Time for a New Yearly Meeting in Indiana

I am finally ready to cave in on this issue. For a long time I have held out that, despite the troubles in Western Yearly Meeting, there was no need for a new yearly meeting. I said that to the so-called Progressives and I have said that to the so-called Evangelicals.

But I have changed my mind. I think it's time for a new Yearly Meeting here in Indiana and I think I'm just the fellow to organize it. No, I don't have any backing for this, other than my own sense of self-appointment, but that's never stopped any Quaker before (well, maybe it has in the past, but doesn't seem to be an issue these days).

To this end, I have contacted an attorney at the law firm of Dewey Cheatum and have asked them to draw up incorporation papers for a new Yearly Meeting. It is to be called "Mid-Indiana Yearly Meeting of Progressive Evangelical & Evangelical Progressive Friends." I wanted to call it Brent Bill Yearly Meeting, but the attorney (an Episcopalian by the way) said that sounded a bit pretentious and haughty and not at all God-led. So I deferred to his wisdom.

The creatures joining me in this proposal for a new Yearly Meeting are my dog Princess and Ebony, one of my cats. The other cat said she didn't want any part of it -- my own fault, I guess. I should have named her Judgement instead of Grace. I did not ask Nancy to participate.

That's because she and I use far different theological language and I didn't want a separation to be the first point of business for the new group. Besides we disagree on how a phrase in Faith and Practice should be interpreted. In Part III there's a section it says under the title "Friendly Method" that, "After due consideration, it is the duty of the clerk of the meeting to weigh carefully various expressions and to state what he or she believes to be the sense of the meeting. Action is by approval of the gathered meeting." Nancy agrees with that. I say that it's all fine and good, but the nuance of that is "approval of the gathered meeting unless they decide something that I disapprove of." I mean, let's face it, some Friends just cannot be trusted to hear the words of God in their souls or through the Bible.

Hence the need for this new Yearly Meeting.

Of course, I will -- I mean the new Yearly Meeting will -- have to write a new Faith and Practice. Here are some of the changes you'll notice:

• Removing all affiliated groups that I don't like, depending on the day and my mood and whether they agree with me or not.
• Adding "Faith and Practice" to the Biblical canon. Hey, it worked for the Mormons!
• Adding a Loyalty Oath for pastors to sign. After all, we want to have a clergy caste now -- this idea that a Quaker pastor is a member like all other members is just plain silly. We know that pastors should have to live up to standards that normal followers of Jesus (aka the laity) shouldn't have to. And besides, what's with this Quaker abhorence to signing stuff? It's not like it's a creed or swearing an oath or anything.
• Pastors only will be allowed to be part of the Executive Committee, clerks, or other officers of the Yearly Meeting. We really can't trust the "laity" to know God's will for us, now can we?
• Adding to the Rescinding of Recording portion a section about not agreeing to whatever the current mood of the Yearly Meeting (i.e. Brent) is.
  

I -- I mean the Yearly Meeting -- would have no assessments for the first year. Or probably any year thereafter, since many Meetings don't pay their share anyhow and still come to Yearly Meeting and complain. If I -- I mean the Yearly Meeting -- does institute assessments, only those people from Meetings who actually pay their full assessment will be allowed to speak. And then only if they agree with what I -- I mean the Yearly Meeting -- thinks.

There won't be any committees. There's no need for them. After all, the Yearly Meeting will all be of one mind and so everyone in it -- Princess, Ebony, and me -- will know what to do.

Oh, and the official scripture verse of the new Yearly Meeting will be John 11:35.

Well, I think those are the highlights. If you're interested in joiningg the new Yearly Meeting I invite you to come to a meeting the second Tuesday of next week. We'll be gathering at the David B. Updegraff Memorial Swimming Pool.

-- Brent

Sore Losers or Good News?

Sore Losers?

Well, that title may be a bit harsh, but then it seems harshness is the rule of the day for Quakers in this part of Indiana – at least those who have any affiliation with Western Yearly Meeting. And I have resisted writing on this subject hoping that harshness had had its day and was a thing of the past. But something happened yesterday that so disturbed me that I felt I needed to write – even if it’s just for me.

My own affiliation with that body is unofficial (at this time) but long. I am not a member of a Meeting that belongs to Western Yearly Meeting, though I attended one for eight years that is a member of Western Yearly Meeting. I am a former staff member of Western Yearly Meeting and wrote the narrative for the Yearly Meeting 150th anniversary.

As many Friends know, this Yearly Meeting has been the scene of a fair amount of rancor around a certain issue the past few years. It looked as if it would all come to a head at this summer’s Yearly Meeting sessions – which is one reason I decided to attend an arts and faith conference 1,500 miles away. Not because I’m a coward, but frankly because I wanted the geographic distance as an assist to spiritual distance – I wanted space to hold the yearly Meeting in prayer. To pray for people on both sides of the issue, for wisdom for the clerk, for God’s will to be done (not mine), and for Christ’s love to prevail.

James 5:16(b) says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,” so I was hoping that the fervent prayer of this (not-so-righteous) man might at least avail a little. I received daily reports about the progress of Yearly Meeting from people I trust and admire. And I heard that there was a fair amount of tension and disagreement but that the clerk, by and large, did as fine a job as possible in allowing people to be heard, to hearing what people were saying, and to forming a sense of the Meeting – which, as I understand it, was that there was no unity on this controversial issue and so no action would be taken.

In other words, it sounded like Quaker process – as outlined in Faith and Practice – was followed. The Yearly Meeting met in session, discussed and prayed over this issue, sought God’s will and moved on. Now I understand that some people would not be happy, no matter how this turned out (though they should be if Quaker process was followed) because it meant they “lost” – if you want to put in terms of winning and losing (which I think is ludicrous – who would win in this situation).

I thought the point of Quaker process was partly to trust the wisdom of God being transmitted through those gathered for Meeting for Worship for Business.

Evidently I was wrong. Before Yearly Meting was over someone who, in my opinion, should have known better based on their position in the Yearly Meeting, tried to raise the question on the floor of Yearly Meeting. After the Yearly Meeting had moved on to other issues.

Still, I hoped this issue at last would be put aside and the Yearly Meeting could then get on to doing something really important – such as speaking the Christian Quaker witness to a world that is hungering for Good News – not stories of Quakers wrangling with each other. Is that wrangling what Jesus had in mind as He hung upon the cross? I somehow doubt it.

What finally swayed me to write was the recent Plainfield Friends Church e-newsletter which reported that the Meeting had a approved a minute that said, Plainfield Friends Meeting affirms the Western Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice-2005 Edition, and will continue to faithfully follow it as a description of what we believe and how we are to work together as a meeting and Yearly Meeting.

That is a fine minute. I have no problem with that. But I do have a problem with the statement that proceeds it – “We are concerned that at the 2009 Yearly Meeting Sessions there was an unwillingness to uphold basic principles in our Faith and Practice concerning the deity of Christ and atonement through Christ.

That seems a pretty strong statement. It’s an accusation against other people of good faith, basically saying that other people were unwilling to uphold Faith and Practice. Yikes. That really bothers me. If I said those words I would be saying, “I have the right answers and the right thinking and however faithful you might think you are, you are wrong, your understanding of faith is wrong, your faith is false, and you…” You, you, you… Me, me, me.

Where is God in this? What would Jesus think? Where is the Holy Spirit at work – no fruits of the spirit evident in that statement.

And I found the next part of the newsletter even more upsetting. Titled “Looking for a Way Forward in Western Yearly Meeting” it says “There are a number of meetings and individuals in Western Yearly Meeting who are concerned that we failed to follow Faith and Practice in some of the actions at Yearly Meeting this year. Some even see a loss of integrity and authority seriously damaging the Yearly Meeting….People are looking for ways forward in what has become a divisive situation.”

It then announces a meeting to discuss this need for a way forward. A way forward to what? It’s not a way forward as a Yearly Meeting to my thinking – it’s a way forward of a particular way of thinking theologically, to the exclusion of those who think differently. The clue is that phrase “that we failed to follow Faith and Practice in some of the actions at Yearly Meeting this year.” It seems to me that Faith and Practice was followed – at least so far as Quaker process is concerned. And just because my way or your way wasn’t the way things turned out, doesn’t mean the process wasn’t followed. Indeed a meeting such as the one that is being held does more, in my opinion to harm the integrity and authority of Yearly Meeting. The Yearly Meeting is not the staff. It is not a few leaders. It is the people called Quakers of the various constituent Meetings gathering under Faith and Practice, following its procedures for how to conduct business, and seeking God’s will together. The authority and integrity of the Yearly Meeting is not threatened by actions taken together in a Meeting for Worship for Business as part of the annual sessions. It is threatened when those who disagree with an outcome raise a hue and cry about needing a “way forward” for their way of believing.

I find this all very sad. Very sad. It misses the point of our mission as Friends in this world – one that was well articulated by Friend Edgar Dunstan –

The early Friends were fully assured that they had a message for all men – not merely that one or other of their testimonies was specially relevant to their own time, but that message in its totality, in its wholeness, was God’s good news for all sorts and conditions of men...’Have you anything to declare?’ is a vital challenge to which every one of us is personally called to respond and is also a challenge that every meeting should consider of primary importance. It should lead us to define, with such clarity as we can reach, precisely what it is that Friends of this generation have to say that is not, as we believe, being said effectively by others. What, indeed, have we to declare to this generation that is of sufficient importance to justify our separate existence as part of the Christian fellowship? …Have we ‘good news’ for them?

Have we good news for them? Not at this rate. Who wants news of Quakers – peaceable Friends of all people – fighting amongst themselves.

To quote the Quaker theologian Homer Simpson, “Bah. Meh.”

-- Brent

Of Yearly Meetings, Authority, and Disclaimers....

I just heard a rumor that there's a new idea floating around about how to neutralize a certain Friends pastor/author type that some people find really annoying. No, not me. I mean someone else whose books sell a few more copies than mine do (between us we've sold almost 2 million, five thousands books. He's sold 2 million and I've sold 5,000).

I've long known that there are some people in Western Yearly Meeting who are troubled by this fellow's theology -- especially his audacious assertion that God's love is so large that everyone will eventually find a safe haven in God's eternal presence. While that is pretty outrageous and hard for a good Christian to swallow (I mean, get serious, how could God really love someone like Hitler or the driver who cut me off this morning more than He loves me?!), this writer's theology is not the point of the post. Rather, the point is a proposed "solution" (hmmm, wasn't "solution" part of the phrase regarding how the Nazi's dealt with the Jewish "problem"?).

The solution I hear is being floated is to ask this vile offender to simply note in each of his books that the views expressed in them are his own and do not reflect the views of Friends or (especially) Western Yearly Meeting.

I think this is brilliant. It's a great idea. It helps move Friends one step further back toward the ecclesiasticism we have always embraced. It's a lot like the concordat cum originali in the front of approved Catholic books. According to the the US Council on Bishops:

The Committee on Divine Worship, a standing committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has the responsibility for all matters relating to the Liturgy. The Secretariat of Divine Worship carries out the work of the Committee on Divine Worship, by:
overseeing the preparation and approval of liturgical books and texts and granting the concordat cum originali for publications of liturgical texts in the United States.

I suppose we could insert "General Superintendents" for "Bishops" and we'd be one step closer to Rome.

Oh wait. I guess I got that backward somewhat. The early Quakers were against ecclesiastical hierarchies and instead stood for calling people to a living experience of God. They didn't have bishops. Or superintendents.

Still, I think the idea just might work. But only if we don't stop with this particular pastor/writer. We need to make every Friends pastor do the same thing with every sermon they preach, newsletter article they write, Sunday school class or Bible study they teach -- heck, let's just make it every public utterance. "Great dinner, darling -- of course, that's just my opinion and does not reflect the view of Friends or Western Yearly Meeting."

Perhaps we could get name tags made for each pastor. Something that says, "Hi. My name is XXX. Anything I say is just my opinion and does not reflect the view of Friends or Western Yearly Meeting."

Now that I think about it, why stop with pastors. Let's add clerks, assistant clerks, recording clerks, ushers, trustees, choir members, people in the pews. I mean surely this fellow can't be the only one in the Yearly Meeting who's spouting stuff that others don't agree with.

Why, I have to admit that I've heard one or two or twenty other pastors say things that I don't believe are true -- things so bad that my wife Nancy, who is as good hearted a person as I've ever known in my life, had to get up and leave with tears in her eyes because she was so offended. And these speakers were Friends pastors. And nobody has ever, so far as I know, ever eldered them about being so far right (as opposed to this other fellow's left) that George Fox would have been classified a liberal and soft on Jesus, the Bible, and atonement in comparison.

Or maybe the solution isn't any type of disclaimer. Instead it may be time to just shut-up about the whole thing, let God defend God's self, and proclaim a little good news to a world that could use some. Would to God that we truly trusted -- dare I say "believed in" -- God enough to let that happen.

I hope this disclaimer rumor is just that -- a rumor. But then Yearly Meeting's fast approaching and there's nothing we love so much as a good fight -- good Quakers that we are. What must Jesus think?

--Brent

The views expressed in this blog are Brent's, Brent's alone, and do not reflect the views of Friends, Quakers, the Religious Society of Friends, any Yearly Meeting anywhere, the local Meeting he attends, the worship-sharing group that meets at his house, Princess the dog, and the cats known as Ebony, Coal, and Grace. Nancy Elizabeth Bill also had nothin' to do with this.

PS Don't read the above as endorsement of Phil Gulley's theology (or the "dis-endorsement" of anybody else's). The point, in case you missed it, is the absurdity of censoring one whilst the ninety-and nine get to speak and do anything they please without fear of losing their recording.