I'll be quite
honest – I'm looking forward to it.
We all know the
book will have a wholesale revision some time. If it didn't, I feel
we would have failed in our core principles; we would have moved from
a text that represents the living, evolving truth of the Quaker way
to a new scripture, something I doubt that many Quakers, of any
flavour would support. Some would rather not have any sort of
scripture, whether it exists already or that we made our own, whereas
others would consider creating any new text that is treated in any
way similarly to scripture would be, essentially, blasphemous.
I know there's
opposition to any wholesale revision. Some would rather see the book
simply added to with new material, but never losing anything in the
anthology chapters – just revising the church government-related
chapters as needed. The fact that this would lead, as an ongoing
policy, to an indefinitely growing book either doesn't occur to such
Friends, or doesn't strike them as a problem, I guess. Others don't
oppose revision in principle, but are quite sure that this is not the
time. Sometimes this is for concrete reasons, like wanting to resolve
issues around theological diversity first; for others, it seems like
the subtext is “I know it will be revised some time, but can't you
wait until I'm dead?”
For the BoDRPG,
the most imperative reason in their report seems to be the
increasingly unworkable nature of ongoing revision to the church
government sections, combined with a sense of impracticality around
revising those sufficiently – and in a way that reduces the growth
of such a need in future – while leaving the rest of the book
untouched. The proposals that the book be based on a core intended to
have a longer life, with supplements that can be updated more
frequently to reflect changes in policy, structures and legal
requirements, is a daring one – but daring in the best way, in my
opinion. It resolves the tension between reluctance to undergo
extensive (and expensive) full revision processes and the constantly
evolving landscape that church government involves.
But far more than
just giving us a cleaner way to keep church government chapters up to
date, the proposed revision represents a fantastic opportunity.
There's a tremendous amount of interesting thought, and writing,
going on among Quakers in Britain – and around the world – at the
moment, with books and articles and blogs sharing and stimulating
fantastic thought on practicalities, theology, history and
spirituality. People are sharing their experiences, their ideas,
their aspirations. For a revision to occur during this amazing time
means that the process will involve the revision committee – and
through their work and consultations, the whole of the Yearly Meeting
– will have to address this rich humus, and all that sprouts from
it. This can, I feel, only add to the fecundity of ideas, leading to
who knows where – but perhaps to a real stride forward, the Whoosh!
that the Recording Clerk of BYM, Paul Parker, has spoken of, or a
real spirit of renewal and spiritual development in our Meetings (or
perhaps those are the same thing).
Thought on many
areas has moved on, in wider society as well as within our Religious
Society, in many areas, even since 1994. There are ways in which the
red book has fallen behind the times, for instance in how we think of
disability – one area with which I am intimately familiar. There
will be many other areas, I'm sure, where thought has moved on,
relative to how up-to-the-moment we were when the red book was
compiled. I imagine that we're missing some possible tricks in
intimate relationships, for instance, though figuring out where we
stand on some of the newer areas of discussion in that department
will require some searching within and among ourselves; the current book barely scratches the surface of current discourse on gender and sexual diversity. Likewise,
environmental issues have both moved on, and the positions in the red
book become more mainstream. Geopolitics and human rights, issues of
international security and foreign policy, have moved on, and the red
book says a fraction of what we could say now. If we are truly
committed to being at the forefront of such things, then the process
of revision will allow us, indeed will force us to figure out what we
can say collectively, or where we differ, how we can represent that
breadth of that difference faithfully in a collection of writings.
That is an
important point to remember. Setting down the state of our collective
journey and what we can say doesn't mean we have to come to agreement
on all of it. Anyone who has been participating in the Reading
Quaker faith & practice
programme, or indeed
anyone who has read the anthology chapters of the current book at all
recently, will realise that the voices within it are not singing in
unison; indeed, they are not always singing in harmony. The anthology
format used in recent books of discipline means that we can give an
indication, to those among us who have not witnessed it, as well as
to those new to our ways, of the breadth of variation, of the fact
that we not only tolerate differences of understanding, but are able
to celebrate it. There are several very beautiful, meaningful,
impactful passages of Qf&p
that I cannot say speak for me; many are deeply personal to their
authors, and indeed anyone who felt they could agree with every
single passage would have to be labouring under significant cognitive
dissonance. Yet those passages are still of value to me, to us all,
because of what they show us about one another's experience, of other
people's knowledge of the impact of the Spirit in their lives.
So, yes, I think
that Britain Yearly Meeting should move forward with the proposed
revision process. I think we should do it cautiously, but not
trepidatiously, with hope rather than fear. It will be difficult, but
then so is labour. The revision committee will be the midwives of the
birth of a new record and statement of our corporate position, and
our corporate and individual experiences, being born from the body of
the Religious Society of Friends in Britain. A difficult task, that
will take much effort from both the mother and the midwives, possibly
somewhat traumatic, but one that should be, in the end, rewarding for
all.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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