Charity.

Charity

As far as I am aware all major religions emphasise the importance of Charity.
St Paul rated the three top virtues, “Faith, Hope and Love”. This is often translated as “Faith, Hope and Charity”. Jesus spoke of giving to prisoners, the poor, the sick and said, “Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.” (Matt 25:40)

As Quakers, and as a registered charity, gaining much from the government due to that status, and as an organisation “rooted in Christianity” we accept that our purpose is religious and charitable.

As an Area Meeting do very little charity – most of what we do is giving to our own members. (Individual giving is another matter.)

Area Meeting is allowing just one of its premises to be used to provide shelter to homeless people when not needed for other purposes. This was in response to an appeal by the City Mayor. We did not first decide to give to a homeless charity. After responding to the Mayor’s appeal we found that St Mungo’s (now renamed Mungos) are acting on behalf of the City Council. Presumably the Council can only do this because Mungos costs less than hotels, and that is because most of Mungo’s staff are volunteers.

This charitable action by us is not great; merely the cost of some lighting and heating, some toilet rolls and paper towels, and cleaning done at a less convenient time. (Mungo’s volunteers usually leave the premises clean and tidy.)

It would be wrong to treat it as hiring for a fee. Were we to offer use of a Meeting House from 2200 hours to 0730 on the open market what fee could we charge? Would it be worth administering?

I am convinced that rather than putting this activity in the same category as our revenue-raising room-hiring it would be more in keeping with our agreed purpose to accept it as the act of charity that it is.

To act uncharitably in this respect would be as unQuakerly as to cease using a Meeting House for meeting for worship. Would Trustees charge each Local Meeting a fee for use of a Meeting House? Corporate charitable action is as much our core purpose as is worship.

“Quakers” and “Quakerism”

I suggest it’s helpful in these discussions to differentiate between “Quakers” and The Religious Society of Friends or “Quakerism”.

“Quakers” are individual people, and as such each differs one from another. We cannot define ‘a Quaker’ precisely such as by saying ‘member of the Society’ because many truly Quaker people resist applying for membership, unfortunately. I suppose the only definition is that they self-identify as Quakers. Were they to be very unQuakerly all we could do was  formally or informally to disown them.

But anyone trying to define ‘Quakerism’ would sensibly look to sources such as the Society’s website and the book published by Quakers (very recently by the standards of most religions) titled “Quaker Faith…”.

The Society (actually, Britain Yearly Meeting) is a legal ‘person’ and this book makes very clear the Society’s religious position. When BYM applied for registration as a religious charity “Quaker Faith and Practice” (to which the authorities referred as our book of Christian discipline) was mentioned in order to clarify what in this context is meant by ‘religious’.

The Society itself is undeniably a Christian organisation. Other Christian churches bent over backwards to persuade it to join them, which it did after long and thorough consideration, and since then it has been active in the Christian community.

It’s quite common for members of an organisation not to accept its all aims – a communist can work in a capitalist company to everyone’s satisfaction. The Society of Friends accepts members who are Hindus, etc. and even atheist, but that does not stop it, and Quakerism, being essentially Christian. IMHO.