‘Birthright’ Quakers

For quite some time, Quakers have found it worthwhile – or at least traditional – to have an idea of who is formally part of our Religious Society. Quite naturally, we refer to people who have such formal status members; in Britain, we refer to those who have some degree of relationship with a Meeting but are not in membership as attenders. Membership has formally existed for some time, and while there are naturally voices who wish to see it abolished – and even more who wish to see it reformed – it has persisted. In Britain Yearly Meeting, we (supposedly) require that people in certain roles be members, though the only role that this seems to be universally applied to is that of trustee, a restriction that has sound legal basis. Quaker faith & practice recommends that clerks of meetings, elders, overseers, treasurers, registering officers and members of nominations committees should be in membership (Qf&p 3.24).

Nowadays, people principally come into membership in Britain Yearly Meeting by applying for it, and going through some sort of process. This usually involves a visit from seasoned members who talk about the application with the applicant, and produce a report, which is generally a sort of spiritual biography, though it can take many forms, and largely serves to help the Area Meeting as a whole to better know the new member. There are also provisions for a child to be brought into membership on the application of a parent or guardian, and I consider both the adult and child processes below.

There are a lot of different understandings of membership, some of which I have explored critically (including the problems I see with the current position on membership in Britain Yearly Meeting), as well as offering one possible new (or maybe not new, but not widely expressed) understanding of membership. The most basic element of it, however, that we cannot escape is a legal relationship between the individual and the Meeting, that they are ‘part of’ the Meeting in a legal sense. It’s rarely legally relevant, but as (in UK law) either an unincorporated association or a company limited by guarantee, a Meeting must be able to say whether a person is a member or not. Even if Meetings take up the newer model of a Charitable Incorporated Organisations (which has some advantages, but can be difficult for an existing organisation to move into), there is still a legal expectation of there being members.

(Of course, a company limited by guarantee may have a membership that is much more narrow than the conceptual broad membership of the organisation.)

I do not know whether there is such an expectation in other countries, for the sorts of legal entities that might be used by Quaker Meetings, though I suspect it’s not entirely unique to the United Kingdom. In any case, that pure legal necessity is only one factor as to why it is necessary – depending on your opinion on various factors. For example, there are trusts that exist to alleviate financial hardship among Friends; you might disagree with that being the objective of a trust, but they exist. They must be able to say who is a Friend for their purposes, and being in membership is a good first step (though I would suggest it only be used to determine who is a Friend, not who isn’t). A Meeting must exercise some control over who marries under the care of the Meeting, and they might take membership as presumptive evidence that the person is in accord with our understanding of marriage (as if we only have one between us, but that’s a whole other subject).

Membership is necessary, or at least very convenient. We might make it hard to obtain, or something anyone can have for the asking (and filling in a form). Often it seems to be somewhere in between, though slightly nearer the for-the-asking end of the spectrum. There is a process to go through, but the process is about the process, not (on the surface) about testing a person in any way. In my own membership process, and all those I have witnessed from the other end, there was no question of establishing for the benefit of the Area Meeting that it is appropriate for the person to enter into membership. Instead, the effect of the process for the Area Meeting is for more people across the area to have some knowledge of the person. This is mostly knowledge that might be common within the person’s own worshipping group, or at least those who have taken the time to get to know them better, but will be largely unknown to those in other Local Meetings within the area. The effect of the process for the person seeking membership is different;if there is any element of testing, it seems that it is usually in the applicant themselves. While the Meeting might not be asking whether that person should be a member, they may be, in effect, asked to test that themselves. I am told – by those with rather more experience – that the report on the membership visit will generally commend the person to the Meeting, at least implicitly, or it will be withdrawing the application. If it is not right that the person become a member at that time, the expectation seems to be that they will realise it and withdraw their request.

There is no expectation of judgement in the report on the visit – indeed, the visitors agree the report’s text with the applicant. Now, there could be. We could do things differently. After all, the idea of the membership process is, in my mind, establishing that a person is convinced. People who obtain membership in this way are members by convincement, though we don’t use the term much any more because there is no other sort of member to contrast it with (well, perhaps there might be, but we’ll get to that shortly). Not that long ago, however, one could be a member by convincement, or by right of birth; such a person was a birthright member of the Meeting, generally by virtue of one or both parents (requirements varied) being in membership at the time of their birth. Such a child was presumed to be raised among Friends, and there was not generally a process of asking them to affirm that identity and belonging. This can cause issues where it becomes relevant in law whether or not someone is a member. If membership leads to any obligations, either because of public law or because of the organisation’s own rules, there are moral and legal questions as to whether you can hold someone to an obligation that they didn’t take upon themselves freely. On the other hand, where any activity of the Meeting is restricted to members, where help in times of distress is limited to members, being inclusive may be preferable.

Nowadays, most British Meetings have an idea like “children associated with the Meeting”, who are treated similarly to members in some ways, but largely like attenders who are recorded on the Meeting's list. This would apply whether their parents were members, attenders, or not actually necessarily particularly associated with the Meeting themselves. These are the children that we consider that we, as a Meeting, have some responsibility towards, to foster their spiritual development and have some regard to their lives in a more ‘pastoral care’ sense. We try to involve them in the life our the Meeting and generally support them and their parents in a range of ways. If they are recorded on any sort of list, this is with the consent of their parents (at least if the child is young enough, not sufficiently mature, that they can’t take that decision themselves). If parents or guardians want a more formal connection, they can apply for membership on their child’s behalf. The process of this is expected to be similar to that for adults, though obviously taking into account the child’s own level of development; if a request is made on behalf of a baby, it can be allowed without any real involvement on the part of the child. Of course, this still raises the problems of any responsibility or obligation that may be expected of such a child, but at least their parent has actively agreed to it, so the expectation can reasonably be applied to them. It is also encouraged to give the child some opportunity to affirm or resign that membership when they are mature enough to do so, so that adult members will be only those who have made a decision to be members.

So far, so bureaucratic and administrative. Legalistic, even. You might be thinking, shouldn’t membership be a spiritual thing? A celebration of a person’s discovery and spiritual journey? Perhaps. That also has relevance to the question of birthright membership, and I’ll come back to that shortly. It is also an inherently bureaucratic thing, and indeed it is commonly said that membership developed because Friends had to prioritise helping one another, especially when it came to keeping track of persecution by the state (I do not know what evidence this claim is based on, though it is often repeated, so I present it as something that is often said).

Now, while birthright membership might have gone (though recently enough, I believe, that there are still birthright members in Britain Yearly Meeting), some of the attitudes that it reflected or fostered are still very much alive. Among Young Friends General Meeting, in my time with Friends there, there was a general sense of the difference between those who had come to Quakers themselves (usually in adolescence or soon after) and those who had been raised among Friends. While they might not have birthright membership, they were seen as having birthright Quaker-ness. It was, I perceived, generally assumed that they would have a better idea of right ordering, even if they had never been to a Meeting for Worship for Business before they came to YFGM. They would know more history, know more of the ‘why’ rather than the ‘what’. That there was somehow more authority to their views on a range of matters, particularly as they pertained to what ‘Quakers in general’ did, or thought. They would rarely claim this for themselves, of course, though for some (not most) it was apparent in their behaviour. Similarly, this assumption was not universal among those who were not raised among Friends. There was, however, enough of a current of it that I perceived it quite clearly. It was counterbalanced by the sense of weight given to one who had served the Meeting a relatively long time, and was perceived as doing so well and faithfully – and I do not think that those raised among Friends were overrepresented in this group, nor that they were particularly accorded additional weight for being in both groups. But a newcomer who was raised among Friends, especially if they were known to be related to someone that others were aware of through Quaker connections, would often be regarded as more able to reflect Quakerism in general than a newcomer with limited experience or connection among the Quaker world. In that sense, we might say that the idea of a ‘birthright’ in Quakerism, or at least an ‘upbringingright’, is still alive and well, and I have seen this attitude among adult Friends as well. Indeed, several Friends have expressed surprise that I was only convinced – indeed, only had any meaningful contact with Quakers – in my twenties.

Perhaps this is natural, and perhaps it is to some extent fair. However, the general course through Quaker life of a young person doesn’t necessarily mean they have much experience of Quaker discernment. Not all Quaker young people participate in even partly self-run groups before they are of an age to attend YFGM. Some will have gone to Children’s Meeting (I believe that our American Friends usually call it ‘First Day School’, though the range of activities is quite similar), drifted away from active involvement in their teens, and then decided to get involved in their early twenties. Some will have started attending normal Meeting for Worship as soon as they aged out of Children’s Meeting, participated in Local and Area Meetings for Worship for Business, participated in Summer School, Senior Conference, Teenage General Meeting, and/or Junior Yearly Meeting. Of those who maintained that level of involvement, for some it will have been for largely social reasons, keeping in contact and spending time with friends. For some it will have been about a deep and deliberate spiritual experience. For some it will have been family pressure. For many, it will be some combination of some or all of those factors.

All this is to say that a person who is raised among Friends is likely to be familiar with, for example, Quakerly language – but perhaps not to the extent of being able to explain it. They will, perhaps, know how to conduct themselves in a Meeting for Worship for Business – but perhaps not to the extent of being able to tell anyone why. They may know the complex structure and relationships between Friends House staff, central committees, the work of Area and Local Meetings – but perhaps not what any of it means in practice. They might be able to name some of the most well-known Quakers of history, and the key events that brought them fame, but not necessarily how those events relate to their Quaker beliefs. They may well know in some detail, through their family, the work that has gone on in relation to some particular concern, either in their own area or nationally, or internationally, but may not know how the work came to be started, or how it is supported, or how it is connected to central work.

I remember once being told by an older Friend online, bemoaning the state of the Religious Society of Friends as they saw it, that things were different when they were younger. That, and I paraphrase from memory here, once upon a time, convinced Friends would gather at the feet of birthright Friends to learn from them. Now, perhaps this attitude was unusual, or restricted to some parts of the world (they weren’t, as best I recall, in or from Britain). In any case, I found it disturbing then, and I still find it disturbing now. Because what I came to learn from YFGM and from discussions with my wife – who was raised among Friends, and from a family who are well known in some Quaker circles – was that ‘birthright’ Friends didn’t necessarily know more than convinced Friends. Indeed, what they did know from their childhood was sometimes so deeply ingrained or learned early that they struggle to explain or really understand it. Like one accustomed to the taste of umeboshi, they could not entirely comprehend why it would be so strange to others. In effect, they often made some of the worst teachers of those who wished to understand, because they had learned at a level, and at a time in their life, for which conscious understanding is not essential.

Perhaps you think that the failure here is in the way we raise our children and young people, that we do not ensure that they truly understand things. But it is difficult to have that sense of understanding of something that you learned and accepted early in life, just as it is difficult to notice a child growing when you see them every day. It has to be done when they have reached the capability of understanding it, yet when they are curious enough to want to learn that deeper understanding. For many, that will never come.

Fundamentally, the Quaker way is, for me, about coming into contact with the Light, being taught by it directly. We have our community to check our leadings, to test our personal discernment, and that is essential, but it is not fundamental. It is the personal experience that is fundamental. Sitting at the feet of those who happen to have been Quakers their whole life is not a way to learn that experience. We must all experience it for ourselves, not be told what it means – and perhaps those who are raised among Friends are less likely to have a clear sense of what that experience is like, as they have experienced it from such a young age.

Those raised among Friends certainly have something different to bring, but it seems to me antithetical to Quaker principles to ascribe to them any particular authority in general. It is for all of us individually to make our discoveries, in collaboration with one another. It is also, to me, fundamental that being a Quaker should be a matter of individual and deliberate action – though choice would not be an adequate word, as it is not a matter of choice. Perhaps it is one of recognition, and as I have written before, it is not always easy for those who have experience the Quaker way as long as they can remember to actually recognise that which is to be recognised. For both those reasons, it is right that birthright membership is no longer part of our practices and processes – and it will be right when we manage to remove any sense of birthright authority as well.

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