2020/01/04

The Kabarak Call for Peace and Ecojustice – Friends World Committee for Consultation



The Kabarak Call for Peace and Ecojustice – Friends World Committee for Consultation



The Kabarak Call for Peace and Ecojustice
24 April 2012


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The Kabarak Call for Peace and Ecojustice was approved on 24 April 2012 at the Sixth World Conference Friends, held at Kabarak University near Nakuru, Kenya. It is the culmination of the FWCC World Consultation on Global Change which was held in 2010 and 2011. It is being circulated with the Conference Epistle.

In past times God’s Creation restored itself. Now humanity dominates, our growing population consuming more resources than nature can replace. We must change, we must become careful stewards of all life. Earthcare unites traditional Quaker testimonies: peace, equality, simplicity, love, integrity, and justice. Jesus said, “As you have done unto the least… you have done unto me”. We are called to work for the peaceable Kingdom of God on the whole earth, in right sharing with all peoples. However few our numbers, we are called to be the salt that flavours and preserves, to be a light in the darkness of greed and destruction.

We have heard of the disappearing snows of Kilimanjaro and glaciers of Bolivia, from which come life-giving waters. We have heard appeals from peoples of the Arctic, Asia and Pacific. We have heard of forests cut down, seasons disrupted, wildlife dying, of land hunger in Africa, of new diseases, droughts, floods, fires, famine and desperate migrations – this climatic chaos is now worsening. There are wars and rumors of war, job loss, inequality and violence. We fear our neighbors. We waste our children’s heritage.

All of these are driven by our dominant economic systems – by greed not need, by worship of the market, by Mammon and Caesar.

Is this how Jesus showed us to live?
We are called to see what love can do: to love our neighbor as ourselves, to aid the widow and orphan, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, to appeal to consciences and bind the wounds.
We are called to teach our children right relationship, to live in harmony with each other and all living beings in the earth, waters and sky of our Creator, who asks, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world?” (Job 38:4)
We are called to do justice to all and walk humbly with our God, to cooperate lovingly with all who share our hopes for the future of the earth.
We are called to be patterns and examples in a 21st century campaign for peace and ecojustice, as difficult and decisive as the 18th and 19th century drive to abolish slavery.

We dedicate ourselves to let the living waters flow through us – where we live, regionally,and in wider world fellowship. We dedicate ourselves to building the peace that passeth all understanding, to the repair of the world, opening our lives to the Light to guide us in each small step.

Bwana asifiwe. A pu Dios Awqui. Gracias Jesús. Jubilé. Salaam aleikum. Migwetch.Tikkun olam. Alleluia!Post navigation
Facing the challenge of climate change: a shared statement by Quaker groups










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Kinds of Friends – Friends World Committee for Consultation



Kinds of Friends – Friends World Committee for Consultation






Friends World Committee for Consultation

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Kinds of Friends




The Religious Society of Friends is a Christian body formed by George Fox and his followers in the mid-17th century in England. It spread rapidly through the British Isles, Europe and North America.

In the 19th century in North America, Friends split into separate factions, generally over issues of authority and form of worship. While some Friends viewed the Bible as the inalienable Word of God, others believed that Scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit guides faithful readers in interpreting the Scriptures. Most Friends, today, fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum.



Quaker involvement in business and worldly civil society led to other splits. For instance, Conservative groups originated from the concern that the witness of early Friends—who famously lived in the world, but were not of the world—was diluted and diverted from its purpose. Many Conservatives have felt that without the discipline to retain some separation from the world, Quakerism risks having its silent form of worship mistaken for complicity in the injustice of the world.

These questions continue to live as part of Quaker conversation and reflection, within and between meetings and churches. FWCC is the organization that provides the forum for Friends of different worship traditions and cultures to interact with one another.

Profiles of Various “Flavours”

The following descriptions are of some of the main Quaker traditions. They have been composed from contributions by various Yearly Meetings and by the umbrella organisation, Friends United Meeting.

Programmed tradition: Friends United Meeting

Friends United Meeting External link (FUM) grows out of the evangelical expression of the Quaker Movement. We embrace both pastoral and unprogrammed Friends Meetings and are deeply influenced by the fact that our largest population centre is in eastern Africa, followed by the United States of America. We have 27 member yearly meetings.

FUM is a Christian movement. We anticipate that continuing revelation will be consistent with the Scriptures, because the Holy Spirit is the source of both. Where worship centres on Christ and involves a listening spirituality, we believe those involved will begin to reflect the character of Jesus—bearing testimony to peace, simplicity, equality, moral purity, and integrity. The global community of the Church is an important part of this testimony. Knowing that God has already placed a witness (the Light of Christ within everyone), it is our joy to share the love of God and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit with others.

FUM is also a cooperative programme of our member yearly meetings. Our purpose is “to energize and equip Friends through the power of the Holy Spirit to gather people into fellowships where Jesus Christ is known, loved and obeyed as Teacher and Lord.” Our priorities are evangelism, global partnership, leadership training and communication.

Evangelical Friends in North America: From Northwest Yearly Meeting

Evangelical Friends in North America are a collection of five Yearly Meetings mostly comprised of programmed and semi-programmed churches. These Friends emphasize the divinity of Jesus Christ and focus on encouraging people to personally know and follow Christ in complete obedience to the teachings found in Scripture and to the leading of God’s Spirit.

Across these five Yearly Meetings, some emphasize historic Friends testimonies more than others. Those that do see the work of peacemaking, social justice, simplicity, etc., as central to their Christian faith. All are active in local outreach/evangelism and cross-cultural mission efforts. Most EFCI (Evangelical Friends Church International) External link local churches are served by men or women in pastoral ministry—some full-time, others bi-vocationally, and a few as volunteers.

Worship in the Conservative tradition: Ohio Yearly Meeting

The personal, immediate, continuing experience of Jesus Christ speaking to their specific condition is the beginning and end of Ohio Yearly Meeting External link Friends’ discipline and life. The hour of worship is His to program as He sees it: our task—to respond in worship—does not depend on any one appointed person, but on Christ’s loving ministry in our midst. We gather in awed expectation for Christ to speak to our corporate condition, and His Spirit, in the silence or through free gospel ministry and anointed prayer, inspires and guides us as His body, not just as so many individuals. We believe that as we individually and communally look humbly to Him, our spirits will be washed, prepared and fed in a measure proportional to our obedience.
Conservative Friends believe that Jesus Christ is the Word of God. Conservative Friends believe and experience that this Living Word is to be sought and experienced within us.
Conservative Friends believe that the Scriptures were inspired by the Word and are to be read, considered and used in the service of that Life and Power that brought them forth.
Conservative Friends practice waiting worship in which we gather together to wait upon and hear the Word of God, responding to it when called upon in vocal ministry and prayer.
Conservative Friends seek to live their lives in relationship with God, in which we yield ourselves to Him in obedience. In this relationship we are to love God and others about us.

Unprogrammed or Liberal Friends

From Philadelphia Yearly Meeting:

The Light Within is the fundamental and immediate experience for Friends. It is that which guides each of us in our everyday lives and brings us together as a community of faith. It is, most importantly, our direct and unmediated experience of the Divine. Friends have used many different terms or phrases to designate the source and inner certainty of our faith—a faith which we have gained by direct experience . . . George Fox refers in his Journal to “that Inward Light, Spirit, and Grace by which all might know their salvation” and to “that Divine Spirit which would lead them into all truth.” He wrote: “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition” and encouraged Friends “to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one.” Many Friends interpret “that of God” as another designation for the Light Within.

Our worship is the search for communion with God and the offering of ourselves—body and soul—for the doing of God’s will. The sense of worship can be experienced in the awe we feel in the silence of a meeting for worship or in the awareness of our profound connectedness to nature and its power. In worship we know repentance and forgiveness in the acknowledgment of God as the ultimate source of our being and the serenity of accepting God’s will.

Visit Friends General Conference External link for more on unprogrammed Friends.

World Distribution of Friends by “Flavour”
Programmed Friends

There are Programmed friends in Belize, Cuba, El Salvador, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, and USA.

Evangelical Friends

There are Evangelical Friends in Bolivia, Burundi, Cambodia, Congo, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Mexico, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Rwanda, Taiwan and USA.
Conservative Friends

There are Conservative Friends in the USA, United Kingdom, and Greece.

Unprogrammed Friends

There are Unprogrammed Friends in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Congo, Costa Rica, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Kenya, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Palestine, Russia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA
Links to Other Descriptions of Friends
Friends United Meeting External link
Evangelical Friends Church International External link
Friends General Conference (unprogrammed) External link
Conservative Friends External link
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Friends World Committee for Consultation - Wikipedia

Friends World Committee for Consultation - Wikipedia



Friends World Committee for Consultation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) is a Quaker organisation that works to communicate between all parts of Quakerism. FWCC's world headquarters is in London.[1] It has General Consultative NGO status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations[2] since 2002.[3] FWCC shares responsibility for the Quaker UN Office in Geneva and New York City[4] with the American Friends Service Committee[5] and Britain Yearly Meeting.[6]
FWCC was set up at the 1937 Second World Conference of Friends in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, US,
"to act in a consultative capacity to promote better understanding among Friends the world over, particularly by the encouragement of joint conferences and intervisitation, the collection and circulation of information about Quaker literature and other activities directed towards that end."[7]
Between representativw meetings, governance is carried out by a Central Executive Committee of 17 members from around the world, which meets annually in a different part of the world.[8] The current General Secretary is Gretchen Castle, who is also Chairperson for the Conference of Secretaries of World Christian Communions, the first woman to hold this office.

Structure[edit]

FWCC General Secretary Gretchen Castle with Pope Francis.
FWCC has four sections in addition to the world office in London:[9]

Africa Section[edit]

Africa Section represents Friends throughout the continent of Africa. Most African Friends are from the evangelical and programmed traditions. However, a significant minority are from the unprogrammed tradition. South Africa Yearly Meeting is principally an unprogrammed Yearly Meeting and there are unprogrammed Meetings elsewhere in Africa, notably in Kenya. Africa Section is numerically the most numerous of the Sections and the administrative headquarters are in Nairobi, Kenya. The 2012 Friends World Conference was held in Kenya.

Asia West Pacific Section[edit]

Asia West Pacific Section (AWPS) is geographically the largest FWCC Section stretching from Japan in the north to New Zealand and Australia in the south and from the Philippines in the east to India in the west. Asia West Pacific Section is growing significantly and recently welcomed into Membership the Philippine Evangelical Friends Church, a Filipino programmed and evangelical Friends Meeting; Marble Rock Friends and Mahoba Yearly Meeting in India. Some AWPS Friends Meetings are numerically small, e.g. those in Korea and Hong Kong but nonetheless give generously to Friends work internationally and contribute a lot to the life of Friends. Other Friends Meetings in the Section are relatively large with several thousand Friends. The geographical area of the AWPS region includes numerically large Friends Meetings of the evangelical programmed tradition which have not as yet affiliated with FWCC, although friendly relations are maintained locally.

Europe and Middle East Section[edit]

Europe and Middle East Section (EMES) is numerically the smallest of the Quaker Sections but historically the oldest and is growing in former Eastern Bloc countries, though declining in so-called Western Europe countries. EMES includes Britain Yearly Meeting, the mother Meeting of Friends, being the heir to the former London Yearly Meeting. Britain Yearly Meeting's "Faith and Practice" or book of discipline is used by many Friends around the world as a guide to Friends' practices and procedures. Britain Yearly Meeting is the largest Meeting in the Section with approximately 16,000 Members, followed by Ireland Yearly Meeting with around 1,000 Members. Other Yearly Meetings in Europe are small, in some cases smaller than Monthly Meetings in Asia but retain the name and form of Yearly Meetings for historical reasons.
Friends have a long-standing presence in the Middle East and the Palestine, dating back to Ottoman times. For example, Friends School, Ramallah, is a noted educational centre and Friends are active in attempts to build peace at the grass roots in this troubled area. Britain Yearly Meeting's Quaker Peace and Social Witness (QPSW) is one of the significant international Friends agencies. The FWCC Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in Geneva is partly supported by Britain Yearly Meeting. Friends presence at the United Nations has engaged and continues to engage in much quiet diplomacy to reduce violence and build peace around the world. Friends House in Geneva is a quiet haven in a busy international city and hosts Geneva Meeting.

Section of the Americas[edit]

Section of the Americas is numerically the second largest section and includes Friends from all Friends traditions in both North and South America as well as in the Caribbean and Central America. Section of the Americas is officially bi-lingual in Spanish and English, though Canada Yearly Meeting also operates in both English and French. FWCC's other QUNO branch is located adjacent to the New York UN Building and is closely connected with the quasi-Quaker organisation American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). AFSC was founded by Friends and still has a substantially Friends Board of Trustees, however, only the Director of AFSC is required to be a Friend and the vast majority of AFSC staff, including senior staff, are not Friends and are not familiar with Friends worship or testimonies leading to some Friends' Meetings distancing themselves from AFSC and its activities. In 1947 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Friends for 300 years of work for peace and received on behalf of Friends by AFSC and its London counterpart, the Friends Service Committee, now known as Quaker Peace and Social Witness. Approximately 160,000 Friends live in the USA and some 300,000 live in Latin America. US Friends are often relatively affluent whereas many Latin American Friends come from relatively impoverished and oppressed indigenous communities. As in Asia and Africa, in Latin America, Friends are a growing church. Section of the Americas Friends have a long history dating back to the mid-17th Century. Friends founded or helped found a number of the US States, notably Pennsylvania, named after distinguished 17th Century English Friend, William Penn; Rhode Island; New Jersey and Delaware all had substantial Friends' contributions in their founding. William Penn's constitutional documents for Pennsylvania formed an important and influential source for the later United States Constitution.[10] In the early colonial period Friends were persecuted in Massachusetts and New York. Friends also had a substantial impact in the early days of colonisation of the Caribbean, for example in the 17th century and early 18th century 25% of the population of Barbados was Friends. The history of suffering is a uniting factor with Latin American Friends, many of whom live in difficult circumstances and find living the transformative Peace Testimony a daily commitment.
It is difficult to speak about American Friends as a whole because they represent such a broad and diverse range of Friends traditions, however, it is a tribute to their commitment to Friends beliefs that they respect each other and work together.

FWCC triennials, conferences and international representatives meetings[edit]

Friends at the 2016 FWCC Plenary Meeting in Pisac, Peru.
The first World Conference of Friends was held in the U.K. in 1920 and the second, at which FWCC was founded, took place in Pennsylvania in 1937. The third was held in Oxford, U.K. in 1952 and the fourth in Greensboro, North Carolina, U.S.A. in 1967. In 1991, the Fifth World Conference was held on three sites in The Netherlands, Honduras and Kenya. The sixth World Conference was held near Nakuru in Kenya in 2012.
Between the World Conferences, Triennial meetings of representatives were held up to 2007, when it was decided that there should be longer gaps between these meetings, in part due to environmental concerns.
In future Plenary Meetings will be held every six to eight years and called International Representatives Meetings. The first of these was held in Peru in January 2016, and the next is planned for South Africa in 2023.[11]

LocationDateTheme
Mexico1985Profundizar Más = Digging deeper.[12]
New Mexico, USAAugust 1994On being publishers of truth [13]
Birmingham, EnglandJuly 1997Answering the love of God : living our testimonies.[14]
New Hampshire, USAJuly 2000“Friends: A People Called to Listen, Gathered to Seek, Sent Forth to Serve”
Aotearoa/New ZealandJanuary 2004“Being Faithful Witnesses: Serving God in a Changing World”.
Dublin, Ireland11–19 August 2007“Finding the Prophetic Voice for our Time”.[15]
Nakuru, Kenya17–25 April 2012“Being salt and Light: Friends living the Kingdom of God in a broken world”.[16]
Pisac, Peru19–27 January 2016“Living the Transformation: Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the Children of God”.[17]
South Africa2023TBC

References[edit]

  1. ^ "FWCC World office homepage". Fwccworld.org. 14 January 2011. Retrieved 27 September 2011.
  2. ^ "ECOSOC database of NGOs". Un.org. Retrieved 27 September 2011.
  3. ^ "United Nations Civil Society Participation (iCSO) – Friends World Committee for Consultation". esango.un.org. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
  4. ^ "QUNO website". Quno.org. 14 February 2011. Retrieved 27 September 2011.
  5. ^ QUNO Governance in New York Archived 16 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ "QUNO Governance in Geneva". Quno.org. Archived from the original on 26 September 2011. Retrieved 27 September 2011.
  7. ^ "WIDER QUAKER WORLD | Ottawa Monthly Meeting". ottawa.quaker.ca. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  8. ^ "FWCC Governance".
  9. ^ "Contact | Friends World Committee for Consultation". www.fwccafrica.org. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
  10. ^ "Frame Of Government Of Pennsylvania". Avalon Project.org. Retrieved 11 April 2011.
  11. ^ "Website for World Plenary Meeting 2016". Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  12. ^ Profundizar Más : ensayos para ayudar a los Amigos, y a las Juntas de los Amigos, a prepararse para la 16a asamblea Trienal del Comité Consultivo Mundial de los Amigos = Digging deeper : papers to assist Friends and Meetings prepare for the 16th Triennial Meeting of the FWCC]]. – Mexico : Friends World Committee for Consultation, 1985.
  13. ^ On being publishers of truth : a discussion guide in preparation for the 18th Triennial Meeting of FWCC ... 1994 / prepared by Gordon M. Browne Jr. and Heather Moir. – London : Friends World Committee for Consultation, 1994
  14. ^ Answering the love of God : living our testimonies : [documents, etc. from the] 19th Triennial Meeting, Friends World Committee for Consultation, Westhill College, Birmingham, England, 23–31 July 1997
  15. ^ Website for Triennial 2007 Archived 4 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine and official Blog.
  16. ^ "Welcome to the World Conference website | World Conference of Friends 2012". Saltandlight2012.org. 25 April 2012. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  17. ^ "Website for World Plenary Meeting 2016". Retrieved 10 February 2016.

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