Quakers and Social Media

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Love it or hate it, social media is now part of our world. It's not a purely western phenomenon, nor something restricted to “developed” economies. Not only is it prevalent in the so-called BRICS economies, or even the so-called “Next Eleven”, but it is increasingly a meaningful part of life in pretty much every country where it is available – and it’s available in more than you might think. We might look at how much our computers cost, in the Global Economic North, and the price of iPhones and their most direct competitors, and boggle at the idea that people in poorer countries have access, but remember that far more inexpensive phones exist. Companies want to make money from every population they can, and if that means finding a way to make it affordable to additional populations, that is what will happen. Also, it is worth remembering that every country, no matter how much poorer it may seem, has a wealthy elite. In fact, the biggest barrier to social media adoption in some parts of the world is not wealth, but literacy.

Recognising and Supporting Ministry

We always say, and have said for some time (not without scriptural authority, though I sometimes think that one of the favourites is being twisted a little away from its intended meaning) that there are many gifts of the Spirit. These are abilities that we might put into use in the service of Truth, usually now meaning in service of our Meetings. However, liberal Meetings have largely grown away from recognising certain gifts. I speak, of course, of gifts of ministry.

It is necessary here to digress slightly into what we mean by “ministry”. It is a wonderful word, quite rich in its meaning before we Quakers came along and bent it into new shapes, albeit ones not inconsistent with the history or etymology of the time. It is derived from the Latin ministerium, meaning the office of a minister. Of course, what is meant by that term in Latin would not necessarily be terribly recognisable to modern English speakers. In countries where governmental terms derive from Britain (but a more recent divergence than that of the United States), a minister is a member of a government, generally one with considerable power – or at least who likes to think they have. Certainly they tend to have plenty of underlings. Of course, they are led by a prime minister, often conceived of as a first among equals but generally speaking the head of the executive element of government. In many faiths, we have ministers of religion, who tend to exercise authority over their flock in some way. A third major instance of the term, much less familiar to most people nowadays, is in the world of diplomacy. There, it is the usual short form for the title envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, and obsolete but still technically extant diplomatic rank used for the heads of missions that were rated as legations, a lower status than an embassy (which is naturally headed by an ambassador). There was also, going further back, a further rank of minister resident, for missions ranked below legations – often from or to states that existed de facto rather than de jure, or otherwise poor or unimportant polities. Since the growing value of the UN in the 60s, sovereign states now generally only create embassies as their diplomatic missions, unless there are not full diplomatic relations between them. In that case, a mission led by a chargé d'affaires en pied will be established, if anything. In that case, the head of mission is accredited between the foreign ministers involved, rather than between heads of state.