The subject of membership is often a thorny one among contemporary liberal Friends. Krishna Seshan’s "queries on membership" and John MacKinney’s responses suggest some of the sticking points (see p. 6) .

Other writers in this issue address the concept of membership in a variety of useful ways. Inspired by a workshop on membership at Ben Lomond Quaker Center, Janet Leslie discusses her realization that the question we need to ask is not, "Are we ‘good enough’ to be Quakers" but rather, "Are we willing to try to live in accordance with Friends’ faith and practices?" Robert Griswold humorously considers the obstacles and hangups that prevent attenders from becoming members.

One word not used in any of these essays is "faithfulness." It is an old-fashioned term, one frequently found in the Bible, but very seldom in modern conversation. We prefer neutral words like "commitment." But "faithfulness" is much richer in meaning than commitment. It implies that one is filled with faith and trust, and hence trustworthy.

Faithfulness is a concept that took me a long time to appreciate. As a young man, I could get pretty worked up about virtues like courage and love, but faithfulness didn’t ring any bells for me. Only as I grew older did I see how important it is to "stay the course" and to remain faithful to one’s principles, to one’s commitments, and to those whom one loves.

It isn’t always easy. Much as I love being among Friends, there have been times when I wondered if I might not be better off as a Buddhist, or even a Methodist. But I am glad that I remained faithful. I am also glad that Friends (and God) continued to have faith in me when I was wavering in my faith.

Faithfulness and commitment are especially important and needed during difficult times. Although early Friends were not concerned about the formalities of membership, they did recognize that certain individuals were committed Friends while others were not. Faithful Friends were willing to make sacrifices, sometimes even risking death, for their convictions (a word that implies a willingness to go to prison for one’s beliefs).

Today we are living through another period in which our faith in Quaker principles is being tested. It is therefore worth asking the question posed by John MacKinney:

"If I am arrested for being a Quaker, can the charge be proven? How will other Quakers recognize me?"

Is being a Quaker a matter of faith, or of practice, or of both? The couple on the cover, Corny and Jean Steelink, have been involved with the AFSC since the 1940s and were practicing the Quaker peace testimony before I was born. Yet Jean did not join the Religious Society of Friends until the early 1980s. Corny has still not joined the RSOF, even though he has been a faithful attender and supporter of Pima Meeting for over twenty years.

Why not? I asked him.

"I am not theologically inclined," he replied, "but I support peace and like what the Quakers are all about."

Fair enough. Corny, like many others among us, is a faithful attender. If the authorities ever get around to arresting Quakers, he will no doubt be included. So let’s be glad for faithful attenders as well as for faithful members.

I first encountered Quakers when I was 16 or 17. A high school friend who had grown up in a nearby Meeting took me there, and what I remember most vividly are the faces and demeanor of some older Friends there. I thought that there must be something to this way of worship if people turned out like them, and I wanted to be like them. So, that year, and in my college years, and later when we returned to the U.S. after Peace Corps, I attended Meeting-I don’t know how many times, but I was shy, and didn’t know how to become part of the community. I thought I just wasn’t the right sort of person, didn’t belong.

It wasn’t until much later, in Hong Kong, that the commitment and inclusiveness of Friends there drew me in, showed me that it is intention, not accomplishment, that is the basis for membership. In my experience, membership is not about any sort of worthiness, Quakerly character or spiritual advancement, but is an expression of a continuing willingness to take this particular (and maybe peculiar) religious path, be in an ongoing relationship with this particular faith community. And since there is no general membership in the Religious Society of Friends, this means a relationship with a local, human, specific monthly meeting...harder, maybe, but more real, than belonging to an ideal community...

The question of equality comes up in different ways. Some see the distinction between members and at, tenders as divisive or a formality, and inconsistent with our testimonies. My experience has been of membership as a process bringing a person and the community into a mutual relationship. The openness and transparency of a membership process can make this relationship accessible to all who choose it, not just to those who have more confidence, are more "quakerly" or who have more quick understanding. It provides for learning, mutual knowing, and coming to clearness ina supportive setting. An agreed upon process provides more equal access.

Choosing membership means (to me) a willingness to practice Friends’ way of worship and decision.-making, to be accountable to the Meeting, and to submit to this particular discipline/discipleship in the company of these very human people who are likely to disappoint us as well as inspire. And the community takes on responsibility for the member too. I haven’t liked being accountable to my Meeting, but I’m grateful for the flattening of false pride and individualism that had grown up in me. I need Friends’ love and truth and eldering.

It has seemed to me too that the special place of the active attender can allow those who don’t want to be in the member relationship to be free to come and go, or to take their time in deciding what they want-but as Meeting communities we fail, I think, to encourage attenders to consider membership, to explore this Quaker way together, and to share our faith and practice with newcomers.

And what are good metaphors for membership? Friends at Quaker Center last weekend spoke about some: Family, certainly-"Those who would love God must love their brothers and sisters"-and maybe adoptive rather than birth families. My family experience of adoption-bringing in the outsider, family as love and care and commitment rather than any "natural" affinity-makes that image a powerful one for me. The agrarian images so common throughout the Bible may not resonate for many in our society-vines and branches, trees and fruit, and so on. The community as a body may be more helpful in discerning our own callings within the community than in looking at joining. Is this a journey with a pilgrim fellowship? A lifeboat that comes upon us in a stormy sea? A ship with crew and passengers? A fellowship or a discipleship? And is our Meeting a home or a hotel?

"Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house..." A Friend shared this image, from 1st Peter 2:5. I’ve helped to build a house, know something about roofs and walls and shelter, but I’ve never built with stone. Each stone would have a particular shape, would fit into its place in the wall, would stay put—the living stone equivalent of our showing up, maybe. Walls aren’t just for keeping things in or out-walls can hold up a roof, build shelter, make a space for our work and worship together. We just have to build the doors wide, and put in lots of windows.

Membership:

A Dialogue

Between Friends

by Robert Griswold

Albert: So we’re going to have a discussion about membership at a special meeting next week.

Annabelle: Yeah, I tried to head them off. I even suggested that we not do that until we had read four or five of the Pendle Hill pamphlets but they weren’t buying any of that.

Albert: I don’t know why we always set ourselves up for this kind of thing. We never get anywhere and half the time somebody ends up with hurt feelings. There’s always one person who is trying to mold us into one big loveable ball and two or three who have to show they are such rugged individuals that they can’t be considered apart from their own rugged grandeur.

Annabelle: Yes, and remember there are those who have Question Authority on their bumpers. Those guys can catch the faintest of faint whiffs of authority. Even membership in Quaker meeting can sniff like cruel oppression to them.

Albert: Ah, yes. And then there is always the person who has attended for the past 20 years and proudly claims that they are too humble to ever think that they could ever make it to the exalted heights of actually being a Quaker.

Annabelle: Generally, I think those folks are just hoping to avoid the attention of the nominating committee. After all we do require membership for some committees.

Albert: You’re right. (Pause) Y’know, we also have the presumption people. You know, the ones who say: "Oh, I could never presume to judge the spiritual experience of another person. It would be like presuming that I know whether they are holy enough and I couldn’t do that."

Annabelle: I think those are the folks who got hooked on that psychology fad of a few years ago–the "I’m OK, You’re OK" group.

Albert: Yeah. You know part of that is defensive. They really are afraid someone might someday question them about something they’ve done and they hope this little maneuver will keep people at a distance. Isn’t it clever to hide under a blanket of humility?

Annabelle: Yeah that’s a Quaker favorite. (Pause) You know there is bound to be someone there who will point out that we have to declare our membership list to yearly meeting and pay so much a head and that we are already paying for members who have disappeared and aren’t paying their way.

Albert: Oh no! If we get sucked into that subject we can forget the whole thing. That’ll get us into what to do about the disappeared and someone will say we can’t risk hurting anyone’s feelings. I don’t know why we have to be so careful of the feelings of people who haven’t cared a fig about us in five years.

Annabelle: Five years! More like ten for some!

Albert: Maybe we could propose a "statute of limitations." I understand some meetings have them.

Annabelle: What’s that?

Albert: From what I recall it is where every member has to re-declare his commitment to membership every 3-4 years. If you move away or just decide that you don’t want to continue you just don’t complete the declaration and you are dropped from the rolls.

Annabelle: Boy, that makes sense. I think that might make some of the people in our meeting who have just been coasting think twice about what the meeting means to them.

Albert: Yeah, but it would mean you’d have to have somebody or some committee in the meeting take on the job of sending out a declaration form to people whose three years is about up and you know there would be some who would complain that they just forgot or lost the form.

Annabelle: I wouldn’t worry about that. I’m sure Quakers could find a way to make a safety net for the slackers and the absent-minded–they always do.

Albert: (Long pause.) Membership, membership, membership. We always seem to get stuck when that word comes up. I wonder if we just have so much unspoken baggage in that word that we can’t get around it.

Annabelle: Umm. (Long pause.) Hey, I’ve got it! Lets get rid of that word and call it what it is–relationship! Then we could have relationship clearness committees. That really is better anyway. After all a relationship is two-way. I think sometimes membership seems like the person is joining this big abstraction, Quakerism. That’s a bad picture because it is really two-way. The person is entering into something but the people in the meeting are entering into a relationship too. There has to be a commitment that goes two-ways.

Albert: I think you’re onto something here. Membership gets us into trying to get a perfect definition of being a Quaker. I think Quakers go around with some sort of ideal notion of what the perfect Quaker might be and then feel bad when they and everyone else doesn’t quite make the grade. I think we sometimes have the notion in the backs of our minds that we are supposed to be saints or something. I don’t think we are very clear that George Fox put his pants on one leg at a time.

Annabelle: I’ll say! That perfection stuff does get in our way. I sometimes wish Fox had never said we could be perfect. I think I know what he was talking about but when we turn that into a notion, it clouds the mind.

Albert: (Long pause.) You know there is a line from Isaac Pennington that I have always liked that describes early Friends meetings. He spoke of them as "heaps of living coals warming each other." And he talked of Friends "helping each other up with a tender hand." Those phrases seem to be close to what you were saying with the word, relationship.

Annabelle: It has to be a relationship of love and a mutual relationship. When we join a Quaker meeting we are getting into a relationship but so are the folks in the meeting. It wouldn’t do to just have the person who wants to join just sign up because the people in the meeting are getting themselves into a commitment, too.

Albert: I don’t think we always do a good job of making people in the meeting aware of that. I know in some churches they have a ceremony where the new member shakes everyone’s hand. "Extending the right hand of fellowship" is what they call it. I know Friends hate ritual but sometimes I think our lack of it causes us to forget what we are doing.

Annabelle: (pause) I know you’re right about that. I just realized that I have always thought of clearness committees as helping the person applying get clear. But it really needs to be seen as the meeting getting clear about what it is getting into, too.

Albert: Well, what are we getting into?

Annabelle: It’s a relationship but what kind is it? I can’t help feeling that if we spell it out we’ll just be getting ourselves into a bigger pickle.

Albert: Hey! I like the idea of everybody getting pickled! I don’t think Friends would agree to that though.

Annabelle: ‘Fraid not. But it’s true–as members we are immersed in something.

Albert: Hey! Maybe that’s why Baptists dunk people–to let them know they are going to be immersed in something.

Annabelle: Maybe. I think baptism has more to do with washing your sins away. Since Quakers don’t like the idea of sin, I don’t think we could dunk them.

Albert: (Long pause.) God, it’s hard to be a simple Quaker!

Annabelle: Well, if membership is a relationship, what other relationships is it like?

Albert: (Long pause.) I guess its kind of like becoming a parent or getting married.

Annabelle: Whata you mean?

Albert: I mean it’s kind of a long-term commitment and you don’t really know what you’re getting into. I mean you really don’t know all the things that you are going to have to learn or learn to put up with.

Annabelle: Are you letting me know that you just put up with me?

Albert: No! No! You know what I mean. Membership is an open-ended relationship. You’re in it for the long haul. Like in the marriage vows that say, …for better or for worse." You’re not just in it for the good times.

Annabelle: Boy, that’s for sure. And sometimes we don’t even know that the bad times were good times ‘til after we have lived though them and can look back.

Albert: So what do we call this kind of relationship?

Annabelle: Umm. In some churches it is called a sacrament. It’s a holy moment in our lives and the life of the church.

Albert: Some people see it as a contract. You know? They talk about the "marriage contract." I’ve never liked that though. That’s way too business-like and legal for me.

Annabelle: Me too. I like the word "covenant" better. A covenant is a pledge–a promise.

Albert: But that still begs the question. What kind of promise is it?

Annabelle: (Long pause.) It’s a promise of the heart. Membership is a promise of the heart for those in the meeting and the person joining.

Albert: Huh! Maybe we will survive next week’s discussion after all.

Yes. No membership is needed if there is a charismatic individual to define the movement. When that person dies, will the movement remain? Does Christianity as we know it reflect more of Jesus, or more of Paul?

In the minds of many, yes, but those same people formed a strong network held together by common rituals, beliefs and behaviors. They seemed unable to avoid setting up hierarchies of elders and bishops, and in perhaps three generations began writing creeds and excommunicating each other. If we truly lived in the Kingdom, formal organization would be irrelevant; as fallible humans, we need a starting-point.

The question puzzles me. I have not heard of nor seen Quaker membership cards. However I have heard that during the Third Reich, some Christians took to wearing small steel crosses unobtrusively on their clothing so as to know each other. If I am arrested for being a Quaker, can the charge be proven? How will other Quakers recognize me?

Of course not, unless we, acting as individuals, make it meaningful. The "holier-than-thou" attitude is fatal to true religion.

If we have members, are we then obliged to treat non-members differently?

In my experience, it has occasionally been necessary to (1) explicitly refuse to allow non-members to help decide key issues, and (2) limit (but not forbid) use of "sharing funds" by non-members. How can non-members bear responsibility for the corporate actions or property of the Meeting? The fact, that many attenders act more responsibly than many members, reveals our imperfections but does not (to my mind) offer an alternative method of identifying those actually responsible.

When I first joined the Society of Friends in Baltimore Yearly Meeting (non-pastoral branch) it was explained to me that there was no creed. However, to accept my membership they needed my affirmation that I was easy with the testimonies, understanding that I was not necessarily able to follow all of them equally but that I did not deny any. At the time, I was engaged in work for the military and knew I did not understand the peace testimony, but expressed my willingness to be open to it.

"I will not be a member of any organization that will have me for a member." (attributed to Grouch Marx)

This suggests either self-esteem below a healthy threshold, or an inappropriate exaltation of the organization, or both. It also suggests that membership is a kind of prize, and that acceptance of a new member is based on superficialities; in any case it is not a religious attitude. Perhaps re-reading T. S. Eliot’s poem about the True Church and the hippopotamus can help. The Society of Friends is AT BEST a means to an end, not a justifiable end in itself.

On the other hand, there are many queries that suggest compelling reasons for membership.

The queries put forward ideals of behavior befitting a member, which could equally be exemplified by any good person. It is not consistent with truth to suppose that they describe members generally, though we do have a few saints among us.

When we are led to a certain place by our heart and spirit, how may we proclaim that we have ended our search?

When the heart and spirit are ready, they will find the means, and the proclamation will be insuppressible. I cannot imagine membership as the END of a search.

Is membership not a special relation that we enter into with our Meeting?

It certainly is, but each individual will attach a different level of significance to it, and so conform her or his behavior to a different degree. For most Friends, it is less meaningful than marriage, and for many, less than their career. A meeting that tries to put the same specific requirements on every member will not last.

I cannot answer this most disturbing question, but only ask in return: Without compassion, how can we continue dialogue? Without consideration, how can we stay together as a group, whether formally or informally?

Is there a better word than "member" for expressing our deep sense of belonging to Meeting? A word that reflects our spiritual and philosophical position?

When you are able to answer this, and explicate that position, I shall be most eager to hear. Quite a few nominal Quakers do not appear to seriously consider the implications of "member", that is, being one body. (I feel the metaphor has appropriate significance without the theological addition of "…in Christ".) But I do not despair, nor should you.