Reflections on draft ‘Membership’ chapter

Please share these musings with F&P committee.

First, let me affirm that I am grateful for the careful work that our Faith and Practice revision group put into changing this section of our F&P.  In many ways, I could easily simply accept what they have written since they have laid out cautions to Monthly Meetings to do this only after careful consideration.  The problem arises that there is serious weakness in the governance structure that allows for a Monthly Meeting not to recognize that there is a laxity in how they proceed in this area that could have serious implications for the integrity of our YM.

It seems to me that we often are so desirous of having new members in our Meetings that insufficient care and oversight may lead to a situation where any sincerely held belief system that seems to be based on belief in divine love for all is enough to make one Quaker.  Early Friends realized quickly that many drawn to the movement were Ranters and, as such, were not really in unity with the discipline of uniting with other Quakers in seeking the good and perfect will of the divine impulse.  (I have no problem here with those who have become allergic to Christian or God language in their own experience as long as they don’t believe that all Friends need to eschew our traditional language).

It is also seriously worrisome that dual membership could bring Quakerism into disrepute over something that a member espouses publicly while being identified as a member of Friends.  I had not ever felt much concern on this account for most of my time in membership until a situation arose that made me very uncomfortable.  I read in the newspaper about a group trying to claim that their meetings were religious in nature and characterizing their group as a church to try to get property tax exemption.  I was startled to realize that one of the people named as making this claim as a member of that ‘church’ was the named clerk of a small MM in another Quarter.  I brought that to the attention of the then clerk of that Quarter.  Later, I was told by that Quarterly clerk that, speaking with other members of that Meeting, there seemed to be no feeling that this should be of concern and that they felt the person in this dual membership should be able to proceed.  There was no public identification of the person as a Quaker but that could have occurred.  That would have raised a concern about our integrity since they way this group was presenting its claim to being a church was either disingenuous or in direct conflict with Quaker principles.  I don’t know whether this situation was ever addressed beyond that inquiry by the Quarter clerk to other members of that Meeting.  In my own Quarter, the Ministry and Counsel that exists solely by virtue of there being some MMs with such committees (half do not have M&C) has not met in over 20 years and my impression is that most Quarters do not function well in the oversight role we ascribe to them.

I am also aware that there can be reasons for dual membership that raise no concerns.  In my own experience, there have been retired ministers from other denominations who have found that they are called to be fully a part of a MM.  But dropping membership in their former church would automatically cut off their well earned pension.  The community loses something in not embracing them fully.  There are also Friends whom I know who have important roles in other communities (such as Zen priest) that I have no personal problem with but others in NEYM might find a reason to exclude from being actual members of our larger body.  I certainly embrace the feeling that New England Friends should embrace wide theological diversity, including those who believe things that are not consonant with my own understanding of Quaker interpretation of our Christian heritage.  Being a reunited body of Meetings that included those with different theological perspectives would seem to require that of us.

Perhaps, we should have an insistence that MMs seek guidance or even approval when they want to have someone in dual membership. In Quarters that feel comfortable that their own M&C could discern this adequately, that body could forward a request to Permanent Board to allow a particular exception to our standard practice.  Lacking that (as  in my Quarter currently), perhaps it should be discerned by the full M&C of NEYM.

Thanks again for your faithful work.  I am sharing this with Friend Brian Drayton since he is the one who voiced the need for further discernment that others of us united with at our recent sessions.  If you find it useful, feel free to share this with others.

Love and Light,

Jennifer J. Smith

Concord Friends Meeting