Photo: Friends engaging in a creative strategy session.
Meeting for Sufferings: October’s residential, part two (Saturday & Sunday)
Joseph Jones reports on Meeting for Sufferings' October residential
Church and state
In 2023, Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) received a minute from Young Friends General
Meeting (YFGM) relating to the loyal address given by Quakers at the time of the coronation of Charles Mountbatten-Windsor. Young Friends had declined to join the delegation, saying that ‘participating legitimises an institution at odds with Quaker values… making a “loyal” address would not be truthful’. Pendle Hill Area Meeting also sent MfS a minute, which expressed ‘unity with the vigour and passion of Young Friends’. YFGM asked MfS to discuss the matter further, prompting MfS itself to raise the following question: ‘Can our participation in civic
ceremonies of this sort be a faithful witness to the alternate Gospel Order to which we are committed, or is it rather an expression of complicity with the domination system of worldly powers?’ It was to this matter that Friends turned on Saturday evening.
