I have been a Quaker for 22 years. ‘Unprogrammed’ or liberal Quakers, as you may know, don\u2019t have pastors or other leaders. Community leadership role are usually rotated after a few years, and it is the community which makes decisions together to act in the world.<\/p>\n
A few years ago, when I was part of a faith group supporting Occupy Portland (yes, Oregon, not Maine), people often said to me, we\u2019re using your method of consensus here. That is not quite accurate: the community which meets in a Quaker group should be waiting on the divine to lead them corporately.\u00a0 \u2018Should\u2019, I say, because participants may forget their role. We people often like to act on our own conclusions, however derived. I love Quakerism, but the people, with all our human failings, can be a bit harder to tolerate.<\/p>\n
Being part of a community which manages its own affairs, means taking responsibility. One essential part of responsibility is to review and check one\u2019s actions. In a national democracy, this is done through regular elections \u2013 if the politicians don\u2019t check their actions, the theory goes, the voters will give them feedback. This feedback ideally helps the politician review her or his year and improve certain types of decisions.<\/p>\n
And any organisation which does not review its actions runs the risk of becoming out of touch with the world around. It is a \u2018given\u2019 with marketing. Since the power of the market is considered so basic to our society, we all know something about marketing. We all know that a company that doesn\u2019t ask for feedback from its customers \u2013 feedback to help the company become \u2018self-aware\u2019 and to reviews its choices – risks becoming out of touch and likely to deserve the economic failure coming its way.\u00a0 And the same principle operates with non-profit groups, whether churches or other types of organisations. Those who deal in morality \u2013 those who advocate based on principles derived from faith \u2013 are duty-bound to ensure they are always operating according to the principles they require of others.<\/p>\n
One aspect of moral behaviour is that it is hard. It must be so: if it were easy for us fallible humans to carry out, there would not be the need for external bodies, whether they be books or priests, activists or parents, to tell us how we should improve our treatment of others. If ethical behaviour were easy, we would not hurt our fellow human beings in the ways we know are all too common in all of our societies: malicious gossip, road rage, lack of respect for someone\u2019s efforts, failure to smile at our neighbour, and others. Lack of charity \u2013 refusal to view each person with benevolent goodwill –\u00a0 would not be rife.<\/p>\n
So what happens when a group of people \u2013 as Quakers do \u2013 join to make decisions together but forget to review the impact of their decisions? The Quaker business method is a method of making decisions to which the group should be led by the Spirit, during a meeting for worship with concern for business.<\/p>\n
Many groups vest the responsibility in helping them maintain ethical standards in a leader. Dispassionate review, feedback, and the openness to knowing no human or human-created institution, is perfect, are essential aspects of maintaining these standards. Without a leader who is given this responsibility, all those present must exhibit responsibility themselves. All those present must help create the space of waiting and questioning. \u00a0It is only in repentance \u2013 checking oneself, hearing feedback, making changes when needed \u2013 and remembering to wait for the Spirit\u2019s true leading when making a decision, that a Quaker community can overcome the failings of being a collection of fallible human beings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have been a Quaker for 22 years. ‘Unprogrammed’ or liberal Quakers, as you may know, don\u2019t have pastors or other leaders. Community leadership role are usually rotated after a few years, and it is the community which makes decisions together to act in the world. A few years ago, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[79,5,3],"tags":[25,36,91,57,13],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":720,"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions\/720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alexandrabosbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}