QuakerInfo.com Forum

[jesse]

Kevin - do you mean it was once the norm for the entire meeting to be involved in helping someone wrestle with an issue of conscience (a career change or something like that)?

I presumed that the reason clearness committees will sometimes be formed around a personal issue like this, is that it doesn't particularly concern the entire meeting. But spiritual support can be provided through a smaller body of Friends willing to meet with the person in question.

Are you saying that an entire meeting community might have come together to help a member worship over a personal concern, in the past? If so, that's something I've never encountered... except perhaps in smaller ways... there's a certain degree to which personal concerns may influence ministry during worship, but the meeting for worship isn't centred around holding any one person in the light (though certainly, part of worshiping is trying to hold all of us in the light)...

[kevin roberts]

as i understand it, yes, jesse.

but this was among the wilburite friends, and may or may not have been the case anywhere else. among the wilburites, personal concerns did concern the entire meeting. that's often what still happens within my own monthly meeting. in the past, it might have taken place during a called meeting. the minister who mentioned it has since died.

we often have concerns brought up to the meeting, and they may or may not be held over to meeting for business. these days the practice is usually to generate a clearness committee for very specific concerns, but that was not always the way it was done.

[jesse]

Interesting. Thanks for the clarification, Kevin.

I had to look up the term "wilburite"... discovered "quakerpedia" in the process! Who knew we had our own online encyclopedia? It's certainly useful to have though (or will be... it appears to be still largely in its infancy)... anyhow, the number of sub-splits amongst US Friends is a little hard to keep track of by comparison to canadian standards, where we're all pretty much of one flavour... but I'm gathering that the term is roughly equivalent to the term "conservative Friends"... if I'm understanding correctly.

[kevin roberts]

[wheatpenny]

I rread somewhere that Wilburites were related to Orthodox Quakers.
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[kevin roberts]

[jesse]

(laugh) - I think that's the most concise (and helpful!) description I've yet seen of the different quaker splits.

Your phrasing is kind of interesting: "went on to become spiritual examples for"... that caught my eye, because I could read that in several ways - to imply the direction that the quakers themselves moved, or to imply the spiritual accountability that we, as quakers, hold toward the more general (broader than quakerism) spiritual trends that we become part of... some interesting food for thought there.

Makes me wonder about my own history as a Canadian Friend... based on the trends of today, I would guess that we were perhaps once part of the hicksite split and/or influenced by that split.... but I wonder. Or perhaps, like BYM, we moved liberally of our own accord?? It would be interesting to find out...

[michaeldavidjay]

Once, after the splits, there were 3 Canadian YM's, just like in many parts of the states. Because I'm going to be lazy, I will not look it up -- but there was a re-unification into a single yearly meeting, which was deeply influenced by the Hicksites.

This history is why CYM belongs to both FGC and FUM. Whether there are still any 'orthodox' meetings (I'll count Wilberite) in current CYM is more than I wish to guess - though, I have met an 'orthodox' Friend from Canada YM.
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