unless you agree that this
is a case where it is appropriate to challenge the law, and are
prepared to face the consequences. Indeed, in such circumstances it
may be necessary, even where you do not have a practice of standing
aside – and recording where a Friend has stood aside – that some
Friends may need to be specifically recorded as not present or not
involved in a decision, in order to protect professional standing for
instance. Where you are challenging the reading of the sense of the
meeting, it is appropriate to start gently, but it is more likely to
lead to a point where more significant steps should be taken. I would
generally say that it’s appropriate to start by standing mute, and
see if the meeting as a whole has the same discomfort, and then
minister to the minute. Skipping straight to the more severe actions
of standing aside or disassociating yourself from the Meeting or
committee is really limited to the cases where you agree that the
minute reflects the sense of the meeting, but either disagree that
the sense of the meeting reflects true leadings, or feel that the
sense is incompatible with your own personal leadings, that you
cannot stand by it in good conscience.
I
hope it is clear from this that there are many options in such a
situation, but also that it is not always clear what option is
appropriate in a given situation. Indeed, much as I would love there
to be a clear guide to how to act, such a guide clearly cannot be
written as we stand now. One cannot always tell what will be seen as
acceptable, or even understood by any given Quaker community. All of
this illustrates a vitally important point. We Quakers tend to
describe our processes and practices entirely on the basis of
everything going ‘right’. But things don’t always go right.
Things end up messy and confused, and we need to be honest about
that. Not only do we need to better communicate our practices to
newcomers and enquirers, we need to communicate – and agree on –
what we do when things don’t go perfectly. If there were a
standard, agreed process to use in these situations, there wouldn’t
be the variation in practice or advice that is reflected in this
post. Yet I know from my own experience that there are Friends out
there who believe that they know the ‘correct’ way to handle such
a situation, and their confidence is in no way diminished by the fact
that others have the same confidence in a different opinion.
Perhaps
the time is coming for us, at least in our various Yearly Meetings,
to sit down and actually better document – and agree – all the
details of our business practice, to actually set down explicitly
what the expectations are when we talk about Quaker Business Method.
This cannot be a simple set of instructions and rules, for there is a
degree of variation and flexibility that is appropriate, even
essential. However, if we can clarify the range of expectations and
the parameters of the variability, then we can engage in the practice
with more confidence and less stress for clerks and elders when
things don’t go entirely to plan. In Britain Yearly Meeting, we
have a fantastic opportunity for these conversations, in the context
of the wider conversations about revising our Book of Discipline. The
list of things to talk about in that process is long, but there’s
no rush. Let’s be bold and put it all on the table, including how
explicit we are about expectations around our Meetings for Church
Affairs.
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