A Quaker Approach to Intolerance?
I didn’t intend my first post to be full of acronyms or theology, or so long, in fact I didn’t know it was going to be about Quakerism at all – but I feel I have to write this.
There is presently a great deal of consternation about the approach to sexuality that different parts of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) are taking. I am not a ‘member’ of the Society, but I attend Quaker Meetings (including some Local and Area Business Meetings), I do part-time custodial work for my local Quaker meeting house, and I am very much interested in exploring the thought, practice, and the organisational structure of Quakerism.
On the whole, Quakers in Britain are the most supportive of LGBTQ rights of all religions and denominations (as far as I can tell) in this country (leaving aside the tricky question of whether or not atheism is a religion), and there seems to have been a conscious understanding for many decades of the importance of welcoming and cherishing gay members and attenders, as well as holding meetings for commitment for gay couples.
Two issues have recently opened up this debate once more. Both need a great deal of background explanation, so I will take them one at a time.
The first is an epistle sent by East Africa Yearly Meeting reproduced below. Unlike the rantings of archbishops, epistles are more than personal views, they agreed by and at the Yearly Meeting, essentially a consensus-based decision at in which all members of the society who are able to attend take part (rather like AGMs). Decisions of Yearly Meetings therefore need to be taken seriously.
Apart from statutory business of the Conference, time was allowed for presentations and discussions on some areas of importance to the church and our day to day lifestyle, including stress management, poverty eradication and the introduction of Gay Culture among others.
The latter ‘Gay’ was condemned wholesomely since it does not come to us as an error made by God. God created man and out of him. He made a woman for man and it was good and without error.
Gay is contrary to the scriptures and nature. Even the tiniest crawling creatures observe strictly God’s command and formation of nature Mark 10:7-9.
This Yearly Meeting shall not team up with any group that proclaims this immoral conduct.
- excerpt from 2006 Epistle from East Africa Yearly Meeting (Text from BYM Blog)
Correction: Jez points out in a comment below that the above date is the 2006 epistle (I had it as 2007, mistakenly), and he reproduces the full text of the 2007 epistle here. I haven’t altered the rest of my post. The following passage from that epistle makes things a lot clearer:
This yearly Meeting got absolutely disgusted with some FUM member yearly Meetings; (Canada, Baltimore, New England, North Pacific and New York) if not some monthly Meetings within the yearly Meetings, that write to us pages and pages of Epistles containing no spiritual information to pass on to our members BUT ONLY their immoral sexual mannerisms of Gay and Lesbianism.
Furthermore, Marshal points out the meeting I am referring to should be clarified as East Africa Yearly Meeting (North), and not East Africa Yearly Meeting (Kaimosi), another of the fourteen or so YMs in Kenya.
Naturally, this caused some consternation over here. Although most Quakers here were aware of the divisions in the Anglican Church in this matter, and although most were aware that Quaker organisations outside of Britain are often a lot more like mainstream Christian churches both in terms of doctrine and practice, I think it felt like that this was a very hurtful and unprovoked attack. Britain Yearly Meeting of 2008 ultimately decided to publish the minute in print, but not to do the same on its website (along with no less than six others from meetings across Africa and the US which were not “felt to be uplifting in their spiritual content”). This has not pleased everyone.
Having delved into this online, it seems that there is some more necessary contextual information, and that the epistle discusses a specific “teaming up”. I have no idea if this was on the minds of BYM 2008 when it met, but it seems relevant that the ‘parent organisation’ to which East Africa Yearly Meeting is affiliated, the Friends United Meeting (FUM, a sort of Quaker International for conservative meetings) has among it meetings which are also affiliated to Friends General Conference (FGC), the ‘liberal’ Quaker International. There is, incidentally, a further International known as “Evangelical Friends International” (EFI), which does what it says on the tin. Britain Yearly Meeting is not linked to any of these, though it seems to me it has by far the most in common with FGC.
Anna from a FGC/FUM meeting in New York has some insights very much worth reading here and here, and it is partly my inferences from her accounts that I base my understanding of the situation.
I think so far, my post has been entirely descriptive, albeit written from my personal point of view. So now, to the arguments.
One of the main pillars of Quaker Practice is the Testimony of Simplicity. To me, that is echoed not only in eschewing ornate decoration, commodity fetishisation, and artifical rhetoric and pomposity, but also in stripping our practices down to the most essentially functional elements. Quaker meetings (admittedly only those that are ‘unprogrammed’ – i.e. 11%: most of those in BYM and FGC, but not most of those in FUM and EFI) have no rituals, just a silence which is a space that is shaped by our thoughts and our manner of ministry. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing attentively, honestly, and in a constructive spirit. So too with epistles: each Yearly Meeting sends an epistle each year to its members and all other Yearly Meetings. I don’t really know what their function is supposed to be, and those I have read don’t seem to give much clue, but I would hope it is more significant than exchanging polite pleasantries. It is apparently not normal practice to reply to an epistle – but if we do not respond in some manner, either in identifiable, concrete action or at least in our next epistle, do we not assent by our silence?
This brings us on to the question of whether we have the right to do something. If we are dealing with a conflict internal to FUM, it might be argued that we in BYM should stay well clear. Similarly, if an epistle is a true assessment of the feelings of a particular meeting, it is difficult to simply say “you’re wrong”. It is also easy to slip into a western-centric habit of lecturing former colonies how to behave. Indeed, I have seen it remarked in The Friend (a Quaker periodical) that it would be dangerous to allow gay rights to become synonymous with imperialism.
On the other hand, we must examine what our commitment to equality actually means. We have a relationship not only with the very varied institutions that come under the wide umbrella of the Quaker movement, but also with Quakers as individuals, including those in a location with no Yearly Meeting, and including those whose own Yearly Meeting disowns or disapproves of. Our commitment to peace, equality, and social witness applies equally to Quakers and non-Quakers, in this country and abroad.
Furthermore, epistles are the only mechanism by which Quakers across different Yearly Meetings can communicate and share messages we feel other meetings should hear. East Africa Yearly Meeting is aware of this, and used their epistle to express its disdain for fellow human beings. If the passage came from a government document, we would be challenging it – why do we not speak out against homophobia when it comes from an organisation which calls itself Quaker? For me, this really calls into question the effectiveness of Quaker organisation if it is culturally unable to challenge oppressive behaviour in its own ranks.
Ultimately, our response must be based on what we can do for LGBTQ people in East Africa – is there anything we can do? We can not force East Africa Yearly Meeting to take a different ‘line’, even if that were desirable. But I am uncomfortable with going so far the other way that East Africa Yearly Meeting does not realise how strongly BYM differs. While we should not try to isolate EAYM, they have declared a wish to separate from more progressive meetings, and not talking about the issue and hoping that the many Meetings for Commitment for gay couples held in Britain will be ignored or overlooked in EAYM’s campaign against ‘Gay’ seems a little dishonest; we have to approach EAYM openly and give them the opportunity to judge for themselves what truth lies in our feelings – to do any other seems patronising. While I understand there is also some slow work that is going on through on-the-ground engagement (I’m not very clued in on that subject, I’m afraid), I fear that if the climate changes – for example if those more determined in their campaign take heart from the lack of support for “Gay Culture among others”, this engagement may become much more difficult to maintain. And other than ‘continue what we were doing already’, it’s difficult to see what can be done on that front.
More puzzling than the decision not to respond was the decision to authorise the publication of certain epistles in hard copy “so we can face our differences in truth and love”, but not online (which would have allowed those of us who can’t afford to buy a book of epistles can join in with facing those differences). I am intrigued by what was in the excluded epistles, and why no less than six meetings decided to send us something so spiritually depressing that BYM could not bear to put them online. Did BYM hear each one before deciding which should be included? If only BYM had had the conviction to publish them and add a note to the end of the offending epistles to clarify that the issues have raised eyebrows instead. I get the feeling that the decision not to publish the rest online was borne more out of insecurity about the issue than out of confidence in the application of the Testimony of Equality to LGBTQ concerns. Perhaps it is unquakerly to raise such suspicions, but difficult decisions about tackling prejudice need to be done as openly as possible to exclude resentment of those making the decision and to help the Quaker community as a whole understand and appreciate the decision and the motivations behind it. Minute 35 of BYM 2008 simply doesn’t do it for me:
Minute 35: Publishing Epistles
We have heard an explanation from Yearly Meeting Agenda Committee of their decision not to publish all epistles received from other Yearly Meetings this year. We thank Agenda Committee for wrestling with this issue on our behalf, and recognise their care for gay and lesbian Friends who share an equal place in our Yearly Meeting. We agree that all epistles received should be printed and made available to Friends in Britain Yearly Meeting (with a clear statement that these are the work of the sending Yearly Meeting) so we can face our differences in truth and love. However we think that epistles from other Yearly Meetings need not be published on the Britain Yearly Meeting website. Quaker World Relations Committee are engaged in dialogue with East Africa (North) Yearly Meeting and other yearly meetings in Kenya, and we uphold them in their work. We recognise that this dialogue will be made more difficult by the complexity of the relationship between yearly meetings in East Africa, and the political divisions in Kenya which Friends are active in trying to resolve.
- BYM 2008
As to the actual decision, I do not see what partial or complete censorship could do to help. It does not protect the LGBTQ community, because while it is known that these feelings exist, they cannot be specified, allowing for scaremongering and speculation – that’s at least as hurtful. Moreover, there’s the old problem that censorship by a clique is desperately liable to corruption, while censorship by a decision in which the entire membership participates means locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. While I have some sympathy for certain manifestations of the “No Platform” concept – where an organisation has a policy that it does not waste resources publishing views which contradict its aims and organising events jointly with groups it considers dangerous (e.g. campaigning organisations refusing to hold joint meetings with far-right groups), paper publication and online omission is the least sensible way of applying this. Finally, we must ask why it is appropriate or even remotely consistent to refuse to publish online an open letter by a sibling organisation because of its content while at the same time refusing to contradict the content openly or even express its support for LGBTQ rights and LGBTQ individuals in East Africa.
Assuming the meeting was properly conducted, and the sense of the meeting was fairly recorded, I am left with the feeling that Quakers in Britain need to address our own culture with regards to how seriously we take homophobia within our own society and within the Religious Society of Friends itself.
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My post on the 2007 Yearly Meeting blog referred to the 2006 East Africa Yearly Meeting (North) epistle which was in the Britain Yearly Meeting 2007 epistles and testimonies book. The 2007 epistle by East Africa Yearly Meeting (North) is here:
http://quakerstreet.blogspot.com/2008/06/east-africa-yearly-meeting-north-2007.html
best wishes,
jez s
Ah, that makes things clearer. I’ve added a correction. Thankyou, and apologies for the mistake.
Daniel
FUM is very controversial at the moment here in the US, but you mistakenly referred to it as an international for “Conservative Meetings.” The Three Yearly Meetings of Conservative Friends (a branch of Quakerism in the US) are not members of FUM.
Further, many Yearly and Monthly Meetings which are members of FUM are troubled by the Kenyan epistle and by the controversies within FUM as an organization–and are not “conservative” in politics or spirituality.
One thing we can do for LGBTQ Friends in East Africa is to continue to voice in the manner of Friends our traditional view that all (that means ALL) have the Inner Light.
Attitudes towards sexuality can be historically and culturally based, and as such, it is hard to demand that people put them down immediately without compassionate and persuasive work by those who seek change.
We must hold our East African Friends in the Light more now than ever, I believe, and resist the temptation to become adversaries as we seek to model inclusiveness and spread the idea of inclusiveness to our Quaker brothers and sisters worldwide.
This is not the easy or quick path, but it is the one where our lives may speak louder than on another, more angry route.
cath
Thanks, Cath – could you suggest a better way of characterising FUM? I’d like to find a way of describing it, but I suspect I have yet to correctly identify the differences between FUM and EFI.
“One thing we can do for LGBTQ Friends in East Africa is to continue to voice in the manner of Friends our traditional view that all (that means ALL) have the Inner Light”
Definitely: I don’t mean to say otherwise. I am frustrated that BYM decided not to print the EAYM (and other) epistles because I feel it undermines this process, and I am frustrated that BYM did not have the courage to state that the path we have taken comes from our own leadings – respecting EAYM means not only looking for true concerns in their, but also trusting them to do the same for us, something they can’t do if we’re going to sweep controversial issues under the carpet.
There is a great deal of listening that needs to take place, looking for truth in each and every one, asking and helping each other to do the same.
Daniel
This is a very nicely stated piece. Since I live in the US and have no knowledge of how British Friends work I found this very interesting. I like what you said in your reply to Cath too, about leadings and claiming our religious grounding especially with issues like this. I am also very flattered that you referred to my writings. There is a fine line that needs to be walked here between holding firm in our own beliefs and not letting them blind us to the Spirit of Christ in each other.
Peace and Joy,
Anna.
Dear Daniel,
I’m grateful to Cath for pointing out the difference between FUM and Conservative Friends; had she not done so, I’d have done it myself!
I think it is equally important not to confuse the different Friends bodies in Africa. You’ve been referring to the source of the letters you’ve quoted as East Africa Yearly Meeting, but it is not. It is East Africa Yearly Meeting (North), which is different from East Africa Yearly Meeting (Kaimosi). I’d hate to see Friends in the latter yearly meeting distressed by a confusion with the former one.
You ask for a better way to characterize FUM. We Conservative Friends refer to them as “pastoral Friends”, which seems to be a label that they themselves are comfortable with. They do have pastors, as well as hymns, offering plates, programmatic meetings for worship, and places of worship that they call “churches”. None of those things can be rightly described as “conservative” in the Quaker context, since they all represent innovations replacing the original Quaker ways of doing things.
EFI is pastoral, too, but they prefer the label “evangelical”. My personal impression of the difference between FUM Quakerism here in North America, and EFI Quakerism here, is that FUM Quakerism seems very much like main-line Methodism except for a greater tendency to focus on what is felt and experienced instead of on what is thought and believed. Like main-line Methodism, FUM Quakerism is very much a product of the Holiness branch of the Wesleyan movement. EFI Quakerism is more like US evangelical Protestantism generally: socially and politically further to the right, except along the northern Pacific coast; less influenced by John Wesley and the Holiness movement, and more in line with Jean Calvin and the so-called “fundamentals” of the Protestant right.
There is a body of Friends in England that aligns itself with the extreme conservative end of our North American Conservative Friends community, by the way. You can see their web site here. They’re very different from Britain Yearly Meeting, which (from a Conservative Quaker perspective) would be better described as “liberal Quakerism”.
All the best,
Marshall Massey (Iowa Yearly Meeting [Conservative])
Marshall did a pretty good job of explaining the characteristics of Quaker Meetings in FUM, but I would also note that there are FUM Meetings who have semi-programmed Meetings for Worship (1/2 silence, 1/2 with hymns and etc.).
And not all FUM Meetings call their Meetinghouses “churches.” I would also dispute Marshall’s description that FUM Meetings are like Methodist churches or Holiness churches. Yes, at one time in the past, the Quakers in the midwest of the US were affected by religious movements of the time (and place). But at this time, there is too much diversity to paint with as broad a brush as Marshall has done.
Unfortunately, because Quakerism branched out in more than one direction in the US, clear understandings of the characteristics of the different branches are hard to express.
I am an unprogrammed Friend who is currently attending a semi-programmed Meeting associated with FUM. I can say that there is quite a bit of diversity among the Meetings associated with FUM. The Meeting I attend would not have much in common with the Holiness movement, nor the Methodists.
I would say that FUM is somewhere between FGC (unprogrammed tradition) and EFI, but that’s a generalization, too.
I don’t have a clear understanding of the issue that BYM is facing about publishing the epistles. For the most part, I favor dialogue whenever I find that I am part of a group that is drifting into a stand off with another group, even when that other group has already stated that they are not open to more epistles that are contrary to their views.
There must be a way to keep the lines of communication open to avoid a break in association while at the same time investigating cultural influences and how culture may suggest ways to continue dialogue, possibly to persuade.
In the end, however–and it’s difficult for me to say regarding this issue–we must all be open to the idea that we are not the ones who judge how the Spirit is working in anyone else’s lives. It is entirely possible that there is a reason we are not aware of that East AFrica Yearly Meeting (North) is at this point in their understanding and that Light will lead them to where they need to be.
But that is not to say that we can’t have opinions about the matter.
cath
pardon the double comment….
…but I wanted to say that Marshall’s description of “felt and experienced” instead of “thought and believed” would characterize the Meeting I currently attend (FUM). I was surprised to find myself choosing an FUM Meeting when I moved to a new city, but I am not uncomfortable among the FUM Friends I know.
And I return to the FGC meeting in my former city as often as I can afford the gas (not often enough these days). :)
cath
I feel I need to add an additional piece of information about Friends United Meeting, even though it may complicate matters so much that it becomes difficult to speak intelligibly and accurately at the same time.
Marshall has characterized FUM meetings as pastoral meetings. It’s a good generalization, but there are exceptions. I belong to 15th Street Meeting in New York City, a very liberal unprogrammed meeting that is part of New York Yearly Meeting and thus of Friends United Meeting. So we are one Meeting that is a bona fide FUM meeting but is not pastoral. The fact is that there are Friends in my meeting who would probably feel more theologically at home in liberal meetings of Britain than in the Friends churches of either Kenya or Indiana, yet we are still FUM Friends. This is the case because Friends United Meeting is actually an association of Yearly Meetings, and there are some Yearly Meetings – like mine – which united their pastoral and non-pastoral brances back in the 1950’s and chose to join both Friends United Meeting and Friends General Conference.
My Meeting shares space in its building with Manhattan Monthly Meeting, a pastoral meeting which holds semi-programmed worship. Children from the two meetings attend the same First Day School and by and large even our adult members usually get along well together. Several 15th Street Friends, including me, make it a point to attend worship at Manhattan Meeting from time to time, and several Friends in Manhattan Meeting also attend worship at 15th Street from time to time. On one occasion we held a joing semi-programmed meeting for worship on Sundy Morning, though this received mixed reviews.
Perhaps there are Friends even here in New York who think Manhattan Meeting is in FUM and 15th Street Meeting is FGC but not vice versa. In fact, both meetings are members of both FUM and FGC.
The epistles quoted from East Africa Yearly Meeting (North) is troubling to me, but I think censoring it or attempting to exclude it from the web is absurd. It is a letter from one body of Friends to other Friends throughout the world. Turns out they don’t like some of us… or don’t like what they think they know about us. I wonder where their attitudes come from and what kinds of experiences have encouraged them.
I will not encourage anti-gay prejudice or hatred in anyone. At the same time, I will not assume that those who harbor these feelings are on balance any more sinful or evil than me. Kenya is wrestling with so many horrors right now that this moral crusade seems to me like a distraction. But I am not there and I do not imagine that I would accomplish much by preaching to them. Those who can go to Kenya, listen to people, and talk to people without preaching at them might have a bigger chance in the long run of teaching something and learning something.
- – Rich Accetta-Evans
“I will not encourage anti-gay prejudice or hatred in anyone. At the same time, I will not assume that those who harbor these feelings are on balance any more sinful or evil than me. Kenya is wrestling with so many horrors right now that this moral crusade seems to me like a distraction.”
That we are all at different points along our journeys is very important, as is the need to make the effort to see and respond to the Light in those whose attitudes and actions we find distressing. I also recognise that there are huge cultural differences, and that there’s a line between helping people to get past damaging systems of thought and action and being patronising.
The problem for me is that being queer in many parts of the world is not just something people disapprove of – it can be fatal precisely because of the views expressed by these epistles. Even if these Quakers are not actively engaged in physically harming queer people, they are deeply enmeshed in beliefs and behaviours that lead to queer folk being discriminated against (in work, in health care access, in social networks) and persecuted even to death. In the UK, where we think we’re pretty liberal, being openly queer can be very scary – I know people who are clinging to the closet because of the views expressed by people around them, and fear that coming out will mean losing everything. As a queer person myself, homophobia is a personal terror which clouds my judgment on how to respond.
I’m an attender at local Quaker Meetings, and not a member, but have been wrestling with (to use a much abused phrase) “loving the sinner and hating the sin” when it comes to people who seem to believe that being female and being queer make me a second class citizen for many years. Failure to stand up and say, “We understand that these are your beliefs, but we have grave concerns, and here’s why” doesn’t feel like the people around me are buying in to the beliefs expressed in the epistles, but it does make me wonder how safe I am, even here.
Hello everyone,
A few clarifications seem in order, some minor, some major.
Cath and Rich seem to have assumed that I was making sweeping statements to the effect that “every FUM Friend is like such-and-such” or “every FUM congregation is like such-and-such”. I would invite them both to re-read my earlier comment and see that this was not so. Describing FUM as pastoral is not the same as saying that every congregation affiliated with FUM is pastoral. Saying that FUM has places of worship that they call “churches” is not the same as saying that it has no places of worship that they do not call churches. And so forth.
I think Rich’s description of 15th Street Meeting in New York City as a “bona fide FUM meeting” is particularly problematic. 15th Street Meeting’s affiliation with FUM came about as a result of the mid-twentieth century enthusiasm for ecumenical mergers, which badly underestimated the depth and power of the cultural differences separating conservatives and liberals throughout the Christian world. (Thus the passage from EAYM(N)’s epistle, which you have quoted, Daniel, stating that “This yearly meeting got absolutely disgusted with some FUM member yearly meetings … [such as] New York….”) 15th Street Meeting’s positions on a wide range of religious and cultural issues would not be accepted by Friends in the vast majority of FUM’s constituent congregations, and I have seen no sign that its positions have any significant moderating influence over FUM as a whole.
Cath seems be suggesting that Holiness thinking only “affected the [FUM] Quakers in the midwest of the US at one time in the past”. (Have I read you rightly, Cath?) But I’ve spent quite a bit of time visiting FUM congregations in quite a number of North American FUM-only yearly meetings, and I’ve heard Holiness doctrines expressed by the members of those congregations, and preached from the pulpits of those congregations, with my own ears. I can assure you that the Holiness influence remains alive and influential.
Cath charges me with “painting with a broad brush”. Yes, I do. I am trying to describe a forest as a whole. Cath seems to be saying, in effect, that one cannot do this because every forest contains many different kinds of trees, and look, here is a Chinese ginkgo growing wild in the midst of this Kentucky woods. Yes, such things do happen — look, over there! isn’t that a Russian olive? — but that does not mean that a given forest does not have describable qualities that distinguish it from other forests. An English forest will contain a different mix of species from a forest in Sicily, and different species will predominate, and meaningful implications can be deduced from these differences.
I appreciate Cath’s desire, and Rich’s, to highlight the diversity within the forest that is FUM. But I don’t think this should be allowed to prevent us from noticing the characteristics that predominate in FUM as a whole. Predominating institutional characteristics have great power over the minds of those who identify with the institution in question. And if we’re talking about something like religious tolerance or intolerance of gays and lesbians, then these characteristics are things that we need to be able to recognize, describe, and respond intelligently to. I don’t see how we will be able to do that if we let marginal exceptions to general rules, like the wild ginkgo in the Kentucky woods, prevent us from seeing the whole of what’s going on.
A final point: Rich writes that “Kenya is wrestling with so many horrors right now that this moral crusade seems to me like a distraction.” Alas, one of the chief horrors Kenya is wrestling with is AIDS. And in Kenya, AIDS is spread almost entirely, not by contaminated needles or blood transfusions, but by unchaste sex. The FUM position, which East Africa Yearly Meeting (North) embraces, is not a position against gay sex alone, but against every form of sex outside of heterosexual monogamy. (I know this is not clear from EAYM(N)’s letter as quoted, but it is nonetheless the truth.) So this moral crusade is hardly a distraction; it is an attempt to cut right through to the heart of the matter, as the matter is understood by Africans who believe the apostle Paul spoke Truth.
Ka, your post reminded me of a saying “A liberal is someone who leaves the room when a fight breaks out”. (Wikiquote tells me it comes from an IWW activist, Bill Haywood).
So I am grateful for everyone’s thoughtful responses, I’m glad that people don’t take that sort of liberal attitude, that this is an issue that people are willing to talk about and give such serious consideration to.
Marshall: I think I understand what you are saying about linking this with the issue of HIV/AIDS, but we must be careful to avoid framing things in terms of concern for the spread of HIV/AIDS, because it is liable to equate being gay with spreading HIV/AIDS.
That is, from the point of view of the HIV/AIDS debate in Africa, sexual orientation is pretty much a distraction. It’s things like infidelity and lack of access to contraception and education – among straight people as much as gay people – that spread the thing. Even if it were just a ‘gay disease’, as it was once portrayed in the West, it would not be the orientation, but safety, etc.
I’m not persuaded the position of EAYM(N) on being gay, or the prominence of this campaign, is to do with HIV/AIDS at all; it’s the “culture”, the “mannerisms” and the “immorality”, not the sexual health concerns – perhaps we might expect the word danger – that seems to have disgusted EAYM(N).
If the objection is theological (or rather, scriptural), as implied by the quotations, we get into trickier ground. Strict adherence to the whole Bible, or even just Paul’s bits leaves you in some very odd places – in reality, everyone who goes down that route ends up haggling over how much of the Word of God can be ignored. (Hm, that sounds rather more simplistic than I meant it to be but some people do argue that the Bible doesn’t condemn being gay at all, or that it’s only (pseudo-)Paul, etc.)
In practice, it seems theological objections tend to be adduced whenever there are cultural mores to uphold, and they tend to… transcend actual scriptural criticism or contextual interpretation. If this is the case here, we’re into something else, plain old prejudice. Everyone’s got it, even those who reject it from an academic standpoint. I like Ka’s word, enmeshed. We’re enmeshed in a prejudiced – at times violently intolerant – society, and whether we go along with it, support it, question it at times or reject it entirely has an effect on the fabric of it.
The question remains, it seems to me, how we can reject that violence without simply “walking out of the room”.
Daniel writes: “The question remains, it seems to me, how we can reject that violence without simply “walking out of the room”.
——
I’m not a Christian….
…but I do own a bible–and I’ve read it and find much of worth in the ministry of Jesus–and it seems to me that the second great commandment (Love your Neighbor) might be a good starting place.
I remember once leading a spiritual discussion on the second great commandment with a friend who is Church of Christ–and we both had the same reaction when someone who was trying to wind us up asked: “So, should we love Satan?” [NOTE: I am not comparing African Friends to Satan]
Our answer was: 1) the second great commandment is pretty specific, love your neighbor–and if you believe that Satan and all Satan’s evil purpose exists, then like it or not, Satan is a neighbor, and 2) Does Satan need a change of heart? Praying for our neighbors when we feel they are going down the wrong road is a prayer for a a change of heart…..or at least it should be for that, rather than for a predetermined (by us)outcome.
Once the stone heart is replace with a new compassionate heart, other things will follow. We may not know what form they take or how long it takes for them to form. But I believe a new heart will bring new attitudes–even those which might go against traditional culture or prevailing social practices.
But I know that on this blog, the issue is what can we do in terms of action.
I’m a person who generally will make my witness something I am *for* rather than something I am against. I believe it should begin there and be communicated in non-judgmental terms (as best as we can do) to the people who offend us. I believe this is a strong way to be role models.
If we pick a fight with EAYM(N) we may well encourage them to stand their ground because they feel threatened. We may also indicate that we are setting aside our Peace Testimony for the satisfaction of emotional argument.
If we choose our words carefully, if we choose our actions carefully, if we continue to love our neighbor, I believe our witness will bear fruit.
We can commit ourselves to on-going dialogue, even if it seems that our commitment is not returned, even if it seems that it will take a long time to reach some little piece of commmon ground, but we may enter a process that is inspired by the Spirit and illuminated by God’s Light.
What a delicate balance this is…..
Cath
OK, someone may call me on my analogy about the second great commandment lesson I helped to facilitate….
The comparision I was trying to make and seem to have muddled (by mentioining Satan) is that 1) our neighbors are not always geographically close or even theologically close, and 2) if we perceive a need for a change of heart, treating someone **as if** they have already had that change of heart will go a long way.
I know some people who read Quaker blogs do not approve of my coming back to post a second time, and to them I apologize. I think I may have said it better here than in the comment above.
cath
Hello, Daniel.
To respond directly to the issue you raise in the first sentence of your reply to me: I don’t see FUM and EAYM framing their statements about gays and lesbians “in terms of concern for the spread of HIV/AIDS.” I do see them framing it terms of going against God’s will as expressed both in the Bible and in their own hearts.
However, from the point of view of the HIV/AIDS debate among east African FUM Friends, homosexual activity is not a distraction. That is because, among east African FUM Friends, as among bibliocentric Christians generally, AIDS is a scourge sent from God in response to the fact that humanity has gone against His will. If humanity does not shape up, then it is reasonable to expect that God will simply continue to send more and more scourges. The cure for the scourges is not to hand out contraceptives, but to start doing His will.
As long as you talk contraceptives to the east African FUM Friends, and emphasize sexual fidelity, but do not address the requirements of religious fidelity as described in Romans 1:18-2:10, I don’t expect you will get very far with the east African FUM Friends, because they are going to regard you as part of the problem.
You write that “everyone who goes down that route ends up haggling over how much of the Word of God can be ignored.” However, I don’t see the east African FUM Friends doing any haggling amongst themselves about that matter; nor do I think they are going to do any haggling amongst themselves about that matter at any time in the foreseeable future. Why? Because, for one thing, they understand that the Word is Christ (this is spelled out in John 1), and that the Bible is words describing the Word and coming from God who sent him, “given,” as Paul wrote to Timothy, “by inspiration of God, and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” And for a second thing, their shared position is that the Word, “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” can never be ignored.
What haggling is going on is, so far as I can tell, not going on amongst themselves, but between themselves and their liberal critics elsewhere. And I think that is likely to be how it remains.
Finally, this is not a case in which “theological objections [have been] adduced whenever there are cultural mores to uphold”. FUM Friends in Kenya permitted polygyny, and many were personally polygynous, right up to the time this new policy took hold. They were also part of a larger African culture that saw much less wrong with extramarital sex generally than the English and the North Americans do. But they now understand the strictures of the New Testament as forbidding not only gay and lesbian activity but also all extramarital sex and all polygyny. Thus their obedience has flown in the face of their own cultural mores, and compelled an end to practices dear to their own hearts. What is going on in east Africa is not a cultural retrenchment but a genuine conversion, with all the experience of spiritual fire and power that typically accompanies such things.
You end by asking “how we can reject that violence without simply ‘walking out of the room’.” This is merely my suggestion, Daniel, and you are welcome either to take it or to leave it. But I think the first step might be to get involved with FWCC and FUM, and meet lovingly and respectfully with EAYM(N) Friends on their own ground, rather than talking about them behind their backs, or talking to them via the dreadfully inflammatory medium of the Internet. Matthew 18:15-17 is an important part of traditional Quaker discipline, and well deserves our modern rediscovery.
And if and when you do get involved with FWCC and FUM, and meet with EAYM(N) Friends, it might also be a smart move to take a very careful look at Romans 1:18-2:10. There’s a bit in there at verse 2:1 that might be the key to a happy solution — but not if you try to take it out of its context, and not if you try to share it in any way but privately, face-to-face.
With all good wishes,
Marshall Massey
Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative)
Cath, no objections to double-posts from me – and both of them were important concerns. I agree, seeking to pick a fight is no good. My question is what do we do about the two fights that do exist – within FUM and within Kenya? I agree that the ‘assume the best intentions’ approach (granted, not quite the right phrase), is probably a good one here.
Marshall, your information on the recent (?) history of Kenyan Friends is very welcome, and the references, especially their context, transmission issues and all, are indeed thought-provoking.
In terms of the issue of openness: what I say here is for anyone to read, I don’t go around gossiping behind other people’s backs. I don’t want to, that’s exactly why I’m writing this on the internet, I’m not just discussing the matter face-to-face. It’s far from perfect, and I recognise that internet access is a barrier. But I cannot follow your suggestion, Kenya and meet face-to-face with members of EAYM(N), because I do not have the means to do so. Again, we have the internet.
It is for these sorts of reasons that I have chose to write about the decision of BYM not to publish the epistle on their website: ultimately, it is largely through BYM that communication takes place.
My point about haggling was an expression of my experiences trying to engage in exactly the manner you describe with non-Quakers who adopt similar views. Perhaps it was a topic not best introduced here, and, as I conceded and as your response indicates, it came off sounding a little wrong – perhaps it would be best to leave that digression for another time. Suffice it to say that the approach to the Bible that EAYM(N) takes is very alien to me.
Ultimately, as interesting and fruitful as close reading of the Bible can be, I don’t look to persuade people by appealing to its authority, I seek to engage with people based on their independent appreciation for the truth, the “That of God”, the divine spark, whatever you want to call it. That doesn’t mean developments in our understanding can’t ever take place in the context of discussion about the Bible, just that we need to be aware of how the climate in which we’re reading it will affect such discussions.
(Incidentally, Romans 1.23 and the third paragraph of the 2006 EAYM(N) epistle as quoted above make an interesting pair.)
Daniel
Quick addition – only to note a relevant approach about a similar issue in the Anglican church here:
In my comment a few days ago I said:
“…this moral crusade seems to me like a distraction.” The “moral crusade” I was referring to was the lashing out against gay and gay-friendly Friends represented by the epistle of East Africa Yealy Meeting (North). Marshall Massey correctly understood this, though he didn’t agree with me about it. Other commenters seem to have thought I meant it was a “distraction” to speak up against homophobia to East African Friends. That was not my meaning, though I did and do feel some discomfort about certain forms of “speaking up”.
What forms of “speaking up” do I feel uncomfortable about? Let me start by saying that I actually know very little about East Africa. In this I am not unlike most Americans and even most American Friends. Until the recent near-outbreak of civil war in Kenya, I was unaware of the existence of tribal groupings like the Luos and Kikuyus and of the tensions between them, much less the political ramifications of those tensions. My ignorance is all the more remarkable in that a member of my own Meeting is a native of Kenya, as are several members of the Manhattan Meeting I referred to in my first comment. So the first part of my discomfort is that I personally would not want to start telling people what is right and what is wrong in my eyes when I know so little about who they are, what problems confront them, what they are worried about, what they hope for, etc. I noticed that one of the quoted epistles from African Friends began by expressing “disgust” with what other Friends were saying to them about homosexuality. What were these other Friends saying? Did they know who they were speaking to? Without that knowledge, could they possibly speak effectively? (note however: I know that there are many American Friends who do, in fact, know Kenya well and who communicate respectfully with Kenyan Friends, so this particular uneasiness does not apply to them.) I guess I was imagining an enraged fellow-liberal standing up in some Meeting to demand a righteous rebuke to the Kenyans on the issue of homophobia, without taking the time to learn about those to whom they’d speak. I’ve seen that sort of thing happen before.
I’d also like to respond briefly to Marshall’s defense of his generalizations about FUM. I don’t think I disagree with anything Marshall is trying to say about FUM in broad terms. My own focus is probably a bit off-topic, but remains important to me. It is not a focus on the big “forest” picture of either FUM or FGC or FWCC or any other wider Quaker body, even though I recognize that there has to be some way of talking about that picture. My focus is on the up-close-and-personal reality of individual local Meetings, their members, and even their attenders, particularly the ones that I know personally. I think things look more complex and diverse and oddly hopeful the closer one looks at the trees instead of the forest. When I hear Friends say things like “FUM is homophobic”, I know they’re talking about some prevailing attitudes, some corporate policies, etc. Those things are important. It’s also important that my Friends in the programmed meeting that shares a meetinghouse with 15th Street don’t get written off or judged on the basis of what Friends in 15th Street have heard about FUM in general. Well, the longer I write the more likely I am to further confuse things. So I’ll stop.
- – Rich
Rich–you speak my mind about generalizations of FUM. Looking at individual Metings is much more productive since the issue of authority among Friends is not hierarchical, and Meetings may well choose to affiliate with a larger group which may have attitudes and practices that the Monthly Meeting does not share for reasons only they know.
——-
Getting back to BYM and the not publishing/replying to the epistles from EAYM(N)….this may well be an internal matter for FUM, but since the epsitle appears to have been sent elsewhere and since there is a tradition of responding, then how does one respond without seeming to interfere in the internal business of another body?
I’m not sure I have the answer. I agree that often silence in this kind of a situation may appear to be agreement; but it may also signify a disagreement which cannot be brought forth verbally at this time.
If someone were to send me a letter or email in which they spoke of attitudes that offended me deeply and I wanted to wait to gather my thoughts, I might send a reply that said something like:
“I have received your email and find the issues contained in it too complex/difficult/outside my worldview [pick a phrase that works] for me to reply at this time. I think we may have different points of view; however, I will be giving consideration to your thoughts and hope that we can discuss them at a later date. I wish you well. Peace, Cath”
yes, I know, some people will think this is not straightforward (and I’m nothing if not straightforward LOL) or that it appears to support the offending email; but I think it might allow the tradition of response to be upheld, it might indicate that there is a difference of opinion, it might give time for both parties to think about what they want to say to one another (and allow the anger impluse to diffuse)–but more specifically, it might allow the sender to know that s/he/they have said something that is not easy to recieve.
cath
you didn’t think there’d be just one comment, now did you? :)
I have to say that I rarely use the suggested format in my last comment, mostly because it’s so easy to hit send with email.
But Epistles are another matter–I’m not sure it’s a good idea to assume that we must always respond to any Epipstle while the topic is perceived to be hot.
I mean, look at how we do business in other ways. I know a Meeting that took decades to decide to put in ceiling fans. :)
cath