The Joy and Challenge of Books of Faith and Practice
Jan Hoffman
At the outset I must confess a passion for Quaker Books of Discipline or Faith and Practices and have read about 30 of them. They come in all sizes and formats -- from North Carolina (Conservative) Yearly Meeting's slim 39 pages to Britain Yearly Meeting's 667 pages, and from large hardbound volumes to bound or stapled paperbacks to loose leaf pages. Some have extensive sections of quotes from the experience of individual Quakers; others have some quotes sprinkled about in chapters or used as chapter headings, but nothing extensive. All have queries, but not all have advices. All of the Yearly Meetings belonging only to Friends United Meeting and those affiliated with Evangelical Friends International (11 of them) contain the entire 1887 Richmond Declaration of Faith. One Yearly Meeting currently uses the 9th revision of its Faith and Practice (its first was approved in 1708). Another approved its very first Faith and Practice in 1990, while three other Yearly Meetings are in the process of creating their first Faith and Practice, and still others are considering revisions of their current Faith and Practices . So the variety of form and content certainly show that there is no one standard for Faith and Practices — all Friends have diverged from the early Books of Discipline which were composed of actual extracts from yearly meeting minutes, grouped by topic. In each Yearly Meeting, I feel the Faith and Practice is an outgrowth of the history, culture, and needs of that particular Yearly Meeting.
What gives me such joy in reading them? First, the sense of being part of a very large family. In every one of the Faith and Practices I recognize familiar words and familiar queries and feel solidarity with that Yearly Meeting. Also in every one (including my own) I find words with which I disagree, yet what rises in me is a sense of spiritual sharing within the family.
Second, it deepens my own faith and puts it in a larger context. One of the abiding realities among Friends is the tension between individual and corporate perceptions of truth. At times their interaction has led to deeper spiritual life and greater faithfulness; at others, to distress and division. I find reading books of Faith and Practice a useful means of exploring this tension. It helps me clarify my own truth and its relationship to the corporate truth approved by a yearly meeting for publication.
Third, I love puzzles, and so I love trying to speculate on the character of a Yearly Meeting through reading its Faith and Practice. Traditionally Quakers have held that faith is based on experience, and that we should speak only of what we have experienced. Thus I know that what is revealed in a given Faith and Practice will have grown out of the particular experience of Friends in that Yearly Meeting and I like to speculate on the experience which led to certain contents. The Faith and Practice of Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association (1990) contains "Special Queries for Prospective Monthly Meetings" as well as a Basic Reading List (and two further blank pages labeled "Additional Titles"). So I infer that this is a Yearly Meeting with many new seekers and quite a number of worship groups. The Yearly Meeting clearly seeks to nurture these by giving specific information about Quaker ways and through queries inviting reflection not only on the general spiritual state of individuals and faith communities, but on readiness for Monthly Meeting status. Yearly Meetings with more established Monthly Meetings who can take new worship groups under their experienced care do not seem to feel the need to put such queries for prospective Monthly Meetings in their Faith and Practices .
My curiosity is really piqued by this sentence in Canadian Yearly Meeting's marriage section: "If by reason of an impediment of speech or otherwise, either of the parties is unable to make the declaration distinctly, the Friend charged with the Marriage Certificate shall read the declaration audibly and the party shall indicate assent to its terms in some clear and unmistakable way." (p. 89) Did a Canadian Meeting experience a situation where one of a couple was unable to speak — which led to this suggested practice? No other Yearly Meeting mentions it.
Another puzzle challenge is to speculate on what isn't there. For example, Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative) has a reputation for holding meetings for business with a particularly deep sense of waiting for divine guidance. I eagerly looked for a description in their Faith and Practice which would convey some of the spiritual disciplines undergirding their practice, and was disappointed. In speaking with someone who had grown up in that Yearly Meeting, I learned that much of the sense of how meetings for business proceed is simply absorbed in attending; no description seems adequate, or necessary. By contrast, the Faith and Practices of newer Yearly Meetings contain extensive descriptions about the spirit and disciplines of meetings for business. In those Yearly Meetings, the assumption seems to be that many readers will be new to Friends and unfamiliar with Quaker process — thus more description becomes necessary.
Yet another puzzle challenge might be called "Now where did I see that before?" I was surprised how frequently the Faith and Practices borrow without attribution, taking what has meaning for a given Yearly Meeting, and discarding the rest. Of course, individual quotes are attributed, with stated permission from copyrighted works as necessary. However, the sections of Faith and Practices written just for that Yearly Meeting are usually not copyrighted (I'm aware of only one where the entire volume is copyrighted — the 1994 Quaker Faith and Practice of Britain Yearly Meeting). Words which express the unity we have found as a corporate body are seen as gifts from God passing through us, and thus can be freely used by anyone. The evidence is that we do take words from each other and claim them as our own. Perhaps this is another way of sharing our truths.
I have also discovered what I'd call "borrowing without attribution — plus continuing revelation." Here's an example which begins with the Richmond Declaration of 1887. The Richmond Declaration of Faith states that:
"Worship is the adoring response of the heart and mind to the influence of the Spirit of God. It stands neither in forms nor in the formal disuse of forms; it may be without words as well as with them, but it must be in spirit and in truth. We recognize the value of silence, not as an end but as a means toward the attainment of the end; a silence, not of listlessness or of vacant musing but of holy expectation before the Lord."
From that beginning, the two Yearly Meetings in the Northwest United States move in varying directions. Northwest Yearly Meeting (an evangelical Yearly Meeting) says, "Worship is the adoring response of heart and mind to the Spirit of God. The meeting for worship brings a personal and corporate renewal, an edification and communion of believers, and a witness of the Gospel to the unconverted. We recognize the value of silence to center our thoughts upon God." (p. 11)
North Pacific Yearly Meeting (an unprogrammed Yearly Meeting) begins, "Worship is the adoring response of the heart and mind to the influence of the Spirit of God. It stands neither in forms nor in the formal disuse of forms; it may be with or without words, but it must be in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). We recognize the value of silence, not as an end, but as a means toward the attainment of the end, which is communication with God, and fellowship with one another." (p. 40)
All three are agreed on the definition of worship, and all recognize the value of silence — though "the end" of that silence varies. Far from being distressed, I am excited to think that each Faith and Practice has its own integrity. We are curious to read each other's words about "what we have tasted spiritually," and if some words of other Friends have life for us, we acknowledge the same Spirit that gave them forth by using them in our own Faith and Practice.
From the joy of reading Faith and Practices , I've come to some answers to the question, "Of what use is a Faith and Practice?"
In a time of confusion, Friends need to declare such truths about sexual relationships as they have discovered. At the moment, these are variously perceived in our Yearly Meeting. Some members feel comfortable with the recent emergence of intimate relationships other than those defined in marriage. Some find this difficult to accept. On one point, however, there is unity — Friends who have made genuine commitments, founded on mutual respect and caring, which are truly a response to that of God in another person, are to be tenderly regarded. As we hold one another in the Light and continue to seek God's will together, we trust that we shall achieve a more adequate understanding of the proper place and purpose of sex and sexual relationships in our lives. (p. 159)
And we need not be defensive about a corporate truth which includes disagreement, for as Thomas Merton says, "People of sincerity are less interested in defending the truth than in stating it clearly, for they think if the truth is clearly seen it can very well take care of itself."
We may also find ourselves asking the question raised at the 1985 Friends Consultation on Discernment: "whether we sometimes have to sacrifice unity with each other for unity with God and how we discern that." (p. 60 of the printed report)
4. We have an opportunity to ponder the relationship of our individual truth to the corporate truth of our Yearly Meeting. I have sometimes had the experience of assenting to a minute with whose content I was personally not in agreement — but I knew that the position stated was where the meeting as a whole was ready to stand. I might have wished the meeting were in a different place, closer to where I was myself, but it clearly was not. At times like this, I remember Isaac Penington's words about our responsibility to not force others beyond what they have experienced: "And he that draws another to any practice before the life in his own particular lead him doth, as much as in him lies, destroy the soul of that person." I assent to the corporate truth of my beloved faith community at that moment, knowing God's work in us isn't finished.
I also want to affirm that when my truth and the corporate truth of which I am a part differ, both truths have integrity, even if they conflict. As Isaac Penington said in 1653, “All Truth is a shadow except the last, except the utmost; yet every Truth is true in its kind. It is substance in its own place, thought it be but a shadow in another place (for it is but a reflection from an intenser substance); and the shadow is a true shadow, as the substance is a true substance.”
So every truth has substance "in its own place." I remember a time during the Vietnam War when my meeting was not able to find unity on sending aid to North Vietnam — which was illegal. Nevertheless, during the meeting, several Friends rose to say how individual Friends so led could send aid to North Vietnam. Thus while the corporate body could not act, individuals could find ways to follow their leading to do so.
5. We can let others in the Quaker family know what truths we have tasted. I was very moved by the introduction to A Guide to Our Faith and Our Practice (1990) of Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association (SAYMA). There they state that they have created their first Faith and Practice not only to gain some sense of themselves, but also to share who they are with other Quakers. I quote:
“We trust that those who have occasion to consult the Guide will themselves experience the sense of unity that came to characterize our labors. And, more broadly, this document will introduce us to the wider family of Friends who may find our struggle — to express in mere words our transcendent experiences with Truth — helpful also to them. We know that SAYMA has gained immensely from the effort.”
6. It is a very practical guide to the organization and processes of Quakers at every level in our Yearly Meeting. We believe that all share responsibility for leadership in our meetings, and our assumption is that professional training is not necessarily required in order to serve. Given this reality, our Faith and Practices give practical guidance which works with the spiritual discernment of the individual to help people grow as they serve and to insure a certain organizational stability. I remember still my thrill when I was a very raw Clerk of my Monthly Meeting and a disagreement arose about who needed to sign and return the marriage license after the wedding so that the marriage would be legal. I picked up my New England Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice and found a listing of references to Quakers in the laws of the six New England states. Armed with this information, I went to my public library, pulled the Massachusetts General Code from the shelf, and found the relevant reference — which resolved the question. I thought, "Anyone could do this, given the tools provided by the Yearly Meeting!"
In our social testimonies, we constantly witness to our belief that the means by which something is achieved must be congruent with the end — an outcome cannot be good which used evil means to achieve it. The detail in the Faith and Practices on process bears witness to how we live this out in our own organizational life. We describe our Quaker process in ways which we hope will both offer stability through sharing our current practices and allow new responses as we open ourselves to continuing revelation.
In summary, using and revising books of Faith and Practice can deepen our individual spiritual lives as well as help us gain a deeper sense of that part of the Quaker family to which we are connected. From this deeper faith, I pray an ever-stronger outward witness will grow.