2025 Backhouse Lecture with FWCC General Secretary Tim Gee
https://youtu.be/noXJtu7ZKnM?si=LpcqZE53fXtMMqDn
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Quakers Australia
213 views Jul 7, 2025 MELBOURNE
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The 2025 Backhouse Lecture was given by Tim Gee, FWCC General Secretary. The lecture, is entitled
“The seed is in all: A journey through the Quaker world”
This lecture explored Tim’s personal faith journey while offering insights into the common threads and rich diversity that exist among Friends worldwide, before sharing his perspective on the future of Quakerism.
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Transcript
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Transcript
G who is the general secretary of friends world committee for consultation
FWCC the overarching organization for friends
worldwide. The lecture entitled The Seed is in All:
A Journey Through the Quaker World, will explore Tim's personal faith journey
while offering insights into the common threads and rich diversity that exist
among friends worldwide before sharing his perspective on the future of Quakerism.
But first, I'd like to say a few words about the back house lecture itself.
Uh before introducing Tim, this is one of a series of annual
lectures which began in 1964 when Australia Yearly Meeting of the
Religious Society of Friends was first established. The lecture is named after James Bouse
who together with his companion George Washington Walker uh walked or traveled
throughout the Australian colonies from 1832 to 1838. and they did walk. They
walked large distances to meet people in remote locations.
They were English Quakers who came to Australia with a particular concern for social justice
having connections to social reform movements in uh the early colonies as
well as in Britain. Back House and Walker planned to record their observations and make
recommendations for positive change where needed.
Detailed observations were made of all the prisons and institutions visited by
Back House and Walker. Their reports submitted to local as well
as British authorities made recommendations for legislative reform,
many of which led to improvements in the health and well-being of convicts,
Aboriginal people, and the general population.
As a naturalist and botonist, James Backhouse is remembered also for his
detailed accounts of native vegetation which were later published.
James Beckhouse was welcomed by isolated communities and friends throughout the colonies.
He shared with all his concern for social justice and encouraged others in their faith.
A number of Quaker meetings began as a result of his work of of their their
visit. And about our lecturer Tim G previously worked for Britain
Yearly Meeting, Christian Aid, Amnesty International. He's written four books, Counterpower,
Making Change Happen in 2011. You can't evict an idea. What can we
learn from Occupied 2012? Why I am a pacifist 2018.
Open for liberation, an activist reads the Bible, 2022.
He contributes regularly to various publications and has been a voice for Quakers on the BBC.
He lives near Oxford, England with his wife and daughter. I think that Tim's lecture will
introduce himself far better than I could. I met Tim at the well plenary
meeting of friends in Johannesburg, a very friendly gathering of the wide
diversity of Quakers from around the world exploring the meetings and
implications of the concept Ubuntu which resonates with Christian teaching
and with Quaker testimonies. One thing we shared was the love of
singing and there was great joy in the singing of that meeting particularly at
the African Quakers. Those of you who know Abel Sabono from Burundi or any of our Bundian friends
will recognize that joy. Tim, we welcome you warmly here and we
look forward to hearing about your journey and what you have to say about Quakers internationally.
And I'll leave a silence and then would you like to start when you like
I began preparing this lecture two years ago on my goodbye visit to the Woodbrook
Quaker Study Center in England. As for many friends in Britain and
beyond, it's a place that's given me a sense of connection with my family history and the wider family of friends.
It also played a major role in in the development of the type of Quakerism
that helped form my spiritual worldview.
And my favorite place there was the library where you could go looking for one thing and end up finding 10 others.
It hosted the journals of the eminent and not so eminent Quakers in whose footsteps we each follow.
And in those books, some of them hundreds of years old, it' be common to find handwritten annotations from the
likes of the Round Trees or the Cadburies who'd helped found Woodbrook in the first place.
Now, I was there to look for some of the works of James Back House, after whom this lecture is named. Without much
searching, I found what I was looking for. the narrative of his visit to Australia because that is a big fat old
volume, very easy to find. And something that I value about that is
he clearly valued every interaction that he had with every person, with every
plant, with every animal, and he wrote it down.
I have to admit though I preferred the edited version um which was edited by uh
his sister. Perhaps all of us know by experience that sometimes people who
have got a lot to say need a good editor.
Actually I've brought this is the copy from Woodbrook that I was given afterwards. Um and I'm going to give
this to the Silver WEL library.
Now, the second thing that I noticed in both of those accounts was the way that
back house and others saw scripture in almost everything. And they could reach for it so easily. And that's consistent
with the types of Quakerism that are growing fastest today, for example, in East Africa or in South America.
Now, for those of us who live in increasingly secular countries, usually
the friends who practice the silent, unprogrammed forms of worship, there's often not that sort of biblical literacy
anymore. Instead, we might more readily seek inspiration from Quaker tradition
or even from sources which on the face of it might not seem religious at all, such as poetry or art or nature.
And I see these two strands becoming increasingly divergent. The one primarily referencing scripture and the
other principally finding inspiration from elsewhere. And in the course of this this lecture, I would like to play
a part in bringing those back together aided of course by the spirit which
connects all things. And in continuation of the Quaker method
of sharing testimony from personal experience, I'm going to share something about my faith journey. um then try to
paint a picture of the international community of friends before sharing some predictions about where we might be
heading. But first, I want to share what I was feeling as I sat down to write. After
reading Back House's narrative for a while, I stopped and I sat and I looked
up and I looked around me. Then I looked inwards. There I was in Woodbrook
Library, soon to close its doors for the last time, surrounded by the works of
all of our predecessors. And I was feeling grateful to them, but also acknowledging that the writers of
most of those books have gone. It's important, very important to say that Woodbrook lives on as an online first
learning charity, reaching many people in many more countries than they could when they were largely connected to a
building. But at that point it still fence felt symbolic that Woodbrook
Quaker Study Center, the bricks and mortar symbol of liberal Quakerism would
soon be gone too. I felt a need to recognize that the things or the people
or the places that we think would always be there, safest houses won't always be
there. And now it's us, it's you. It's me. It's all of us here. It's everyone online.
It's down to us to work out how to interpret and remix and reimagine
Quakerism for our and the next generation's needs.
And then I thought about my work with the Friends World Committee for Consultation, which connects Quakers in about 100 countries. And through that, I
can see that Quakerism worldwide is energetic. It's dynamic, international, diverse. It's making change for peace.
And it's also growing. In my lifetime, it's not because of me, but in my lifetime, the number of Quakers in the
world has doubled from around 200,000 when I was a child to about 400,000
today. So, please hold that encouragement with you. To which I would like to add that I
feel profoundly positive about the society of friends. We will have a
future for as long as God has a purpose for us. And for as long as friends seek
to unite our lives with that purpose. And so I began to write.
My story begins in Britain, which is the Quaker community in which I grew up, the yearly meeting I'm a member of. And
recently, as part of Quaker Week, one of the asks was to share words that might help encourage families uh to try out a
Quaker meeting for the first time or indeed to stay. And I didn't find that
hard because I loved growing up as a Quaker. I feel immensely grateful to
have been a child in the Quaker community. It helped me give a basis to try and navigate the world. Now, if you
know me well, um you might not be surprised to know that as a child I was diagnosed as hyperactive or with ADHD.
That's what it's usually called today. But thanks to fairly regular Quaker meetings for worship, I can sit still.
I'm comfortable with silence. I enjoy it and I probably fidget with my phone more than I should, but probably more of most
of us probably do that. But I'd like to think that I'm not entirely dependent on fidgeting thanks to that childhood
foundation of learning to value space and stillness.
I also grew up knowing people who were committed to peace and to justice, often
making change against the odds after sticking at it for decades. and they would usually be very modest about it uh
and tell stories about Quaker change makers of the past who inspired them.
But no matter what a friend's age was or what they'd achieved, they treated me as
an equal, which felt unusual and empowering. So, I learned to treat adults and
authority figures with respect, but not with difference. And that has sometimes
got me into trouble. Um because there are some people in positions of power that think that respect and difference
are the same thing. But there it is. That's my version. A modern equivalent
of those early friends who refused to take off their hats for the king.
And that was very different to school. Not only with the teachers, but also with the other students. There was a lot
of pressure to conform, to wear a certain kind of clothes, eaten certain kind of foods, even have a certain color
of hair. If you didn't fit in, you'd be bullied. And if you stood up to the bullies, you got in the firing line. So,
I didn't like school. But I got through it partly thanks to Quaker youth events
at weekends and in the holidays, which were a complete contrast. They were joyful, safe spaces where we could
explore and experiment with our identities and our beliefs, knowing that we we would be welcomed and we would be
loved just the same. What I didn't have at that point was
very much religious language to interpret this. In my mom's Quaker school, the head of religious education
believed that if you instruct children in the Bible, they will later form a childlike picture of it, which will have
to be unlearned later on in life. So, better then to explore and model good
values illustrated by Bible stories here and there. So then when people find
their way to scripture, they'll appreciate it first time around. So that's pretty much what happened for me.
And today I recognize the presence of God in every good experience then and now. But that's not how I would have put
it at the time. Today too, I have a very positive relationship with the Bible and
with Jesus, manifested as the inward light and guide. And this language is of
some surprise to my previous self, but also to some of my friends who did indeed reject a religious worldview
early on. And I almost rejected it, too. Some of the Christians I met at school,
for example, said things that just didn't feel right or sound right. Like they said things like that my parents
were going to hell because they were divorced, or that I was going to hell because I hadn't had water sprinkled on my head when I was a baby. and that that
would be the case however good life I lived. And unsurprisingly, I found that
utterly repellent. And then a Christian prime minister of
the United Kingdom joined a Christian president of the United States and indeed a Christian prime minister of
Australia in ordering the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq leading to hundreds
of thousands of deaths. And I thought Christians have very strange priorities.
But I didn't switch off from faith. Quakers were solid in their opposition
to those wars. And through that movement, I learned that when you know that something isn't right deep in your
heart, then that still small voice needs to be listened to.
So I studied politics with an international focus in the hope that understanding the systems through which
violence is perpetrated might equip me to do something about it and I was very impressed with Thomas Payne's uh books
on humans right human rights and I carried on there to his book on religion the age of reason it's a very wellargued
book including a memorable section on the meaning of direct religious experience in which he declares that
while he would never dispute or deny someone else's revelations. Nobody should be obliged to believe such
reports unless they happen to them. And built into my enjoyment of this passage
was a fairly complacent assumption that God wasn't going to speak to me. Well, you can guess what happened next.
A few few years later, in the middle of a meeting for worship in Philadelphia,
something changed. I recognized the flow of love and light
flowing through me and flowing through all people's hearts in the world. And
that was an ecstatic experience. I literally quakd.
It wasn't a revelation in words, but it did make religious words start making sense.
Like 1 John 4:8, God is love. or indeed
George Fox's moment of revelation. I saw that there was an infinite ocean of
light in that and in that I saw the infinite love of
God and I went home and I applied for membership. And thanks to a prompt from
a gentle and wise elder in my meeting, I also started engaging with the Bible more seriously, beginning with the
Epistle of James, which I'll come back to later.
Now, because this convincement experience took place away from my home country, since then I've thought of my
Quakerism as international rather than bounded by national borders, even if my
local meeting was and still is in Britain. And a decade later, when many
meetings started going online, um especially thanks to pandemic restrictions, I started taking part in
Quaker meetings in other parts of the world from my sofa. first in Europe, then in North America, Latin America,
uh, East Africa, eventually reaching here, Asia, West, Pacific.
And it's not hard to see that some of the worship styles in global Quakerism are very different. Compare the singing
and dancing and threehour services in Kenya with the mostly silent gatherings in Britain and Australia and other parts
of the world. But I was welcomed. I was welcomed everywhere. And I wasn't
quizzed about my beliefs. I wasn't tested on whether I knew the words to the songs. I was warmly and meaningfully
welcomed like a long-lost family member. More than anything else, I believe that this kind of welcome is key to our
flourishing. And now I work for the Friends world committee for consultation which brings
people together from these different kinds of worshiing. And however we worship, I'm always reminded of Jesus's
words in Matthew. Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the
midst of them. And I could speak for a long time about the varieties of religious experience in
Quakerism, which is almost infinite, endlessly fascinating, and gives plenty to think about in all the complexity and
nuance, but I'm not going to dwell on them too much. Instead, I'd like to
speak about the things we have in common, which are relatively few, but as such are pleasingly simple.
One is a direct unmediated relationship with the divine, although the words the
meanings that people attach to the word divine do vary greatly. Another is our
shared history. And a third is our work for justice and peace, which takes place
differently in different places, but everywhere I've been, Quakers are working for justice and peace. There are
probably other things, too, but they're more subtle. For example, meeting houses and friends churches are usually simple.
Never seen one covered in gold from the outside. Now, after I wrote this, I discovered
that there is a meeting house in Belgium that has some gold wallpaper. So,
it turns out that there's an exception to every Quaker rule. Um, people tend to dress uh relatively
simply. There's the whole Quaker language of clarks and monthly meetings, which is beautifully familiar around the
world. Women being in leadership is just normal and accepted which is different from some of our Christian neighbors for
whom this is either still disallowed or it's still relatively new. And amongst Quaker men there's something I recognize
too which is managing to be male without being macho.
Um then there's the differences which are difference which are glorious. Um so
at the friend's church in Bjamburura in Bundi, one of the largest uh in the world, up to nine choirs sing together
on the Sunday morning. Um at another church in Bundi on the site of a friend's school, the voices were so full
when I went there that I thought I saw the walls shaking. And this is a major
contrast to silent meetings without doubt. But inwardly there's also an extraordinary connection because when I
sing with Quakers who sing, I feel the same strong divine connection that I
feel in a still and silent meeting for worship. So our connections are from the inside out.
Now other things that seem like differences uh are in fact similar. So on one
occasion uh oh on on some occasions in fact in Kenya I've been asked to give a sermon. Now I've never been asked to do
that in an unprogrammed meeting but I have been asked to give prepared ministry. I'm giving some right now. Um
so the process of preparation for both of these is very similar. Um and friends
who are used to unprogrammed Quaker meeting for worship that's the silent type sometimes express concern that a
church with a pastor might not be fully participative. And I would respond that when I've taken part in friends church
services, many different groups have a go at the front. Perhaps the children might do a skit, the teenagers might do
a dance, various people would share testimonies, women of men of all ages will speak.
That's more than can be said for a lot of unprogrammed meetings for worship. And on a day like World Quaker Day in a
friend's church, this might all happen at once. or on ordinary days there might be a rotation with different uh groups
leading the services each week. So let's put to bed the idea that programmed
services can't be participative. Now on the other hand, a friend accustomed to
programmed worship might express a concern that the lack of many prepared words in unprogrammed Quakerism might
lead to a rather vague or nebulous theology. Well, theology literally means
the study of God. Silent worship is a way of experiencing God within and among
us without many words. Words can point us towards God, but they can also distort or distract, especially if they
become legalistic or stoaltified. So, silent worship Quakers do do
theology. A gathered meeting for worship is a process of encounter with the divine, of studying the divine with the
heart. You could call this a kind of silent theology.
um through which we can reach what my granny called a kind of wordless knowing. So, it's good people are
concerned about each other and we're asking questions. It's also good that there are answers to those questions uh
and we can learn from one another. A wordless knowing is a profound and wonderful thing. A largely silent
theology is not sustainable as we've always known. From the start, friends
have sought words to communicate our faith. The words have changed over time and in different places, but I hold
faith that the divine experience at the heart of it remains the same.
That was the easy bit because I've mentioned some of our differences like forms of worship, but these are probably
the easier ones. With a shared theology, variations in worship styles are fairly
easy to stomach and they're often more a matter of preference than underlying values. But some of our differences are
harder. And I've been asked by the lecture committee to talk about these two. So amid all of this talk of unity,
it's important to say that some of our differences are significant.
But in this divided, polarized world, surely being cordial with and curious
about people we might disagree with is part of the practice of peace. Our
global faith community gives us opportunity to hone those skills.
I'm going to mention two, sexual diversity and approaches to the Bible.
Quaker takes on sexual diversity vary widely around the world and it's
important not to characterize all people from a particular country or particular yearly meeting as having a unified view.
There are nuances and differences on these questions within countries and yearly meetings. Nevertheless, official
teaching and books of faith and practice in some countries very much embrace LGBTQI plus affirming Christianity
whereas others very much don't. Um, at the most recent world plenary meeting,
we acknowledge together that sexual discrimination and disunityity over sexual orientation continue to hold us
back. On some level, I hope that the process of meeting with one another and building
connections in the things that we do have in common while speaking from experience about the things that we
don't does make a difference on some level. But this is a slow process.
If it's any consolation, we are in much the same position as almost, in fact, I
think all uh other Christian world communions who also struggle with this. Um, and I think this can help us humble
ourselves to know that we are actually not that different from our Christian
brothers and sisters in this regard. And of course, we consider Quakerism to be
special, but we're not so special as to found a way through on this one, except
to handle the conversation with civility and with respect as much as possible.
And it's even more humbling to consider that the Quaker takes on sexuality around the world tend to be pretty much
in line with or perhaps only a little ahead of social attitudes more generally
in those countries. That opens the possibility that our respective positions are not necessarily
a product of scriptural ex exedice or direct revelation and much more a simple
product of the cultures that we're in. And I realize that in some ways this is quite a troubling idea and I realize
it's unlikely to please anyone. Um but as a means to understanding one another,
I think it can be helpful. And the committee asked me to asked me
to finish this sent this section with a succinct reflection and I wish I could.
The truth is it remains an unresolved, uncomfortable, untidy tension in the
world community of France just as it is in the world community as a whole. And I hope you will join me in prayer that God
will lead us in a way through.
Now a second set of differences relates to approaches to the Bible and to theism more generally. Um, these are the modern
manifestations of some of the major historic splits that have centered on disputes about the primacy of scripture
against the primacy of experiencing the Holy Spirit. Is the Bible the literal
word of God or is the word that powerful but inexpressable spirit that was in the
beginning for which words will always be inadequate? And back in 1678, Robert Berkeley
characterized the Bible as a faithful historical account of the actings of God's people, a prophetical account of
several things whereof some are already passed and some are yet to come, and a full and ample account of all the chief
principles of the doctrine of Christ. He then famously added that it is a
declaration of the fountain but not the fountain itself and a secondary rule
subordinate to the spirit from which they have all their excellency and certainty.
And over the years different Quaker groupings in different places have emphasized different parts of this standpoint leading to the extraordinary
st extraordinary spectrum that we have today. From some friends holding that the Bible is the only source of truth
through to a midpoint in which the Bible is a companion to contemplation right through to the other extreme where the
Bible is a book of off-putting God language or even an instrument of oppression best left alone.
And there are still friends today who, as Barkley suggested, see scripture not
as a rule book, but a way of understanding how God and humanity have engaged through history and who study
and cherish the Bible because of that. Now this um if you this lecture is
dedicated to my my friend my former line manager late Clark of FWCC Simon Lamb
and his very last email to me he said that his one request for this lecture
was to include friends who hold the position that I've just shared. So there we go. I've now fulfilled the
last request that Simon made to me. Now I've had different views at
different times and as such I have an empathy for the different perspectives. At one point if I'd have come across the
word non-theist I would have described myself as one. Although I think I've never quite been an atheist because I
always held open the possibility of God. Through reading the Bible though, I moved to a place where I led I felt led
to write a book about the scriptures as a tool of liberation. From the perspective of working for an
FW for FWCC, an organization that seeks to bring friends together from different cultures, traditions, and countries, I
find myself harboring a deep desire for shared Bible study to help us understand
one another across our differences, as well as to connect with the words that helped inspire Quakerism in the first
place. and so rediscover the radicalism of our forebears.
Now, I mentioned that my doorway to the Bible was the Epistle of James, which I'd like to talk about now. And I'm
reliably informed by the Quaker theologian Mark Russ that based on the written evidence that we have from early
friends. Uh the reason that we are known as we are is in part because of the use
of the word friend in the epistle of James. And there are some more reasons that friends might be drawn to this part
of the Bible. Quakers in our origins sought to be the early church revived. Well, James was the earliest leader of
the church following the earthly life of Jesus. Others call Quakerism New Testament Christianity done well. Well,
it's possible that James was the earliest text of the New Testament to be written. He also definitely existed.
Many liberal friends take an interest in the types of questions raised by the historical critical approaches to the Bible, like asking which figures and
stories can be verified by historical sources. And though scholars, there's a whole industry of questioning almost any
ancient text, and that's a good thing to do. James shows up in so many that there's absolutely no reason to doubt
that he existed. He's mentioned in the Gospels, the Acts, the letters of Paul. He's lettered in the work he's mentioned
in the works of Josephus, Usabius, and Hegypus. And from these sources, we know
that he was a vegetarian. He was a tea totler. Um,
he sound apparently had very long hair. He I'm not saying all Quakers are like this, but I could imagine him turning up
in a Quaker meeting. Um, he's also literally Jesus's brother. And
given that Jesus didn't leave behind any texts that we know of, the words of his brother who knew him all his life can
help bring us closer. The fact that James letter so closely echoes Jesus's
words as reported in the Gospels, especially the sermon on the mount helps
give weight to the historic historicity of both. And both speak strongly about
peace and justice. Yet, the Epistle of James has often been
marginalized, overlooked, or ignored over the centuries, largely because of the ways that his message was
inconvenient to some other forms of theology. Well, in my experience,
Quakers love being inconvenient, especially if that helps pursue the
cause of peace and justice. And we also have an empathy for the marginalized. So, here's yet another reason to engage.
In James, we find a theology of action, perhaps even of activism, in which he says that faith by itself, if it does
not result in action, is dead. I will show you my faith by my deeds. Faith without deeds is worthless. And then
again, faith without deeds is dead. And that religion that God accepts is to look after orphans and widows in their
distress. That instead of taking um instead of talking all the time, we should be doers of the word. And in
different translations, the resonations, the resonances with Quaker terms are extraordinary. Um, as I mentioned
before, James uses the word friend, saying we become a friend of God by what we do. And that friendship with the
world, meaning the unjust systems of the world, is enmity with God. In some translations, gatherings for worship are
described as meetings. And part of it sounds like advice for an unprogrammed
meeting, like the guidance to bridle the tongue, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and to welcome with meekness the
implanted word. You know, I think it was the first time
I went to Africa and I I just loved I loved the music. I I felt God's presence
very strongly. Um, and I traveled to lots of different Quaker
communities and I kind of feel like in a perpetual state of culture shock because I moved from country to country. So when
I came back from Africa and I sat down in a Quaker meeting in in um in Oxford
and it was entirely silent all the way through
and instead of really enjoying it, I was kind of feeling antsy. I was like, "Oh no, why hasn't anyone spoken?" kind of why hasn't Holy Spirit moved us? Have we
failed? you know, kind of getting in a bit of a tears
and then someone stood up at the end and they said they started talking about um
the work that the meeting was doing with asylum seekers in the city. Those were the first words that were spoken and I
thought I think James would be okay with this.
Nowadays, English-speaking friends often speak at the spices. Simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and
sustainability. Or well, the S is disputed. Um, but again, it's there.
Simplicity. A whole chapter of James is a warning to rich oppressors. Peace.
James reaffirms the commandment not to kill. Integrity. This is where we get the line much quoted by friends. Let
your yay be yay. And your There we go.
Community. Oh, for friends online that was let your yay be yay and your nay be nay. Uh community. Uh James reminds us
to love our neighbor. Equality. He says that all should be treated equally in our meetings regardless of wealth or
poverty. Finally, sustainability or stewardship. James gives us a warning against greed which can lead to war and
destruction. And also like his brother Jesus, James says nothing at all about
same-sex relationships. And unlike his contemporary and occasional rival Paul, he says nothing that could be
misconstrued as support for slavery or gender inequality.
So once I'd read it a few times, I started noticing how many of the widely cited quotes from Quaker tradition in
turn cite the Epistle of James. For example, George Fox's famous claim to live in the virtue of that life and
power that takes away the occasion of all wars speaks in the very same sentence about what he calls James'
doctrine that wars arise from greed in the heart. In Margaret Fel's
articulation of the peace testimony, she cites the epistle of James to explain why Quakers don't sway oaths, why
Quakers don't fight without weapons, and why Quakers treat to uh seek to treat people as equals. She then goes on to
say that the only ground and cause of Quaker's sufferings is because friends
obeyed the command of Christ and observed the teaching of James. John Wman caution to the rich echoes James in
its title because the final chapter of James' epistle is usually headed a
warning to the rich. And the alternate title of John Wman's essay is a plea for
the poor. And I don't know if Wulman would have been aware of this. Um, but there is a connection here too because
the followers of James were called the Ebianites which in English translates as the poor. Clearly then whether we know
it or not there has been a resonance over time with those early Quaken writings that channel James. And that
got me interested in whether friends quoted James anymore than any other
comparable New Testament letter. And so there's a wonderful resource at erm college called the um the Quaker Bible
Index and I counted up references from George Fox and others using Erg's Quaker
Bible Index. So what do you think? Do you think George Fox quoted it more than other
epistles or not? The answer to my disappointment was no,
he didn't. And I spent quite a long time doing that.
But then I revisited Barklay's apology and deep within that Barklay says that
even in his time other churches including Catholics and Protestants were
restricting the reading of James whilst Quakers assured by the Holy Spirit
embraced it as a full and equal part of scripture. It follows then that in so
doing Quakers developed in some ways that were distinctive and even if early friends didn't cite James more than
other parts of the Bible is likely they did read it more than some of their Christian contemporaries.
Now I mentioned before that the epistle is inconvenient to some other forms of theology and it's worth pausing here to
consider why this might have been. James's unmistakable condemnation of inequality and war was inconvenient for
those types of Christianity that quite liked inequality and war. His instruction that rich men not be given
special seats didn't really sit well with Christians that liked giving people special seats.
And he says the rich will be humbled. The rich will disappear. The rich will wither away.
And James's role as the leader of the more Jewish branch of early Christianity was inconvenient for the Roman church
when it was trying to distance itself from Judaism. You know, the origins of Christian
anti-semitism run deep and run early. I think one of the good ways that we can
help help redress the balance is by engaging
with what often gets called the most Jewish book of the New Testament.
Now, James's bold, rather stark, and repeated statements about faith and works were inconvenient for Martin
Luther, who argued for justification by faith alone. Now, this wasn't inconvenient for Barkley, who said that
faith and works could go together. Um, yes. And then the big one, the very
existence of James as Jesus's brother was very inconvenient to any church that
promulgated the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity for reasons that I don't think I need to explain.
So, it might have been marginalized and tucked in towards the end, but the book of James is there. It's in our Bibles.
It's on our meeting house tables. It's on our bookshelves. It's on our lecterns. It's ready to be re-imbraced.
And for Bible- based friends in church with churches with pastors and programmed worship, this is a Bible book
that could help explain why some friends are as they are. And for unprogrammed friends, especially friends who perhaps
might feel hesitant about expressing themselves with the aid of scripture, it could be a great starting point for
doing so. So, if there's one thing that you do after listening today,
I'd like to invite you to open the Bible at the Epistle of James and see what you get from it.
Now, something I've always loved about Quakers is the idea that we're always on
a journey together, and each conversation along the way can help change our ideas about the world.
To converge doesn't mean to stay in the same place. And I found myself on a perpetual
journey. And along the way, I've discovered a newfound appreciation for some aspects of Christian practice that
weren't a major part of my Quaker upbringing. Um, and I'm not saying that all the kinds of Quakerism need to
remerge or that our mission should be to seek a kind of spiritual midpoint between the different traditions. I
don't think that's possible and I don't think that's desirable. What I do hope, especially in this age of global
internet and communication, is that we could learn a lot more from one another across countries, cultures, and Quaker
traditions. For my part, I will do what I can to support FWCC to facilitate that. And I know that Adrien Gil Morgan
is in the room. He looks after the Asia West Pacific section, and I know that he's committed to that as well.
We could also adapt and adopt practices that are working elsewhere and understand them as authentically Quaker
even if they are different from the ways that we are familiar with. So for
example, originally from the USA, the alternatives to violence project is huge in East Africa thanks to sharing and
learning across borders. I still find I love and I need the peace
of an unprogrammed, largely silent Quaker meeting in my life. At the same time, the spirit that I've felt in
Africa and elsewhere remains with me, too. And even if my voice isn't up to much, my soul cries out to sing. And I
enjoyed having a hand in the most recent version of the World Quaker song book. Um, and in contemplative moments, I
found myself setting uh Bible verse verses to folk tunes in my journal. Um,
and I'm going to be sharing some of those in a workshop in a couple of days or if you're watching online, they're
going to be in the back of the printed version.
You know, before coming here, someone told me, "Oh, you'll never get Australian Quakers singing."
And I thought, "Well, that sounds like a challenge."
Now, partly thanks to time spent with Quakers in the majority world, spoken prayer is now a part of my life in a way
it didn't used to be. And even if not so well as back house and his peers, I find myself ready to reach for scripture in
the everyday whilst also reaching for the inexpressable spirit. And in the process, I feel something happening in
me. It feels new and it feels renewing. Yet, it connects me with something much
older and indeed which is older than time.
So I'll say again, Quakers will have a future for as long as God has a purpose
for us and for as long as we unite with that purpose. Right now we are growing.
In fact, there are probably more Quakers alive today than at any point in
history. And one of the questions I'm asked most often in places where our numbers are
decreasing is what we can learn from places where they are growing. And recently I had the pleasure of being
part of a service in Nairobi welcoming some of the 500 new Quakers coming into
membership that day.
Now Nairobi yearly meeting is one of about 30 yearly meetings in Kenya.
And what they do is they have a two-part course uh that people do before they become
members. So, you know, if someone comes and they're interested, you can send someone on the course. It's just this really good on-ramp.
And friends, it was such a joyful occasion. It was long. It was 5 hours long, but it was joyful
because we were celebrating the hard work and the faithful commitment made by so many people. And people danced into
meeting like this. And we clapped and we sang to them and to one another and to God. And by my presence, I was able to
affirm to these friends that they were not only entering a local meeting or a monthly meeting or a yearly meeting,
they were joining a world family of friends.
So, I'm really glad to be able to relay the joy of that occasion here and say, "Friends, we've got something to learn."
Oh, and I can't I can't can't help but compare it with the moment that I learned that my Quaker membership had
been confirmed. I was sitting in my bedroom looking at a letter in the post
on my own. My first response was a profound sense of anti-limax.
You know, I I at that point I was moving meetings anyway because I was moving house and I I went to I I I basically
went to complain to the elder of my new meeting, another wise gentle elder of few words who said, "Well, Tim, we
didn't let you in under false pretenses
because Quakerism isn't all mountaintop moments. Sometimes we need to do ordinary routine things and that's what
enables us to experience this wonderful thing that happens together.
But still, yeah, I can't help compare the Kenyon system of offering a free course ahead of membership to the
liberal Quaker assumption that people will just absorb Quakerism by coming to meetings, sitting in silence, and
chatting to people afterwards when we know that in fact many people don't absorb Quakerism and they remain
attenders forever. or alternatively form a view of Quakerism shaped by the luck or the bad luck of who they happen to
talking be talking to that day. And I'm convinced that Quakers in Kenya have something good going on which is ripe
for adaptation and for adoption elsewhere. And Kenya might not even be where Quaker
numbers are growing fastest. They might be growing faster elsewhere in East Africa. I asked a friend in Bundi why he
thought the faith was growing so much there and what friends in other countries could learn from that. And without missing a beat, he replied that
firstly, Quakers are democratic, which is relatively unusual for a church, and Quakers in Bundy do actually have a
voting system. It's very interesting, but I'm not going to get into it here. But he also said that when you become a
Quaker, your life gets better. Well, that is a different case for
Quakerism to what I'd heard before. Is your life better for being a Quaker?
I hope it is. Mine is, and that was the case before I accepted this job. I can
think of several times that Society of Friends was there to catch me when I could easily have fallen down.
I think we could be more forthcoming about the ways that our lives are better because of friends.
There are various ways we could do that, but it simply begins by thinking trying to say out loud how being part of
Quakerism has made each of our lives better.
Now the predictions. Um, this lecture is printed. Um, one of the
dangers of that is it's not like a blog where you can go back and edit it. But I'm going to feel the fear and do it
anyway and make some predictions for where we're headed. I'm going to keep these relatively short because the more
I say, the more likely I am to be wrong.
First of all, the Quaker center of gravity has already moved to the global south which is likely to be formalized
in the coming decades. As mainstream Quakerism is increasingly understood as
global south quakerism, global north quakerism uh will be increasingly shaped
by it. Secondly, online connections will become a bigger part of our lives including our
faith lives. As they do, the distinctions between the traditions contained by place-based yearly meetings
will continue to be blurred as online intervisitation becomes more straightforward.
Thirdly, English will no longer be the default language of international Quakerism, nor
the principal language that Quaker texts are written in, ready for translation. I think we'll see a lot more translation
of Quaker texts into English, for example, and increased language equality in the way that we work.
Fourthly, I think the current era of liberal
quakerism will pass. And by that, I don't mean that we'll die out. What I mean is that by a perpetual
process of change, what we currently call liberal quakerism will change. And
there have always been different eras of Quakerism. The current one, liberal Quakerism, it's been around for about a
century, just over that. And it's very different now to how it was when it began. And I think it's helpful to begin
contemplating now how you might like the next era to look and what you can do to
help build it. Now I've had some time to contemplate this
and I want to share some hopes. The first hope is it will be youthful.
So there was a a study published in Britain recently mirrored by a very similar study in the United States
showing a statistically significant four-fold increase in church attendance
amongst people aged 18 to 25. So there's a new interest in religion and in
Christianity amongst people of that age group and anecdotally
I'm hearing that happening within Quakerism. Now my second hope is it will be
diverse. Um I was at Britain meeting a a few weeks ago. Now I've got kind of used
to being one of the younger people at Britain meeting and I'd kind of started to assume that that was going to always
be the case.
And it wasn't. There were many people, probably hundreds of people, maybe a
small number of hundreds, but there were many people who were younger than me and
were new to Quakerism. And when I spoke to some of those people, I heard stories
of people who had been marginalized either by other faith groups or in wider
society and had found a home in Quakerism. and they were so delighted
and being with a Quaker who's so delighted to be a Quaker to have found it is a wonderful thing.
So my second hope is that the next era of Quakerism will be diverse.
My third hope is it will be convergent. Now the word convergent Quakerism has been around for a little while. Um but
some of you may have seen the Sworthmore lecture that was given at um Britain Yearly Meeting. Now I've actually got a
copy of it here. It wasn't printed anywhere except Otto in New Zealand. So
this is the one copy of this in this country. Um
now uh in it Emily Province um read
more than 30 English language books of faith and practice around the world including this we can say and she found
92 things that we could possibly say together. 92
areas of common ground that she sh she she phrased as 92 minutes. Now earlier
in this lecture I s thought that there were three
that means that between us we have 95 thesis for a new era of convergent quakerism.
Now fourth um I hope it'll involve more singing.
There's also an opportunity um if you want to be inviting more people into your meeting but you just need a nudge
to do so. The theme of World Quaker Day this year is love your neighbor and it's all about giving people an experience of
Quakerism. So, uh there's some posters on the Clark's table. There it is for friends
online. You can get it from the FWCC website. That's going to be on the 5th of October.
So those are some predictions, some hopes and an opportunity.
Now the lecture committee also asked me to suggest some queries to aid reflection and I'm grateful for the
encouragement to do so and would like to offer the following. Number one, what does it mean to you to be part of a
world family of friends? Number two, how do you welcome newcomers
in your meeting? Could anything be improved? Number three, do you think the Epistle
of James could help facilitate understanding across different forms of Quakerism?
Number four, are there insights or practices from Quakers in other parts of the world that you would like to be part
of your faith life? And number five, how is your life better
for being a Quaker?
I'm coming towards the conclusion. I started writing this lecture two years
ago in Woodbrook Library and the body of it on a long long train journey to Hungary to visit friends there. And I
finished it in January 2025 against the background of unfolding events in the
United States mirrored in different ways in many countries of the world.
Friends, in a world where environmental breakdown, war, misinformation,
loneliness, and unfairness seem to dominate, I am convinced that our
message of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and sustainability
is needed more than ever. Even when things seem overwhelming or
unfamiliar, we can hold faith that the truths we have long held dear are the
antidote to many of the problems of the world.
And I don't think that Quakers will fix all these problems. But I do believe deep in my heart that whatever positive
change comes will need to include indeed be led by a collective inward change
which falls outside the current bounds of social science.
Political parties won't do this. NOS's won't do this. The media won't do this.
They might all play their part. Understanding and promoting this inward change is the realm of faith. And some
people call it the voice of the conscience. In religious terms, it's the light of Christ.
And in my work, I see evidence day by day that the light shines in the dark
and the darkness has not overcome it. This will continue to be the case for as
long as friends live up to the measure of the light given to us and also support others to do so. And I don't
believe that the light faithfully followed can lead people to willfully and knowingly commit acts of harm.
I do believe that it will lead us and could lead everyone to love God and love
our neighbor. Ultimately, this principle, which Jesus said summed up all of God's teaching, has within it
what we and what humanity as a whole need.
And I'm sure we've all noticed with deep concern the way that powerful figures
are cloaking their violent acts in the language of religion,
even whilst using language designed to make us hate our neighbors. friends,
someone needs to stand up and say, "This is not the way of Christ."
And it's our role to do so.
All the evidence shows there are thousands, possibly millions of people
waiting to be reached, sensing a profound inward spirituality, but searching for a community to help them
understand it. Please let them find us rather than
being attracted to wolves in sheep's clothing.
The world needs what Quakers have to offer. Not for our survival as a society of friends, but for the survival of the
values that we promote and for the better world that they lead to.
Quakerism is a precious patch of ground in the landscape of faith. sometimes a place of
refuge and a place which deserves to be nurtured and known for welcoming people
and for speaking truth to power. That begins with channeling the energy
of our forebears and friends around the world means getting out there and telling people we're here, you're
welcome. And to paraphrase George Fox's final words before he died, that the
spirit of God, the seed of Christ is in all and is over all
with friends can find it. So yeah, some things change. Change is
happening all the time, but the insights at the heart of our faith do not.
When I started writing this talk in the Woodbrook Library, the first words I wrote at the top of my page were from
Margaret Fel. It's with those words that I'd like to finish.
The truth is one and the same always, though ages and generations pass away.
And as one generation goes and another comes, yet the word and the power and
the spirit of the living God endures forever. And it's the ch the same and
never changes. The truth is one and the same always
the wages and generations pass away.
And as one generation goes and another comes,
yet the word and power and the spirit of the living God endures.
forever and is the same and never changes.
Many thanks, Tim, for your inspirational lecture.
You've generously revealed yourself to us, telling something of your youth,
pacifism, and your strong faith. I I appreciate I'm sure many of us do
your description of the diversity of the Quaker world. Some of us might be surprised that we
who worship in a unprogrammed manner are a min a very small minority.
We've got lots of common with program Quakers, but there are differences too. And you've asked us how can we bridge
those differences?
Could what you said about the welcoming of newcomers in Central Africa suggest ways in we might in which we might
prepare prospective members and attenders? Please not a 5-hour meeting though.
you've you've sort of hinted at the importance of outreach for sure of
getting um of course as we've been talking about a lot about um attracting
more young people um but you also have talked about James
the gospel of James epistle of James and Bible reading and I for one will be
reading that epistle um both as a way of getting back into
the Bible. Um Peter Bennett uh was a wonderful advocate of the Bible. He had
Bible study with us in Melbourne and it was very very powerful
and but also because you've you've said that James is something that all Quakers should read. That's we we need to
understand our faith through that epistle.
and of course singing. I I love that bit and loved your song and those words of
Margaret Felm. So, um we've got a further opportunity
to that we in the room here have an opportunity to talk about these matters
more with Tim tomorrow at 400 p.m. And I'll certainly be interested in
exploring more about your prediction of a big change for liberal Quakerism. I
wonder what's going to happen there. Lots to chew on. And thanks to all for joining us for
this lecture and uh we can close with a period of silence.
Um can I uh mention to people online that you now have an opportunity to
leave us and to join breakout groups for discussion.
===
Tim Gee, FWCC(세계 퀘이커 협의회) 사무총장은 이 강연에서 자신의 신앙 여정을 소개하며, 전 세계 퀘이커 공동체의 공통점과 다양성을 탐색하고 퀘이커 신앙의 미래를 조망한다. 그는 강연을 호주의 James Backhouse의 역사적 여정을 되새기며 시작하고, 자신이 그 기록에서 받은 영감에 대해 말한다. Woodbrooke 퀘이커 연구 센터에서 강연 준비를 시작했으며, 센터의 폐쇄가 자유주의 퀘이커의 변화와 도전을 상징한다고 본다.
Gee는 영국 퀘이커 공동체에서 성장하며 ADHD 진단을 받았지만 정기적인 침묵 예배를 통해 집중력과 내면의 평화를 익혔다고 회상한다. 그는 성경과 예수에 대해 점차 긍정적인 관계를 형성하게 되었고, 특히 필라델피아에서의 신비 체험을 통해 "빛과 사랑의 흐름"을 느꼈다고 말한다. 이 경험이 퀘이커 운동에 적극 참여하게 된 계기가 되었다.
그는 이후 세계 각지의 퀘이커 예배에 온라인으로 참여하면서 다양한 예배 스타일과 환대 문화를 경험했다. 특히 아프리카의 퀘이커 공동체에서의 역동적이고 음악 중심적인 예배와의 접촉이 강한 인상을 남겼다고 전한다. 그는 프로그램 예배와 비프로그램(침묵) 예배 사이의 오해를 줄이고, 두 전통 모두에서 참여성과 신학적 깊이가 있음을 설명한다.
Gee는 세계 퀘이커 공동체 내에서 가장 어려운 분열 주제 두 가지, 즉 성적 다양성(LGBTQI+)과 성경에 대한 접근 차이를 언급한다. 이 문제들은 지역 문화적 차이와 연결되어 있으며, 아직 해결되지 않은 긴장으로 남아 있다고 강조한다. 그는 이러한 다양성 속에서도 상호 존중과 대화를 통한 이해가 가능하다고 믿는다.
강연의 후반부에서는 야고보서(Epistle of James)에 대한 특별한 애정을 드러낸다. 그는 야고보서가 초기 퀘이커들에게 깊은 영향을 주었고, 신앙과 행동의 결합, 평화, 정의, 공동체, 단순성 등의 가치가 이 서신서에 잘 담겨 있다고 말한다. 예배의 형태나 신학적 언어는 달라도, 이 서신이 전하는 실천 중심의 신앙이 퀘이커 전통의 핵심임을 강조한다.
끝으로 Gee는 퀘이커 운동의 미래에 대한 예측과 희망을 제시한다. 그는 퀘이커 중심이 이미 글로벌 사우스로 이동했으며, 온라인 연결이 예배의 경계를 흐리게 만들고, 영어가 국제 퀘이커 언어의 중심에서 벗어날 것으로 본다. 새로운 시대의 퀘이커 운동은 젊고, 다양하며, 수렴적(convergent)이기를 희망한다. 그리고 퀘이커 전통이 단지 살아남는 것이 아니라, 인류의 내면적 변화와 세계의 치유에 기여하길 바란다고 말하며 강연을 마무리한다.
