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Regulation within the Religious Society of Friends

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Frank Cranmer
Frank Cranmer
Affiliation:
Honorary Research Fellow, Cardiff Law School
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British Quakers are arguably the least dogmatic group in Christendom; indeed, Universalist Friends would not describe themselves as Christians at all. Possibly because of this relaxed attitude to doctrine, some Friends tend also to assume that they operate in a rule-free environment. When I told the clerk of our Preparative Meeting that I was working on an article on ‘Quaker canon law’ her immediate response was, ‘Oh, we don't have any of that’—which is probably why Anthony Bradney and Fiona Cownie gave their recent study of the Quaker business method the gently-ironic title, Living Without Law.

Type
Articles
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 33 , July 2003 , pp. 176 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2003

References

1 I should like to thank Nina and Chris Gwilliam, Michael Bartlet and Professor Robert Forrest for reading various drafts of this article, and the Librarian of Friends House and Beth Allen of Quaker Communications for supplying information about the current structure of central committees. I should also make it clear that I write as a Quaker.Google Scholar

2 The Society's formal position is that ‘…expressions of faith must be related to personal experience. Some find traditional Christian language full of meaning: some do not’: Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain, Quaker Faith and Practice, 2nd edn (London, 1999) 1.01—subsequently cited as QF&P: references are to paragraph numbers.Google Scholar

3 Living Without Law: An Ethnography of Quaker Decision-making, Dispute Avoidance and Dispute Resolution (Aldershot: Dartmouth-Ashgate, 2000). Quite apart from its merits as legal anthropology, Part II provides a lucid and helpful summary of Quaker history and culture.Google Scholar

4 ‘Why then the Law?’: New Blackfriars (1974) 296–304, p. 303.Google Scholar

5 ‘Why then the Law?’ p. 302.Google Scholar

6 I first heard him say it in a lecture at Cardiff in 1999.Google Scholar

7 QF&P 19.32.Google Scholar

8 Early Friends had the same problem: George Fox's Epistle CXXXI, written in 1656–1657, exhorts Friends to ‘take heed of slothfulness and sleeping in your meetings; for in so doing ye will be bad examples to others, and hurt yourselves and them’.Google Scholar

9 Bradney, and Cownie, , Living Without Law, p 137.Google Scholar

10 In 1828–29, American Evangelicals who wanted to adopt a statement of faith split from Liberals who did not: Livingstone, Elizabeth A (ed.), Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd edn (Oxford: OUP, 1997) p 766. ‘Orthodox’, ‘Conservative’ or ‘Evangelical’ Friends in the USA hold to the priesthood of all believers, but take a high view of scripture, employ stipendiary pastors and hold liturgical services with readings, hymns and sermons—known as ‘programmed worship’. Liberals are in a minority.Google Scholar

11 E.g. prison ministry, hospital chaplaincy, the arrangement of funerals, and chaplaincy in institutions of further and higher education. However, in many churches with separate clergy, lay people can undertake some of these functions.Google Scholar

12 Traditionally of course, in Western Christianity, the ministers of the marriage rite are the couple themselves.Google Scholar

13 Usually referred to simply as ‘Sufferings’: see below.Google Scholar

14 QF&P 8.22. The Recording Clerk at the time of writing was Elsa Dicks.Google Scholar

15 Other YMs have similar handbooks, eg. Philadelphia YM's Faith and Practice (revised 1997) and New York YM's Faith and Practice (revised 1998).Google ScholarFrom 1959, as well as its own Organisation and Procedure Canadian YM used BYM's Advice and Queries (London: 1995)Google Scholarand Christian Faith and Practice of London YM (London: 1959). However, because the 1959 publication was out of print and the current British QF&P was not entirely suited to their needs. Canadian Friends decided in 2000 to produce their own manual: CYM 2000 Minute 29.Google Scholar

16 Though ecclesiology is addressed at lenth in One in the Spirit, BYM's preliminary response to the 1995 report of Churches Together in England. Called to be One. The full text is set out pp 1–17 ofGoogle ScholarFrom Friends, with love: Book I 1995–1997 (London: BYM, 2002): see especially pp 2–7.Google Scholar

17 I Cor 14: 40.Google Scholar

18 QF&P 10.03.Google Scholar

19 Though the reality is more complex, with an intermediate General Meeting [GM] and a web of central committees (just as, in Sctland, the basic structure of kirk session ⇔presbytery⇔ General Assembly leaves out of account the ad hoc boards and the Commission of Assembly).Google Scholar

20 QF&P 11.01, para 7 [emphasis added].Google Scholar In its response to the ARCIC statement entitled The Gift of Authority, the BYM Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations noted that ‘In our understanding “the Church” is precisely what the document calls “the laity”—laos, the whole people of God—i.e. an undivided body of men and women who minister to one another in a mutual priesthood modelled on the servant priesthood of Jesus’:Google ScholarFrom Friends, with love: Book 2 1998–2000 (London: BYM, 2002), p. 51. The full text of the response is set out at pp 49–57.Google Scholar

21 QF&P 11.44–46.Google Scholar

22 QF&P 11.07, 11–16, 11.19.Google Scholar

23 QF&P 11.37.Google Scholar

24 QF&P 11.39, 11.41.Google Scholar

25 QF&P 4.22.Google Scholar

26 QF&P 12.05–07.Google Scholar

27 For life, during good behaviour: see, for example, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland's Act X of 1932. as amended [anent Election and Admission of Elders and Deacons], ss 6–8.Google Scholar

28 QF&P 12.07.Google Scholar

29 QF&P 12.11. For a full list of duties, see QF&P 12.12 (elders) and QF&P 12.13 (overseers). Meeting for worship is ended by two of the elders shaking hands—a rare example of Quaker ceremonial. Worship is normally very sedate, but if anyone behaved in an unseemly fashion it would be for the elders to persuade that person, very gently, to desist. Being remonstrated with in such a fashion is known in Quakerspeak as ‘being eldered’.Google Scholar

30 Interim Report of Local and Regional Groupings Working Party (BYM: London. 2003), para 8. Similarly, it is proposed to change the name ‘Monthly Meeting’ because it is no longer accurate or helpful:Google Scholaribid, para 14.1. At as June 2003 no decisions had been taken about the proposed changes.

31 QF&P 4.33–35.Google Scholar

32 Interim Report of Local and Regional Groupings Working Party, p 10.Google Scholar

33 QF&P 4.07.Google Scholar

34 QF&P 5.01.Google Scholar

35 QF&P 5.02.Google Scholar

36 Quaker-speak for ‘abolished’.Google Scholar

37 Friends are very aware of the possibility of individuals being overloaded: ‘[i]t is not expected that any Friend should attend every meeting of sit upon innumerable committees’: QF&P 3.09. Nevertheless, in addition to meeting for worship, a very conscientious Friend will be attending PM and MM and, possibly. Sufferings and BYM as well.Google Scholar

38 Interim Report of Local and Regional Groupings Working Party, para 18.6.Google Scholar

39 QF&P 16.10.Google Scholar

40 QF&P 5.05.Google Scholar

41 Meeting of Friends in Wales, which represents BYM in relations with the National Assembly and with domestic ecumenical bodies and the like. is not a GM—it is sui generis: QF&P 5.06.Google Scholar

42 QF&P 7.05, 7.08. The current membership is about 200, and many feel that it is simply too large to function efficiently as an executive body: Interim Report of Local and Regional Groupings Working Party, Part IV.Google Scholar

43 The automatic right of all elders to attend Sufferings was withdrawn in 1974: QF&P 7.01 para 8.Google Scholar

44 QF&P 8.15.Google Scholar

45 QF&P 6.09. Internationally, each community of Friends has an autonomous YM linked through the Friends' World Committee for Consultation established in 1937. Some countries, such as Canada and Australia, have a single, national YM; the USA has several. partly because of geography, but partly also because of tensions between Evangelicals and Liberals.Google Scholar

46 QF&P 6.09.Google Scholar

47 QF&P 6.11, 6.12.Google Scholar

48 QF&P 6.10.Google Scholar

49 QF&P 6.15, 6.17.Google Scholar

50 QF&P 6.04.Google Scholar

51 QF&P 6.15, 6.19. The 2002 epistle appeared in the summer 2002 edition of the BYM newsletter, Quaker News.Google Scholar

52 QF&P 8.01.Google Scholar

53 QF&P 8.02.Google Scholar

54 QF&P 8.11.Google Scholar

55 Or, ‘God so loved the world that She did not send a committee…: The Quaker Jargon-Buster (London: Ealing PM, leaflet, nd), ‘Gospel order’ is a term of art. suggesting that the Friends’ structure is in conformity with (or, at any rate, not inimical to) the teachings of the early church, rather than a description of first-century church government.Google Scholar

56 Interim Report of Local and Regional Groupings Working Party, para 5.Google Scholar

57 See, for example, BYM's response to the 1995 Papal Encyclical on ecumenism, Ut Unum Sint. The full text is set out at pp 39–40Google Scholarof From Friends, with love: Book 1 1995–1997 (London: BYM, 2002).Google Scholar

58 Defined as ‘a group of people waiting to go home’: Fox, Catherine, Scenes from Vicarage Life: or, the Joys of Sexagesima (London: Monarch Press, 2001), p 189.Google Scholar

59 QF&P 3.13. Even for someone who has spent most of his professional life clerking meetings ranging from occasional sittings of the House of Commons to a subcommittee of an Anglican parochial church council (and, much more rarely, chairing them), the dual rôle of a Quaker clerk looks extremely demanding.Google Scholar

60 Nina Gwilliam: personal communication.Google Scholar

61 QF&P 3.15.Google Scholar

62 Bradney, and Cownie, , Living Without Law, p 144.Google Scholar

63 Lord Bridge of Harwich, Synodical Government in the Church of England: a Review (London: Church House Publishing, 1997), para 9.10.Google Scholar

64 See Cranmer, Frank ‘Christian Doctrine and Judicial Review: The Free Church Case Revisited’: (2002) 6 Ecc LJ pp 328–330.Google Scholar

65 The Preparative Meeting that Bradney and Cownie studied had 91 offices to be filled by about 125 members and 73 attenders: Living Without Law, pp 105, 113, 114.Google Scholar

66 Tyldesley, Alan: ‘Changing Our Ways’: The Friend, 21 February 2003, p. 15.Google Scholar

67 Personal communication.Google Scholar

68 Bradney, and Cownie, , Living Without Law, p 144.Google Scholar

69 Ibid. p. 153.

70 ‘The Great Goodness in Silence’, The Guardian, 29 July 2002.Google Scholar

71 Mind the Oneness (London: Quaker Home Service, 1991) p 45.Google Scholar

72 See, for example, QF&P 19.38 for the testimony of Margaret Fell in 1664.Google Scholar

73 QF&P 1.02.37.Google Scholar

74 Matt, 5: 33–37: Jas 2: 12.Google Scholar

75 Charities (Exception from Registration) Regulations 1996, SI 1996/180. The Charities (Exception from Registration) (Amendment) Regulations 2001, SI 2001/260. provided that excepted status would end on 1 October 2002, but the Charities (Exception from Registration) (Amendment) Regulations 2002, SI 2002/1598, revoked the 2001 Regulations and extended excepted status until 1 October 2007—at which point it will almost certainly cease to exist.Google Scholar

76 QF&P 15.03–04. Six Weeks Meeting, founded in 1671, supervises property matters in London.Google Scholar

77 QF&P 15.13. There is no provision for registration of places of worship in Scotland.Google Scholar

78 Charity Commissioners for England and Wales. CC22: Registration of Religious Charities (London: HMSO, 1994) p 3.Google Scholar

79 Income Tax Special Purposes Commissiners v Pemsel [1891] Ac 531. HL. per Lord Macnaghten. For example, a gift to maintain a Quaker burial ground has been held a valid charitable gift: Re Manser, Attorney-General v Lucas [1905] I Ch 68.Google Scholar

80 Charity Commissioners. Registration of Religious Charities, p. 5.Google Scholar

81 For example, the Clandestine Marriages Act 1753 (26 Geo 2, c 33) (‘Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act’) made special provision for Quakers.Google Scholar

82 Marriage Act 1949, s 26(1)(c)–(e). References to the Church of England include references to the Church in Wales: s 78(2). The Act has attracted considerable criticism for its selectivity: see, for example, Bradney, Anthony, Religions, Rights and Laws (Leicester: Leicester UP, 1993), pp 42–43,Google Scholar and Hamilton, Carolyn, Family, Law and Religion (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1995), pp 50–51.Google Scholar

83 Marriage Act 1949, s47(1).Google Scholar

84 Ibid, s47(2)(a), (b).

85 Ibid, s47(3).

86 Ibid, s47(4).

87 QF&P 16.04.Google Scholar

88 QF&P 16.10.Google Scholar

89 See QF&P 16.04ff.Google Scholar

90 QF&P 16.15.Google Scholar

91 QF&P 16.36. 16.40.Google Scholar

92 QF&P 16.46, a, b.Google Scholar

93 QF&P 15.18.Google Scholar

94 QF&P 15.17.Google Scholar

95 QF&P 15.20.Google Scholar

96 For the text, see QF&P 24.04.Google Scholar

97 The anecdote is part of the oral tradition of the Society: see QF&P 19.47.Google Scholar

98 QF&P 1.02.2 (or as Cownie and Bradney put it, ‘Quakers are Quakers all the time’:Google ScholarLiving Without Law, p. 143).Google Scholar

99 Acts of Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Act IX of 1697, which provides that any Act altering the ‘Rules and Constitutions of the Church’ is to come into force only with the consent of a majority of presbyteries. A special two-thirds majority was required for the proposal to abolish provincial synods, enacted as Act V of 1992 [amending Articles Declaratory anent Synods].Google Scholar

100 At the end of 2001 there were 73 MMs and 487 local meetings, of which 387 were PMs. Adherents totalled 28.615: 16,243 full members, 8,719 adult attenders and 3.635 children (statistics from BYM).Google Scholar

101 A mechanism that the Church of Scotland itself has recently abolished: Act III of 2001 [anent Discipline of Ministers, Licenciates, Graduate Candidates and Deacons].Google Scholar

102 QF&P 11.21.Google Scholar

103 Briden, Timothy and Hanson, Brian, Moore's Introduction to English Canon Law, 3rd edn (London: Mowbray, 1992), p 8.Google Scholar

104 Coriden, James A., An Introduction to Canon Law (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1991), p 4.Google Scholar

105 Bradney, and Cownie, , Living Without Law, p 4.Google Scholar