Letter to Book of Discipline Revision Committee
Dear Friends
With great respect I wish to draw your attention to one aspect of your task. I do this with my professional experience of organisation development and considerable experience of setting up and administering charities. I am currently co-opted onto the Finance Committee of my Area Meeting’s Trustees, having previously been its clerk and also clerk of the Trustees. I was actively involved in the process of charitable registration.
We (BYM) agreed to become a registered charity, which makes us subject to the relevant laws. The constitutions of most charities are very similar except for their statement of the charity’s Purpose. These constitutions can fairly easily be amended, except for the Purpose. The duty of the management (trustees) is primarily to ensure the charity devotes its resources to furtherance of its Purpose and not to any other cause, however worthy.
Our Purpose is ‘religious and charitable’. I have little to say about ‘charitable’. But what does ‘religious’ mean? The Charity Commission has been known to accept a very wide definition. However, when we negotiated with them we agreed in effect to define our use of the word as being illustrated, hence in effect defined, by our current “Quaker Faith and Practice”. (The Charity Commission usually refer to it by its sub-title – our “book of Christian discipline”.)
QF&P makes very plain from the start that our Religious Society is indeed religious. The first sentence states, “we commit ourselves to a way of worship which allows God to teach and transform us… all our testimonies grow from this leading.” The first Advice urges us to trust that certain good things are “the leadings of God”.
My point is that like it or not BYM may be no other than a God-centred organisation. The fact that large numbers of Friends reject the very idea of God is unfortunate. (To our shame, it is our fault for not properly informing newcomers during the last few decades.) Even if it were agreed that the Society would fare better, and its good work in the world would benefit, our purpose can be no other than ‘religious’ as effectively defined in QF&P.
But it is not only for legalistic reasons I hope you will start the revision process by accepting that we need to remain God-centred and Spirit-led. I believe that the remarkable success and reputation of the Society are due to Quakers’ conviction that they are Spirit-led. It would be a loss to the world if we became just another philanthropic, reformist pressure group.
And another reason is that at present we uniquely offer religion without religiosity.
I had feared the Non-Theistic Network wanted us to become the Spiritual Society of Friends. David Boulton claims with his usual engaging brilliance that the NTN do not want to change the Society, but the title of their latest conference is an “Inclusive Society of Friends”. Of course by the standards of most religions we are inclusive, but even we have bounds. We welcome the unconvinced but reasonable expect them to allow God to teach and transform them. What is out of bounds is those who are determined they cannot accept Quaker essentials (QF&P 11.01) and continue to campaign against them.
I desperately hope you agree ab initio that while updating QF&P we will not ‘drop God’ in a manner similar to the way we ‘dropped Jesus’ last time, and ‘dropped the Bible’ the time before. Not that I am Christ- nor Bible-centred, but I am sure we must remain God-centred.
In Peace
Stephen Petter
Bristol AM.
My Credo Blog 