“Set off” is the phrase used in the recently released proposal to carry through a schism in Indiana Yearly Meeting.  “IYM (the organization) will remain intact and those meetings choosing option B will continue to be part of this body.” … Meetings choosing option A “will be set off from IYM into a newly created ‘yearly meeting’ or equivalent association.”  So reads the proposal.  (You can read the proposal…

I hope Friends everywhere are paying a little attention to what is happening in Indiana Yearly Meeting, a Quaker schism in the making.  And as the ground trembles in Indiana, I hope Friends everywhere are praying for us to find God’s way through this.

Nearly every North American yearly meeting has some schism in its past, some episode of disagreement, laced with bitterness perhaps, then separation into separate, smaller bodies.  Some of these successor groups thrive more than others. …

People think of Quakers as loving, peaceful, friendly types (our full name is, after all, the Religious Society of Friends).  And we are all of those things. We’re also human—full of imperfections, confusion, and fear. We don’t all see things in the same way, and our history shows that sometimes those differing views…