29th
Rules & ecumenism in Wichita
As a young liberal Quaker keen on ecumenism and interfaith exchange, I’ve followed the media blasts about this year’s Young Adult Friends conference in Wichita with interest. From the beginning, it’s been advertised as an opportunity for fellowship with a diverse variety of Friends, hosted by meetings affiliated with Evangelical Friends Church, Friends General Conference, and Friends United Meeting, three of the four prominent branches of the Quaker movement. This could be an edifying weekend of worthy crossfire and friendly counterpoint, or at the very least, a powder-keg of theological and ecclesiological challenges. In other words, good times!
But what really caught my attention was Chuck Fager’s review of the conference rules published by the Wichita planning committee as “Expectations for Community (PDF)”. Chuck bristled over the rules about dressing modestly (including a brand-specific ban on goggles, swim wear, and summer clothing), abstaining from sex (even for committed couples, in private), and especially over the apparent interdict on open conversation about sexuality or queer issues. Although his argument was couched in sarcasm, the vital point he made was this:
It is bad practice to treat adults like children, and bad practice for adults to go along with such treatment.
Indeed, who is afraid that people will show up to a religious conference and act like they are at Burning Man? What concrete problems are the planners worried about that they think these rules will solve?
I’ve been waiting for someone on the planning committee to speak up about this, to publish something in response. Because frankly, it’s embarrassing. I participate in interfaith work in my own community, and imposing such restrictions on the conversation and community before-hand would never fly. Part of practicing a spirit of hospitality across such divisions involves expecting and respecting the maturity of others, and allowing them to express their differences openly as adults among adults. Everyone comes to the table with their own needs and their own standards; we’re not united by a prefabricated agreement to sanitize our behavior, but by mutual love for what is friendly and honorable and noble.
But the YAF planning committee has not published a response, and I can think of at least a few reasons why:
The criticism is both upsetting and embarrassing.
I imagine this is the main one, and I believe they have every right to feel annoyed and upset. It’s natural to feel distressed when you’re working hard to serve others and someone publicly criticizes your efforts.
On the other hand, I know Chuck personally, and I’ve spent a lot of time working with him on a variety of projects— I can’t speak on his behalf, but I believe that he writes out of great love for the unique vocation of the Church expressed in Quaker practice. But it’s easy to see how his style can offend people.
The question is whether his argument has merit. Being able to talk about hurt feelings is gonna be pretty important if we really want to have cross-branch dialog, folks. Quaker-Up! William Penn was thrown in prison for writing A Sandy Foundation Shaken, but that didn’t silence him! From solitary confinement, he wrote No Cross, No Crown as a public response to those who criticized him.
My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot: for I owe my conscience to no mortal man.
— William Penn, you are awesome.
There’s a good reason early Friends embraced the moniker “Publishers of Truth”: The Quaker experiment was not limited to individual leadings, or isolated communities who chose the guidance of the Inner Light— the Society certainly derived its dynamism from such experiments, but its long-term vitality was grounded in publishing the findings of these experiments, for verification as well as thorough, sometimes painful critical feedback.
Publishing and exposing our assumptions to critical feedback is the way we grow.
The opinion of a Quaker elder is irrelevant— this is a young adult Friends gathering.
You weren’t invited anyway, Chuck! Booyah.
A Friend† said something like this to me last week, so I imagine that others might feel the same. “I’d have a lot more respect if you spoke,” he added, and that’s part of the reason for this post.
The event is almost here and the planning committee is just so dang busy planning and traveling and graduating from college and whatnot.
I empathize. It’s easy to get overwhelmed trying to coordinate communications and schedules among so many other demands on your life and energy. If that’s the case, why not say so? “We want to respond to this, but we’re feeling pretty drained right now and there’s not a lot of time left before the conference. What should we do?” The conversation doesn’t need to be formal, coordinated, or expressed in measured lovey-dovey terms to be transparent and sincere.
But clamming up about it is bad practice and sets a bad precedent. Is that what attenders should expect if something goes wrong at the gathering? Will the stewards of the conference keep a lid on discussions of conference issues? Being transparent now establishes a precedent of openness and accountability that will serve the gathering well now and in the future. And it demonstrates maturity and character among young adult Friends.
Models for Quaker ecumenism
Michael Jay made an interesting point in a recent post about the gathering:
The conference will be tied to Great Plains Yearly meeting, which is the most United of Yearly meetings. Great Plains, as a YM belongs to Friends United Meeting. University Friends Meeting also is joined with Evangelical Friends International, and Heartland [also in Wichita] belongs to Friends General Conference.
I won’t challenge Jay’s claim that GPYM is “the most United”— I don’t have any experience to confirm or deny that. In fact, I’m willing to give him the benefit of doubt. If that’s the case, GPYM’s annual sessions might be a good model for the YAF conference, as a community that must gather across divisions year-in and year-out. I wonder if the Wichita conference planners looked to GPYM’s annual sessions for guidelines when framing their “Expectations for Community”— I couldn’t find any similar document among the registration materials and info about this year’s GPYM gathering. Does Great Plains Yearly Meeting require attenders to observe sexual abstinence during annual sessions? Do they have brand-specific bans on clothing?
I don’t know about Great Plains, but I am a member of Baltimore Yearly Meeting, a consolidated YM affiliated with both FUM and FGC. We still struggle with tensions related to the Hicksite/Orthodox schism and consolidation, both social and theological. But even if we are not as “United” as GPYM, our annual sessions are at least gathered in mutual respect and general maturity, without the benefit of rules like those expressed in the Wichita YAF expectations. The rules for our sessions are posted concisely here.
I’d be remiss if I did not mention my experience with the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), which is deeply rooted in and inspired by Quaker practice. Since AVP and HIPP training programs take place in prisons, schools, or other community centers all over the world, participants gather from diverse backgrounds with very divergent needs and experiences. But the process— based on principles of collective listening, sharing, and discernment that Quakers from every branch practice in business meeting —can infuse a disparate collection of menaced, suspicious individuals with trust and enthusiasm for the seeds of community among them.
And this happens without precooked rules. One of the most powerful teaching tools of AVP is that participants are empowered to form their own ground rules, together, to which they hold themselves and each other accountable with immense loving respect.
This challenges the very idea that central planners need to establish rules for people to build community based on honesty, respect, and caring. Most people can do just fine without the well-intentioned governance of planners, especially with the tools we inherit from the Quaker tradition.
† Edit, 29 Apr 2010 20:18: This post originally included a Friend’s name and the link to a comment he published in full view on a public blog. Out of respect, I removed both his name and the link after he informed me that he thought his comment was off the record.
