Silence, Vocal Ministry, and Faithful Listening – Friends Meeting of San Antonio

Silence, Vocal Ministry, and Faithful Listening – Friends Meeting of San Antonio


Silence, Vocal Ministry, and Faithful Listening

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Silence, Vocal Ministry, and Faithful Listening



These advices were collected by Inland Valley Friends Meeting of Riverside California. They help us think more deeply about our silent worship and our vocal ministry. Like all Quaker advices, they are not doctrine. We are to test them against our own experiences as we deepen our spiritual lives.

We have added a new QuakerSpeak video at the end of this page: “Listening to God Online”. This video speaks to our current situation.
What do we do in the Silence? Why do we worship in silence?

Excerpts from Robert Lawrence Smith’s A Quaker Book of Wisdom – Section on Silence:


“Fox’s epiphany: ‘There is that of God in every man.’ If we can achieve stillness of spirit, God will speak to us out of the silence” (6).


“…As Psalm 46 directs us: ‘Be Still, and know that I am God’ ” (5).


“… Quaker Meeting is not the only religious tradition of silent worship, . . . But Quakers are unique in their appreciation of the spiritual power of group silence. If all forms of worship are attempts to transcend the self and find the divine within, Quaker Meeting uses shared silence as a medium of group discovery, as a way of sharing ourselves with others—and with God” (11).


“For Quakers, wisdom begins in silence. Quakers believe that only when we have silenced our voices and our souls can we hear the ‘still small voice’ (1 Kings 19:11-13) that dwells within each of us—the voice of God that speaks to us and that we express to others through our deeds. Only by listening in stillness for that voice and letting it guide our actions can we truly let our lives speak” (3).
How do we get there?
Pacific Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice 2001: Preparation for and Participation in Worship Friends who thoughtfully prepare to come together with clear minds and open hearts enhance the depth and quality of Meeting for Worship and for Business. Preparation may include regular prayer and worship, the reading of Scripture and other devotional literature, reflection, and other ways of experience God’s presence. The quality of each person’s participation affects the entire community. Regular and punctual attendance is helpful, as are attentive listening to the vocal ministry of others and exercise of careful discernment in offering vocal ministry. Genuine preparation includes knowing others in the Meeting, being service, and through words, actions and attitudes, honoring covenant relationship with one another and with the Living God.

Linda Dunn – IVFM
“I hold the silence like one would hold a baby… – there is caring, wonder, gratefulness and patience involved.”
Vocal Ministry and Faithful Listening

Pacific Yearly Meeting Faith & Practice 2001
Just as careful preparation enhances the quality of worship, so too does attention to the Light during worship. Friends come to worship to receive and give, to speak when led, to be silent when that is what obedience requires.
Some worshipers called to speak feel an internal or external quaking, deep emotion, tears, an increased heart rate, or other agitation. Some have felt grabbed by the hand of God and held until after delivering the message. One person feels a profound stillness accompanied by a clear voice that is not her own. Another may find himself suddenly standing, and then wait, praying silently for guidance, before beginning to speak. Still another may test a message by repeatedly pushing it “out of mind” only to find that it returns again and again.
As one is weighing whether to speak, certain questions may be helpful: Is this message Spirit-led, or merely emotionally compelling? Is this message intended for this group, or is it only for me? Is it better saved until another time or place? When the call to speak is clear, the worshiper should stand if possible. He or she should speak simply, briefly, audibly, and from personal spiritual experience. Occasionally, ministry may take the form of singing or standing silently.

Exploring the fundamental elements of Quakerism, 1986 – Britain Yearly Meeting
All true ministry springs from the reality of experience, and uses our gifts of heart and mind in its expression. But ministry is not the place for intellectual exercise. It comes through us, not from us. Although we interpret the Spirit it is that Spirit which will lead us to minister. The Spirit will decide which experiences are relevant and which will speak to the condition of the meeting. If you have to decide whether it is right to speak, consider that it isn’t. If your words are important the meeting will find them anyway.

A. Neave Brayshaw – 1921
A Friends’ meeting for worship finds no room for debate or for answering (still less for contradicting) one another; if this is desirable, it will be left for another occasion. And if anything should seem to be spoken amiss, the spiritually minded worshipper will have the wit to get at the heart of the message, overlooking crudity and lack of skill in its presentation, and so far from giving way to irritation at what seems unprofitable, he will be deeply concerned for his own share in creating the right spiritual atmosphere in which the harm fades out and the good grows. Many a meeting has known this power, transforming what might have been hurtful into a means of grace.

Britain Yearly Meeting Faith & Practice Advices, 1964
Remember that to every one is given a share of responsibility for the meeting for worship, whether that service be in silence or through the spoken word. Do not assume that vocal ministry is never to be your part. If the call to speak comes, do not let the sense of your own unworthiness, or the fear of being unable to find the right words, prevent you from being obedient to the leading of the Spirit. Ask wisdom of God that you may be sure of your guidance and be enabled humbly to discern and impart something of his glory and truth. Pray that your ministry may rise from the place of deep experience, and that you may be restrained from unnecessary and superficial words. Faithfulness and sincerity in speaking, even very briefly, may open the way to fuller ministry from others. Try to speak audibly and distinctly, with sensitivity to the needs of your fellow worshippers. Wait to be sure of the right moment for giving the message. Beware of making additions towards the end of a meeting when it was well left before.
To some are granted deeper spiritual discoveries and revelations than to others, but to all, waiting in expectancy, at moments and in some measure is given a sense of the living touch of God. At such moments there may come the kindling of mind and heart which impels obedience to speak under the immediate promptings of the Holy Spirit. This is the ministry of inspiration, the prophetic ministry in the true sense, when the spoken word pierces to the heart of our relationship with God, unveils the living presence of Christ in the midst of the worshipping group and in its separate members, opens to our sight the way we must tread if we would realise that Spirit in and through our ordinary daily activities and find the creative response to the challenges of our time. In ministry of this character and depth something is given in the utterance which is beyond the intellectual and emotional capacity of the human being speaking, but which uses and enhances and transcends the natural gifts, the acquired knowledge, the hard and honest thoughts or the reaches of the speaker’s imagination
There is also the ministry of teaching which combines ‘the potency of prayer and thought’. It recalls the meeting to the discoveries of truth, the perception of the acts of God in the lives of individuals. It includes the effort to understand and to interpret the central fact of Jesus Christ and his place in history, and the searchings and findings of men and women down the ages and in our own day as they have sought to relate new discoveries and insights to their understandings of eternal truth

Douglas Steere, 1972
I think that learning to move in the exercise of the meeting, so that one is a part of it, yet taken beyond it and brought to see some new light as a result of it, is most important in creative ministry. The cluster of messages, with a fair interval of silence between each of them to let its message sink in; the cluster that goes on down, with each message deepening and intensifying and helping to light up a further facet of the communication, can be most effective. But for this to happen those sharing in it cannot be in a discussional frame of mind or in a debating stance, or yield to the ruthlessly critical mind, or all is lost and the meeting is pulled into a forum. It can only be done if there is a willingness to be led by each of the ones ministering into a deeper level of what they were not only saying but what they were meaning to say, and perhaps even beyond into what something beneath us all was meaning to have said through what we were saying… When a cluster ministry moves in this way, we all know that we are moving in the life, that we are breaking the cerebral barrier and being released … and we are ourselves ignited by what is taking place


QuakerSpeak Video:
“Listening for God Online”



QuakerSpeak is a Quaker YouTube channel. Sponsored by Friends Journal, the QuakerSpeak coordinator interviews Friends of all different backgrounds and asks them the core questions of our faith. The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Meeting of San Antonio, Friends Journal, or its collaborators.

You can view any of the QuakerSpeak videos on this site’s QuakerSpeak page.

감화 라는 말은 어떻게 쓰이나?

감화 라는 말은 어떻게 쓰이나?

감화 - 위키낱말사전

어원: 한자 感化.

1. 영향을 줘서 생각이나 행동을 변화시키는 것.

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감화 영어 

한국어-영어 사전

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inspiration  noun

en stimulating influence upon the intellect or emotions

en.wiktionary2016

influence  noun

당신이 내 행동에 감화를 주었다는 오만한 생각을 하십니까?

Are you so arrogant to think you had any influence over my actions?

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감화의 예문 (감화: 감화시키다, 감화되다, 감화원)

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그녀는 매주 반원들의 마음을 감화시킬 수 있는 기회를 얻는 축복을 받았으며, 교실에서든 그들의 집에서든 반드시 그렇게 하겠다고 굳게 마음먹었습니다.

She was blessed with a weekly opportunity to touch their hearts, and she was determined to do so—either in her classroom or in their homes.

LDS

나는 감화원에 몰래 들여온 작은 성서를 가지고 있었으며, 스프링 사이에 그 성서를 끼워놓을 수 있었다.

I had a little Bible that I had smuggled into the house, and I was able to wedge this into the springs.

jw2019

어떻게 해서든 아들의 마음이 좋은 쪽으로 감화되어 선교사로 봉사하겠다는 소망을 되찾고 충실히 주님을 섬기기를 바랐습니다.

They hoped that somehow, in some way, his heart would be touched for good and he would return to his desire to fill a mission and to serve the Lord faithfully.

LDS

유죄 판결을 받은 형제들은 마침내 헝가리 북부의 바츠에 있는 감화원으로 이송되었습니다.

The convicted brothers were eventually transferred to the penitentiary at Vác, in the north of the country.

jw2019

주님께서는 더 많은 자매들의 마음을 감화시켜서 그들의 봉사가 필요하다는 사실을 일깨워 주셨습니다.

The Lord created the need for their service by touching the hearts of sisters in greater numbers to serve.

LDS

마침내 몇주 후에, 어머니는 도르스텐에 있는 감화원에서 그들을 찾아냈다.

At last, after some weeks, she located them in a reform school in Dorsten.

jw2019

▪ “나는 현재 감화원에 수감되어 있습니다. 인근 왕국회관에서 온 형제들은 이곳에 훌륭한 교육 프로그램을 마련할 수 있었습니다.

▪ “I am currently in a correctional facility, and brothers from the local Kingdom Hall were able to set up a wonderful teaching program here.

jw2019

예를 들어, ‘스포오츠’ 복음 전도자 ‘에디 왁서’는 공동 연구회에 모인 청중에게 만일 정상에 오른 남녀 운동 선수들을 감화시킬 수 있다면, 그들에게는 수백만의—심지어 수십억의 ‘텔레비젼’ 시청자 앞에서 하나님께 영광을 돌릴 무한한 잠재력이 있을 것이라고 말하였다!

Sports evangelist Eddie Waxer, for example, told a workshop audience that if top men and women athletes can be reached, they will have limitless potential to glorify God before television audiences of millions —even billions!

jw2019

하지만 얼마 안 있어서 자격 있는 교사를 구하지 못한다면 우리가 감화원으로 보내질 것이라는 통고가 왔다.

But a letter soon arrived saying that if we didn’t have a qualified teacher, we would be sent to a reform school.

jw2019

감화원장은 그 어린이들이 예절바르며 그곳은 그들이 있을 곳이 못된다는 것을 곧 알게 되었으며, 그래서 몇달 후에 그들은 풀려나왔다.

The director soon realized that the children were well mannered and that they did not belong there, so after several months they were released.

jw2019

행동으로 나타내는 사람인 예수를 살펴보고, 그분의 열심에 감화되어, 시련과 반대 가운데서도 타협하지 않는 그분의 충절과 담대함을 본받기 바란다.

12:2) Yes, see him as a man of action, be imbued with his zeal, and copy his uncompromising integrity and courage amid trial and opposition.

jw2019

‘올가 로드리구에스’ 자매는 4명으로 구성된 이 선교인 집단의 한 성원이었다. 그가 선교 정신에 감화된 경위는 흥미있다.

Sister Olga Rodríguez was a member of this group of four missionaries, and the way she became imbued with the missionary spirit is interesting.

jw2019

겨우 16세의 나이에 그는 ‘보오스탈’이라는 영국 감화원에 보내졌다.

Being only 16, he was sent to an English reform establishment called Borstal.

jw2019

그의 마음은 예수께서 행하신 모든 병 고침과 그분이 친절히 베푸신 훈련과 징계에 감화되지 않았다.

His heart was not touched by all the healings that Jesus had performed, and the kindness of Jesus’ training and discipline.

jw2019

크레이그는 부모님에 대한 깊고 변치 않는 사랑과 어떻게든 아버지가 성령으로 감화되어 예수 그리스도의 복음에 마음을 열기를 바란다는 소망을 털어놓았습니다.

Craig confided to me his deep and abiding love for his parents and his hope that somehow, in some way, his father would be touched by the Spirit and open his heart to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

LDS

감화원, 소년원에서 시간을 보냈고, 심지어 아버지가 근무하는 바로 그 관할 구역에서 유치된 적도 있다.

I spent time in detention homes, youth houses, and once was even locked up in the very precinct where my father worked.

jw2019

노래에 감화되어 문가에 꼼짝 않고 서 있는 동안, 영은 저에게 지금 매사추세츠 주 캠브리지에서 가장 중요한 수업이 열리고 있다는 것을 증거해 주었습니다.

As I stood there, transfixed in the doorway, the Spirit bore witness that I was looking at the most important class taking place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that day.

LDS

신앙, 가족, 구제라는 목적을 이루기 위해 자매들을 가르치고 강화하며 감화시키기 위해 “하나님으로부터 신성하게 성임된” 주님의 교회의 공식적인 조직의 일부입니다.

It is an official part of the Lord’s Church that is “divinely ordained of God” to teach, strengthen, and inspire sisters in their purpose regarding faith, family, and relief.

LDS

예를 들어, 「일본의 종교들」(Religions in Japan)이라는 책은 ‘신도’교의 기원에 관해 설명하면서 다음과 같이 말한다. “경외감을 불러 일으키는 것은 어느 것이나, 마치 신 혹은 신비한 힘에 특별히 감화된 것인 양 숭배를 받게 되었다. 그리하여, 자연계에 있는 강력한 것들, 특히 경외감을 불러 일으키는 나무나 바위 혹은 산, 그리고 설명하기 어려운 기타 자연 현상들이 숭배의 대상이 되었다.

For example, commenting on the beginning of the Shinto religion, the book Religions in Japan says: “Anything which evoked a feeling of awe was revered as being particularly imbued with divine or mysterious power; therefore, the forces of nature, especially awe-inspiring trees, rocks or mountains, and other inexplicable natural phenomena became objects of worship.

jw2019

나는 집을 떠나 의사가 될 결심을 가진 시골 소년으로서 대학에 진학하였다. 그러나 한동안은 깊이 느끼지 못하였지만, 나는 성서 원칙에 깊이 감화를 받아 있었다.

So I left home for college, a country boy determined to be a doctor, strongly influenced by Scriptural principles that I did not really appreciate until several years later.

jw2019

그다음 날에는 열일곱 명이 더 침례를 받았으며, 리그돈이 그들 중에 포함되지는 않았으나 다른 날에도 그는 복음을 전하는 일에 합류했다. 그를 지켜본 사람의 말에 따르면 그는 모임에서 “많은 감화를 받아 눈물을 흘렸다.” 3

Seventeen more people were baptized the next day, and though Rigdon was not among them, within another day he had joined in the preaching and, according to one observer, was “much affected and shedding tears” at the meeting.3

LDS

시몽은 감화원에 끌려갔다.

Simone was sent to a reform school.

jw2019

남자 친구는 감화원에 갇히게 되었거든요.

My boyfriend was held in a [correctional] school.

jw2019

헨리크와 그의 형은 나치의 청소년 감화원에 수용되었습니다.

Henryk and his brother were placed in a Nazi correctional facility for youths.

jw2019

세상에는 학식과 감화력을 가지고, 굳건히 서서 진심을 담아 명확하게 하나님이 살아 계시며 예수가 그리스도이심을 선포할 수 있는, 그리고 그렇게 하려는 남성과 여성의 세대가 필요합니다.23

The world needs a generation of men and women of learning and influence who can and will stand up and in sincerity and without equivocation declare that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ.23

Brinton CH 6 Reaching Decisions

 CHAPTER 6 Reaching Decisions

 

The Quaker movement began as a group held together by no visible bond but united by its own sense of fellowship, a kinship of spirit kept vital by concerned Friends who were continually traveling from one meeting to another. But it was soon found necessary to have some sort of organization dealing with practical matters. For example, there was immediate need of systematic help for persons suffering loss of property through distraint of goods to meet fines. Arrangements had to be made for the validity of marriages without the usual service of an officiating clergyman. The poor were cared for, burials arranged, records kept of births, marriages, sufferings and deaths. There were chil­dren to be educated and traveling Friends, if their own resources were insufficient, needed financial help. Friends often desired to petition King or Parliament. Disorderly persons were sometimes to be dealt with in order "that Truth might be cleared" of mis­understanding by the scandalized public. But the very need for organization gave rise to a serious theoretical problem—how can a free fellowship based on divine guidance from within set up any form of church government providing direction from without?

As early as 1652, William Dewsbury urged Friends to set up general meetings, to be attended by Friends in a limited area to meet immediate needs. His instructions were given forth as "the word of the living God to his Church." Other leaders spoke in similar terms and with the same prophetic authority. But care was taken not to produce an authoritarian code. In 1656 at a meeting of Friends in Balby, Yorkshire, a letter was composed "From the Spirit of Truth to the children of light," giving advice rather than formulating rules on twenty points of behavior. This letter concluded with the well-known sentence:

99.

100.

Dearly beloved Friends, these things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by; but that all, with a measure of the light, which is pure and holy, may be guided: and so in the light walking and abiding, these things may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not in the letter_; for the letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life.'

Additional advices were issued from time to time by various meetings with a similar caution regarding the priority of the Spirit. In 1659 the General Meeting at Skipton for Friends in the North issued a document for guidance in conduct. Here again Friends are urged to stand fast in their liberty,

that no footsteps may be left for those that shall come after, or to walk by example, but that all may be directed and left to the truth, in it to live and walk and by it to be guided, that none may look back at us, nor have an eye behind them, but that all may look forward waiting in the Spirit for the revelation of those glorious things which are to be made manifest to them.²

This letter epitomizes the underlying principle of Quaker church government:

That the power of the God-head may be known in the body, in that perfect freedom which every member bath in Christ Jesus; that none may exercise lordship or dominion over another, nor the person of any be set apart, but as they continue in the power of truth that truth itself in the body may reign, not persons nor forms: and that all such may be honored as stand in the life of the truth wherein is the power not over, but in the body.³

In other words, the meeting is to act as a whole and be gov­erned by Truth, not by persons appointed to rule. If individuals are chosen for some particular service to the meeting, they should be continued in such service only so long as they are guided by the Truth. Thus the basis of Quaker church government was early expressed in a way that eliminated the possibility of indi­vidual authority. Only the authority of the group acting by the dictates of Truth was valid. The supremacy of a majority over a minority was completely dispensed with. There was no voting.

101.

General meetings drawing Friends together in limited areas at periodic intervals developed in the decade from 1650 to 1660. Some of these occasions were simply meetings for worship, others also included sessions for the transaction of corporate affairs. By .1658 general meetings were held yearly with public Friends in attendance from all over England. The support of Friends travel in the ministry to distant places often claimed attention.

When George Fox was released from his three years' imprison­ment at Lancaster and Scarborough in 1666, he found the Quakers suffering severely because of the Conventicle Act which forbade attendance at any assembly for worship other than those of the Established Church. There were also a number of other serious difficulties. Nearly all the leading Friends were in prison. Fanatics, such, as the hysterical women whose adulation of James ..Naylor had earlier led to public scandal, were bringing the move­ment into disrepute. 

The followers of John Perrot were teaching that the essence of religion required no outward frame of refer­ence. This party held that even fixed times for public worship were man-made devices. To counteract such tendencies toward religious anarchism a group of leading Friends issued a letter asserting the authority of a meeting to exclude from its fellow­ship persons who persisted in rejecting its judgment. This was shortly before George Fox's release.⁴ This letter, by definitely subordinating individual guidance to the sense of the meeting as a whole, marked an important step in Quaker development.

Bruised and weakened by his experience in jail and scarcely able to mount his horse, Fox at this critical juncture went about England and Ireland for four years bringing order out of con­fusion by setting up Monthly Meetings as executive units of the Society of Friends. His visit to America in 1671-73 was largely for the same purpose. While there had been some Monthly Meetings before this time, they now became standard procedure and have continued to be basic throughout Quaker history.

A Monthly Meeting is made up of all the Friends in a given district. It sometimes includes more than one meeting for worship. The constituent parts of a Monthly Meeting came to be called Preparative Meetings, their function being to prepare for the Monthly Meeting which made the important decisions. Combinations of neighboring Monthly Meetings are organized into Quar­terly Meetings and the Quarterly Meetings in turn are united in a Yearly Meeting. This system developed gradually.

102. 

At first the^-Yearly Meeting in London consisted exclusively of Friends en­gaged in the ministry. By 1672, and regularly after 1678, it included representatives sent from all the Quarterly Meetings in England. By 1760, the Yearly Meeting was open to all Friends. The evolution of this system in America followed similar lines, except that, owing to the geographical situation, six Yearly Meet­ings emerged in the colonies.

The first Quaker meetings for business (or church government) were made up of men only, but by 1656 women's meetings began-to eganto appear. In 1671 Fox wrote a circular letter urging that they be set up everywhere. Eventually there were Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly Meetings for women. For some years the business before the women's meetings differed from the business before the men's meetings though there was no sense of inferiority. It consisted of matters which were felt to be of peculiar interest to women, such as care of the poor, the sick and the imprisoned. The important Six Weeks Meeting, begun in 1671, which super­vised the affairs of London Quakers was a joint body of men and women. Today all Quaker business meetings except in two or three conservative areas in America are made up of men and women. The assignment of important executive responsibilities to women was a bold step in the seventeenth century. The train­ing which Quaker women received in these meetings as well as in meetings for worship qualified them to become leaders of their sex.

The system of Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly Meetings as it finally developed in England and America suggests the organic principle of the affiliation of cells or small units in a large organ­ism. The Monthly Meeting is the primary cell in the Society of Friends.. Only there does membership exist. Individual Friends have the same responsibilities in the larger group as in the smaller. There is no delegated authority. As Fox writes in a long epistle on church government, "The least member in the Church bath an office and is serviceable and every member bath need one of another" (Ep. 264, 1669).

103.

The larger group does not exist to exert authority over its smaller parts, nor do the smaller parts dominate the larger. Each is both means and end. The larger exists to widen the range of acquaintance and judgment and to carry out undertakings too big for the smaller group. The larger group asks its constituent parts to contribute money to support its enterprises; gives creden­tials and financial aid when necessary to ministers and others traveling long distances; supports the larger schools; appoints committees to deal with a variety of issues and concerns beyond the range of the smaller meetings, such as peace, temperance, race relations, publications, the social order, national legislation and the relief of suffering at home and abroad.

A concern, that is, a strong inward sense that some action should be taken to meet a certain situation, may arise in the mind of any individual. It often develops in the silence in a meeting for worship. The member brings it before the Monthly Meeting which may or may not sympathize with it. If circum­stances require a wider concurrence, the Monthly Meeting may forward the matter to the Quarterly Meeting. The Quarterly Meeting may then act upon it or may send it on to the Yearly Meeting. In this way a concern secures the support of a group large enough and wise enough to carry it out. The power of the individual to accomplish what he feels has been laid upon him is many times multiplied if his concern is taken up by all three, the Monthly Meeting, the Quarterly Meeting and, finally, the Yearly Meeting. In some instances an individual may first present his concern to a Quarterly or Yearly Meeting or to a specialized committee. In this case the reverse process may occur, the con­cern being referred to the Monthly Meeting for action.

The Yearly Meeting issues advices for the guidance of Monthly and Quarterly Meetings and of individual members. It also ad­dresses Queries to constituent meetings in order to ascertain their condition and discover if help is iieeded. Advices and Queries are not orders issued by a superior to an inferior. The Monthly Meetings are the real executive units of the Society.

Early in the eighteenth century selections from the minutes of the Yearly Meetings were gathered in book form under captions alphabetically listed. This compilation came to be called the Book of Discipline.

104.

The manuscript book issued in 1762 by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting is entitled A Collection of Christian and Brotherly Advices Given Forth from Time to Time by the Yearly Meetings of Friends for New Jersey and Pennsylvania. As need arose additions were inserted, each with its appropriate date. This book, abbreviated to contain only active regulations, was printed in 1797. Later the alphabetical system was replaced by a topical arrangement. The Discipline has been reissued and revised from time to time up to the present. It is both a moral guide and a manual of church government. Additions and revi­sions show the evolution of moral consciousness as it became increasingly sensitive to slavery, war, intemperance, racial and class discrimination and other evils.

As an example of this growth of moral sensitivity, we find under the heading "Negroes or Slaves" twenty-four manuscript pages of entries, dated 1688 to 1790, recording each step of the process by which the Society of Friends in America freed itself from holding slaves.* Under "Queries" there are three sets of questions dated 1743, 1755, 1765 respectively. Those dealing with slavery are:

1743. Do Friends observe the former advice of our Yearly Meeting not to encourage the importation of Negroes, nor to buy them after imported?

1755. Are Friends clear of importing or buying Negroes and do they use those well which they are possessed of by inheritance or other­wise, endeavoring to train them up in the principles of the Christian Religion?

1765. The same query as in 1755.

In 1776 the Query was amended as follows:

Are Friends clear of importing, purchasing, disposing of or holding mankind as slaves? And do they use those well who are set free and are necessarily under their care and not in circumstances through nonage or incapacity to minister to their own necessities? And are they careful to educate and encourage them in a religious and virtuous life?

---

* 1698 advice against the importation of Negroes; 1730 advice against buying imported Negroes; 1754 advice against buying any Negroes; 1758 appointment of a committee of five to visit all Friends who hold slaves and persuade them to set their slaves at liberty; 1762 substantial success is re­ported and the committee asks to be released. Quarterly and Monthly Meetings are instructed to deal with Friends who still hold slaves; 1776 the Yearly Meeting declares that Quaker slaveholders who "continue to reject the advice of their brethren" should be disowned by their meetings.   105.-

---

Here are three steps showing increasing sensitiveness to a clearly defined evil. 

1. First, Friends were not to buy imported Negroes; 
2. next, they were not to buy any, though it was assumed that they might inherit them; 
3. finally, they were not to hold them in servitude at all. 

The evolution of the Book of Discipline is a testimony to the power of the Quaker method in educating and sensitizing conscience.

In the same year that the Declaration of Independence stated "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," the Quakers made their own declaration which took these great words at their full value. They did not support their own revolution by violence, but nonetheless they carried it through in a thoroughgoing way.

The perennial problem of the relative rights and responsibilities of the individual and the group was never so clearly solved that it did not give rise to difficulties.

•  The Wilkinson-Story party separated from the main body in England in 1678, principally because it was opposed to any authority exercised by the group over the individual. 
• The separation in Philadelphia which took Place in 1827 was to a large extent the outcome of differences between the more individualistic, and the more authoritarian trends in the Society of Friends.

Yet in a large measure the Quaker form of church government succeeded in securing a reasonable balance between freedom and order. Without some authority over the individual the move­ment would certainly have disintegrated as did the various groups of religious anarchists. Without considerable liberty the Society of Friends would have crystallized into a formal system. The adjustment depended upon group authority over the individual tempered by individual initiative in affecting the judgment of the group.

Among Friends the meeting for the transaction of church business is as distinctly a religious exercise as is the meeting for Worship, but it has a different objective.

106.

The meeting for worship is focused upon the divine-human relationship and the meeting for business is mainly concerned with interhuman co-operation, the two being interdependent. From another point of view, the meeting for worship concerns being while the meeting for busi­ness concerns doing. What is implicit in worship becomes explicit in action. 

The meeting for business should, therefore, be preceded by a period of worship in which the hard shell of egocentricity is dissolved and the group united into a living whole. It is also well to conclude the business meeting with a period of silent devotion. 

George Fox writes to Friends:

Friends, keep your meetings in the power of God, and in his wisdom (by which all things were made) and in the love of God, that by that ye may order all to his glory. And when Friends have finished their business, sit down and continue awhile quietly and wait upon the Lord to feel him. And go not beyond the Power, but keep in the Power by which God Almighty may be felt among you. [Ep. 162, 1658]

Since there is but one Light and one Truth, if the Light of Truth be faithfully followed, unity will result. "The Light itself," says Thomas Story, "is not divided, but one and the same entire, undivided Being continually."⁵ The nearer the members of a group come to this one Light, the nearer they will be to one another, just as the spokes of a wheel approach one another as they near the center. The spirit of worship is essential to that type of business meeting in which the group endeavors to act as a unit. True worship overcomes excessive individuality by pro­ducing a superindividual consciousness. If serious differences of opinion appear, it may come about that by recourse to a period of silence a basis for unity can be discovered. If a high degree of unity is not reached, action is postponed, provided an im­mediate decision is not necessary. For such a meeting the only essential official is a clerk whose business it is to ascertain and record or be responsible for recording the sense of the meeting.

The business before the meeting, presented by the clerk, a committee or an individual, is "spoken to" by those who have opinions or judgment regarding it. When the consideration reaches a stage which indicates that a reasonable degree of unity has been attained, the clerk announces what he believes to be the sense of the meeting. 107

If the meeting agrees with his wording as given or revised, this becomes the judgment of the meeting and is so preserved in the minutes. The degree of unity necessary for a decision depends on the importance of the question and the character and depth of feeling of those who oppose the general trend of opinion.

 On many items of routine business little or no expression is necessary. Even silence may give consent. 

But on important matters care is taken to secure the vocal participation of all who feel able and willing to express themselves. Some problems have been postponed for more than a century awaiting unity. 

An example was the toleration of slavery within the Society of Friends. 

Had a vote been taken as early as 1700 slavery would probably have been voted out, but a substantial minority would not have concurred. The subject was brought up again and again, progress was made slowly until in 1776 the Society was united in refusing membership to persons who held slaves.

An opposing minority, however small, is not disregarded, espe­cially if it contains members whose judgment is highly respected. The weight of a member in determining the decision of the meeting depends on the confidence which the meeting has in the validity of his judgment. On certain subjects some Friends are more reliable than others. On a financial problem the opinion of a single financier might determine the sense of the meeting, although his opinion might carry less weight on some other subjects. 

If an individual lays a concern before the meeting, much depends on the degree to which the concern has gripped him. If he feels it deeply and perhaps brings it up again and again in spite of opposition, the meeting may finally acquiesce even though some hesitation is still felt by some.

If a serious difference of opinion exists on a subject which cannot be postponed, decision may be left to a small committee. Not infrequently the minority withdraw their opposition in order that the meeting may come to a decision. It is, however, sur­prising how often real unity is reached, even though the dis­cussion in its initial stages shows a wide variety of opinions, or a pronounced cleavage arising from strongly held convictions. As the consideration proceeds, unity gradually emerges and is finally reached.

108              

The decision may be along lines not even thought of at the beginning. This procedure takes more time and patience than the voting method, but the results are generally more satisfactory to all concerned.

The clerk is theoretically a recording officer, but in practice he must frequently assume the duties of a presiding officer. He must be sensitive to all trends of opinion, including those not well expressed. When two or more persons rise at once, he must recognize one as having the floor. He must determine the appro­priate amount of time to be devoted to each item on the agenda in view of the total business before the meeting. He must decide on how much expression he can safely base his minute. He is responsible for keeping one subject at a time before the meeting. He may request talkative members to limit their remarks and silent members to express themselves. All this appears to lay a heavy burden upon the clerk, but in any contingency he may derive help from any member. Theoretically, it is the meeting as a whole, rather than the clerk, that exercises authority, but the clerk may occasionally find himself in a position in which some exercise of authority is unavoidable.

If this Quaker method of arriving at unity does not succeed, the difficulty is generally due to some members who have not achieved the right attitude of mind and heart. Dogmatic persons who speak with an air of finality, or assume the tone of a debater determined to win, may be a serious hiudrance. Eloquence which appeals to emotion is out of place. Those who come to the meet­ing not so much to discover Truth as to win acceptance of their opinions may find that their views carry little weight. Opinions should always be expressed humbly and tentatively in the realiza­tion that no one person sees the whole truth and that the whole meeting can see more of Truth than can any part of it. When B speaks following A, he takes into consideration A's opinion. C follows with a statement which would probably have been differ­ent had A and B not spoken. Every speaker credits every other sincere speaker with at least some insight. Finally, a statement is made which receives the approval of all. A number of persons say "I approve," "I agree" or some equivalent. 109.

This method is similar to some other consensus methods; for instance, those suggested by M. P. Follett in The New State or Frank Walser in The Art of Conference. It differs radically in being religious. 

George Fox writes, "Friends are not to meet like a company of people about town or parish business, neither in their men's or women's meetings, but to wait upon the Lord" (Ep. 313, 1674). Quakers have used this method with a large degree of success for three centuries because it has met the religious test, being based on the Light Within producing unity. As the Light is God in His capacity as Creator, Unity in Him creates Unity in the group. When the method has not succeeded, as in the divisions during the nineteenth century, spiritual life was low and Friends too impatient to wait for unity to develop.

At its best, the Quaker method does not result in a compromise. A compromise is not likely to satisfy anyone completely. The objective of the Quaker method is to discover Truth which will satisfy everyone more fully than did any position previously held. 

Each and all can then say, "That is what I really wanted, but I did not realize it." To discover what we really want as compared to what at first we think we want, we must go below the surface of self-centered desires to the deeper level where the real Self resides. The deepest Self of all is that Self which we share with all others. This is the one Vine of which we all are branches, the Life of God pn which our own individual lives are based. To will what God wills is, therefore, to will what we ourselves really want.

The voting method is a mechanical process whereby the larger force is pitted against the smaller one over which it prevails, possibly without even an attempt to adjust to it. The Quaker method produces synthesis in which each part makes some ad­justment to the whole. In general, voting creates nothing new, one party is simply more numerous than the other. The organic method may actually produce by a process of cross-fertilization something which was not there at the beginning. As in all life, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. A new creation emerges through the life or soul of the whole which was not completely present in any of the parts. As the meeting becomes a Unit, it learns to think as a unit. This is an achievement. Every partial, fragmentary view contributes to the total view.

110

The voting method is usually quicker. Organic growth is a slow process, but that which has life is adaptable, while mechanisms tend to be rigid. In the voting method when the vote is taken, each individual has one or a fixed number of votes, irrespective of his interest or knowledge, while in the Quaker method, each individual possesses or should possess weight proportional to his interest and his knowledge of the particular subject before the meeting.

It might appear that, because the Quaker meeting must wait for unity, this method would tend toward conservatism. This is sometimes the case, but, in general, Quaker pioneering in social reforms shows that conservatism has not generally prevailed. The first response of many people to a new proposition is nega­tive; hence the voting method which is the quickest may itself produce a negative response. Minorities tend to be more radical than majorities. If decision is postponed in the effort to secure unity, time is given for an advanced minority to convince the majority. In the end a more novel decision may result.

A minor consideration is that of size. The Quaker method works better in small than in large groups. This is true both of the meeting for worship and of the meeting for business. It is easier to achieve unity in an intimate group the members of which are well acquainted with one another than in a large group where there is bound to be more diversity. But experience shows that even in large groups, especially if they contain some able, "well seasoned Friends," this method can be employed suc­cessfully. Biologists believe that evolution can take place best in groups of a moderate size. If the group is too small, there are not enough variations to insure progress. If the group is too large, variations are swamped by the impact of the mass.

Therefore, if a Monthly Meeting becomes overgrown, it should divide. Such cell-division is the organic method of growth which has been characteristic in the Society of Friends from the begin­ning. Division may also be occasioned by the scattering due to economic reasons. Members, especially young people, may move to localities where there is no Friends meeting. Perhaps they will start meetings in their homes. Such a meeting may begin in a very small way, but as like-minded persons find out about it and isolated Friends ralize that such a project has been undertaken, the meeting will probably grow.

                                    111.

This simple method of growth gives Friends a strategic advantage. Religious sects which require professional pastors and special apparatus cannot afford to begin so informally. But Friends can start a meeting anywhere and under the simplest conditions with as few as two members. In colonial days, Friends spread rapidly in many pioneer commu­nities because a Friends meeting could so readily be held in a home.

The Quaker method is likely to be successful in proportion as the members are acquainted with one another; better still if real affection exists among them. When differences and factions arose in the Corinthian Church its members wrote to ask Paul's advice. After making several concrete suggestions, he goes on to say in the famous 13th Chapter of his letter that love is really the only solution. In a similar situation John speaks in his first letter of love as essential. "We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren" (I John 3:14).

For "love" Paul and John use the Greek word agape instead of the more usual Greek word eros. Agape means unselfish love which seeks to be possessed rather than to possess. Paul said, "agape does not insist on its own way" (I Cor. 13:5). This is the highest binding force within a religious group. It signifies the Spirit which draws men together and to God without at the same time resulting in the domination of one will by another. It is love that brings into harmony the apparently contradictory concepts of unity and freedom.

Agape is closely akin to friendship, a uniting force which at the same time respects individuality and freedom. In the Gospel of John Christ identifies love of this type with friendship when he says, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Since the word "love" has so many different meanings, it was more appropriate that the Quakers should call themselves a Society of Friends than, as one contemporary group did, a Family of Love. It may be that the appellation "Friends," which has become so familiar that its origin is seldom inquired into, came from the saying of Jesus, "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends" (John 15:13).

112.

In the early minutes of the meetings in Pennsylvania the Quakers call themselves "The Friends of God."

The Society of Friends in choosing their name gave expression to the feeling that their religion was based on friendship in distinction from a code of duty appropriate to servants whose obligation is to yield obedience. 

Here the early Friends made a religious emphasis different from the Protestants of their time. The Puritans held that man's hope of salvation depended on obedience to commands set down for all time in the sacred book. These commands were thought of as instructions which a servant receives "who knows not what his lord does" and must needs obey, whether he understands or not. But if God's will is revealed not so much by a law from without as by the Light of Truth which produces action inspired from within, the relation is one of friendship and freedom based on understanding. There is no external domination. Hence arises the difference between the Puritan concept of duty with its inner tension and compulsion and the Quaker concept of conscience with its sense of freedom and peace. A servant may serve because of a sense of duty, but a friend helps his friend for a reason other than duty... Those who render God service from a sense of duty may hear the divine voice saying, "So you also, when you have done all that is com­manded you, say 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty" (Luke 17:10).

In addition to the religion of friendship and the religion of obedience, there is another type of religion which extols the kind of love which unifies through possession. Such love is described by many of the great Christian mystics. It is the Spiritual Mar­riage, the very top of the mystical ladder, the allegorical inter­pretation of the Song of Songs. 

In emotional content it is akin to the marriage of husband and wife. Unity with God results in so complete a submergence of the individual that individuality is lost, just as a drop of water falls into the ocean and is lost. In emphasizing this experience, many devotional writings of the saints strike a note foreign alike to Quaker and Protestant. Unity through obedience, unity through emotion and unity through friendship, all are deep aspects of human experience. The Quaker emphasis allows greater significance to individuality and freedom. 113.

 

The Society of Friends endeavors to maintain an organization which does not destroy freedom. Freedom appears in an act of concurrence performed not from any sense of inner or outer compulsion but in following Truth for the love of it. The Light Within being both Truth and Love, draws people together from within. It exerts no outside pressure. It respects the unique personality of each individual. The Ranters, Antinomians and others with anarchistic leanings, some of whom early left the Society of Friends because they felt that any form of organization would limit their freedom to follow the Light of Truth wherever it might lead, did not realize that the Light was Love as well as Truth. To love the truth is to follow that which draws human­ity together into a unity of friendship or nonpossessive love, the highest condition in the universe, the very Presence of God Him­self. William Penn wrote in his Maxims, "Nor can spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle, the Root and Record of their Friendship."

This problem of freedom within an organized group was faced by the early Christians. After Paul had founded the Galatian Church, certain persons came there who told the Galatian Christians that in order to be Christians they must carry out in full the law of Moses. When Paul heard of this he wrote with more fervor than in any of his other letters that have come down to us, showing that Christianity is not the old law, neither is it a new law. It is freedom from law. At first this may appear to be pure anarchy. But Paul was not speaking of unlimited liberty for self-indulgence (Gal. 5:13). With the external restraint of law, he contrasts internal guidance based on the love of God. This is pure freedom because, through union with God, man wills what God wills and God is free. Man, therefore, may share in God's freedom. Paul speaks in terms of the Christ Within. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). This is true also of the Galatian converts, "As many of you as Were baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal 3:27). And so he exclaims with joy and wonder, "Christ has set us free; stand fast, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery."

114.            

The law is for children and slaves but "because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts" (Gal 4:6).

This is not an easy doctrine. It is not surprising that the Christian Church has been slow to understand Paul or has not striven to understand him. The Church was eventually presided over by an ecclesiastical hierarchy which left little opportunity for liberty of the Spirit. Paul admits the need of regulations to govern the immature who have not yet won their freedom in Christ (Gal. 4:1-3). But the Church eventually allowed little freedom except at the top. Early Protestantism with its doctrine of depravity required an external rule and the power of external grace in place of an internal governing Spirit. The Scripture furnished a code interpreted by creeds that was as binding as the law of Moses. The Quakers stand alone in having attempted a form of church government which, however it may have de­veloped in practice, allowed in theory for the liberty of those who are led by the Spirit. Like Paul they recognized the need of precepts for the spiritually immature such as children in school, but even the Quaker schools were so devised that com­pulsion was minimized.

The attainment of unity within the meeting is not the same as the attainment of uniformity. Unity is spiritual, uniformity mechanical. Friends have never required of their members assent to a religious or social creed, though not infrequently a body of Friends has issued a statement expressing their religious or social views at a particular time. There is, however, always the reserva­tion that the Spirit of Truth may lead to further insight. Differ­ences within the group on the particular application of general principles are tolerated, provided they are being actively ex­plored in a spirit of friendship and in a continued search for truth. Such differences are often of great value in helping new aspects of truth to emerge.

The discovery of truth through differences of opinion is well illustrated in the history of science. "A clash of doctrines is not a disaster—it is an opportunity," says Whitehead." As an illustration he shows how disagreement in the results of experi­ments on the atomic weight of some elements led to the dis­covery that the same element may assume two or more distinct forms or isotopes. 115.

 Of two different opinions we can say as Christ said in the parable, 

• "Let both grow together until the harvest." 
• The harvest is the fuller discovery of truth which in­cludes both. 

Thus, as Whitehead shows, Galileo said that the earth moves and the sun is fixed. The Inquisition maintained that the earth is fixed and the sun moves. The modern theory of relativity includes both .of these earlier theories. For this harvest it is sometimes necessary to wait a long time.

But differences cease to have value when fundamental princi­ples are ignored. 

In science a difference between one theory which is based on the scientific method and another theory based on a different method such as magic or astrology would not be productive of new scientific truth. 

In similar fashion a difference between two points of view, one arrived at by free search and another arrived at by blind agreement with an authoritarian pronouncement, would not be productive of new truth.

 To be creative the authoritative edict must be subjected to a discriminating inquiry which might alter it. If viewed as fixed it is dead and unproductive.

In Quakerism as in science the new can only arise out of the old. 

In science a creativity which did not take past discoveries into consideration would generally be unproductive of new truth. 

Similarly, the Quaker method will not progress without acknowl­edgment of all the great truths which have been discovered in the past. 

The meeting should hesitate to accept any suggestion which runs counter to the accumulated wisdom of the saints and prophets who have gone before.

 When it seeks to arrive at a decision which is an expression of truth, it must consider as part of itself the invisible company of all those who discovered truth. Their insight must be given due weight in arriving at a decision. 

In religion as in science we do not start from nothing. 

The doctrine of the Light Within does not mean that an indi­vidual must depend only on his own measure of Light. 

As in science we do not expect everyone to be a Newton or a Darwin, so in religion we do not expect everyone to be a Paul or a Fox. 

The religious genius, like the scientific genius, must be allowed to give to those who are not geniuses the full measure of guidance.

It must be borne in mind that a synthesis of opinion achieved within a group is not good simply because it is a synthesis.

116.

Unity may occur on a high level or a low level. 

A group of bandits may achieve consensus in carrying out their schemes. A nation may be at one in deciding to wage aggressive war. A mob may achieve a united opinion at a lower level than the code of conduct of the individuals who compose it. 

The clue to this problem is the concept of the Light as that which leads up to God. If the proper method is followed, the Light which unifies the group will be found to be an elevating Principle. 

As Truth is sought through prayer, worship and an earnest effort to purge all that is self-centered and concerned with possessive desires, the group will rise through deliberation to a higher level than that on which it started. 

This occurs when there is real inter­dependence between the meeting for worship and the meeting for business. "Agreeing Upward" is a chapter heading in the works of the Chinese philosopher, Motze. It is toward this agree­ing upward that a meeting should aspire. 묵자 상동

The organic method of arriving at decisions by consensus ap­pears at the primitive preindividual level as well as at the ad­vanced postindividual level. In the first case self-centeredness has not yet developed; in the second case it has been overcome. Of the Solomon Islanders, W. H. R. Rivers writes that "in the councils of such peoples there is no voting or other means of taking the opinion of the body."⁷ Quakers traveling in America in colonial times sometimes visited the Indian councils and re­marked that their method of coming to decisions was like that of a Quaker business meeting. John Richardson while visiting William Penn observed that the Indians "did not speak two at a time nor interfere in the least with one another." He says, "My spirit was very easy with them," and continues, "I did not feel that power of darkness to oppress me as I had done in many places among the people called Christians."⁸ It was also observed that in these coun­cils the women participated as well as the men. Thomas Chalkley writes that in traveling beyond the Susquehanna in 1706 he asked permission of the Indians to hold a religious meeting, upon which they called a council in which they were very grave and spoke one after another without any heat or jarring and some of the most esteemed of their women do sometimes speak in their councils.

117.

Our interpreter told me that they had not done anything for many years without the counsel of an ancient, grave woman, who, I observed, spoke much in their council.⁹

Of a similar council Catherine Phillips notes:

Several of their women sat in this conference who for fixed solidity appeared to me like Roman matrons.'°

Such councils where sex equality is maintained and voting unknown indicate that the organic method is in accord with human nature as it evolved out of primitive, matriarchal con­ditions. The more mechanical method of voting becomes natural in a later stage of development when society has become more individualistic. But there is a still further stage when self-con­scious individualization is surpassed but not eliminated, in a divine-human community so inspired by the one Spirit that it can act as a unit. The third stage resembles the first but it is higher because those who are in it have passed through the intermediary condition and become individuals. In the first stage there is unity; in the second, individuality; in the third, the synthesis of unity and individuality which makes possible participation in group life with freedom.