Good morning, Cotswold Quaker

 

Can you elaborate a little on the census you are required to complete?  

Know you are supported in your waging of peace.

 

Margaret

An excellent suggestion, Friend. Many thanks and blessings. FRIENDSAM (USA)

Sure I take your point about dominance - the particular history of this site is that several older baby boomer anti-christian liberal Friends have used it insensitively. I think they don't realise that they are experienced as spiritually dangerous, as a real distraction to many of the other christian Friends from around the world who use this site. People who are anti God, anti Jesus and so on don't generally join in helping each other love and follow God faithfully and with humility in my experience, although I am always willing to learn.
It's funny I have completely opposite experiences among Friends in the UK! Most of the christian Quakers I know are younger folks (under 40) who are very well versed in the unique theology and practice of Quakers, interested in DOING what is written about in journals and Faith and practice and so on (like Lloyd Lee Wilson's, Brian Drayton's, Samuel Bownas's books and other Quaker classic texts). Frustrated at an apparent lack of interest in collective discipleship, in genuinely transformative worship, and commitment to discerning together to support each others' life in faith. There is a big struggle.
Lot of those younger folks get very discouraged from being involved in Quakers because of a loud/dominant section of anti-christian mostly older folks in BYM, typically from the 'baby boom' generation, who seem unwilling to re-examine their own prejudices about christianity and God, mostly picked up from other church backgrounds. There seems to be a lack of interest in engaging deeply with what it means to be a christian or Quaker and lots of these people I think may have never worshipped with Friends outside their own Meeting or tradition. The problem seems to arise when those anti-christian people are particularly vocal or occupying elder/officer roles, where they are supposed to be running a QUAKER meeting and helping others live the Life - maybe they don't have a sense of a wider meaning of our faith to be accountable to?

You write: "If Quaker Quaker is not a Liberal Friends site or a place where Friends can explore relationships to the divine then what kind of Quaker is a Quaker Quaker? "
The way I see it, Liberal Friends can quickly dominate Quaker gatherings and become really exclusive of folks who are interested in living out the Quaker way of discipleship. When Liberal Friends are dominating discussion, almost everyone else - Conservative, Pastoral, and Evangelical Friends pretty quickly leave the conversation. I think this may be because non-christians don't have the same commitments to collective discipleship and humility that christians share?
QuakerQuaker is specifically a site for people who are interested in being Quakers, our specific way of following Christ's teaching. It is not likely to be of interest to people who are not interested in being part of the world family of Quakers.

In response to your question about privacy: I have never had a problem, and I seem to remember reading a privacy policy when I signed on. I think Martin Kelly would be the one to talk to about this.

Well, I actually see "leader" as an imprecise term because it is used to approximate a variety of relationships between a person and the group s/he putatively "leads." Both a military officer and someone who is in front on a hike could be described as the "leader," for example, even though in one case the person has the power of life and death over his/her unit members and in the latter the person is just put in front because s/he knows the trail. In my case, I clarify on my CV what my duties were (i.e. that they involve organizing and communicating, not making decisions for the group) so that there's no mistake, and when I'm sending a CV to people who are likely to know what a "clerk" is in Quaker parlance (e.g. religion Ph.D. programs) I do say clerk. As I've said, I chose it to be understood, and deliberately avoided the more common word for the representatives of student groups here, namely "President," because that would a) imply a greater degree of power than I have or would want to lay claim to and b) imply that I was elected, when in fact I became clerk because I was nominated to the position and accepted it in the same way these things usually go among us. To me, it seemed the best way to balance speaking truthfully about my relationship to the other Friends in the group with the need to be quickly and easily understood.

In short, yes. When I'm in a situation where I can quickly explain myself (e.g. talking face to face) I generally call myself "clerk," and that can lead to interesting conversations about how Friends make decisions. When I'm writing something (e.g. a resume, my profile here) where people are less likely to ask me questions if they don't understand what I mean (this conversation excepted, obviously) I go with the less precise term.

You might also be interested to know that, in contrast to Friends in Britain, there are some Friends in the US who have paid ministers and, in that sense, are the type of Quakers who have leaders. I'm not one of them, but the more you know...