Historical Introduction
Commitment to a life of obedience to the Spirit has been of essential importance to Friends both as individuals and as Meetings. This commitment has led us to support much that is creative in public life, education, business, and concern for the oppressed. It also has led us to oppose practices and institutions that result in violence and exploitation in the world around us. Our history, however, demonstrates that our discernment has not always been complete: we have not always been united in our perceptions of what obedience to the Spirit requires, and we have fallen into conflict and misunderstanding even among ourselves. Yet out of such conflicts, painful as they have been, have come greater clarity of commitment and unity in witness.
The following account divides our history into five periods, from the origins of Quakerism in England to recent developments within Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
I Beginnings 1652-1689
The Religious Society of Friends arose in England in the middle of the seventeenth century. This was a time of turbulence and change in both religion and politics. In the established Church of England, great emphasis was placed upon outward ceremony; there, and in such dissenting churches as the Baptists and Presbyterians, religious faith was also generally identified with the authority of the Bible or the acceptance of a formal creed. Many individuals, however, became increasingly dissatisfied with ceremonies and creeds, and broke away from these churches. Singly or in small groups, they turned inward in search of a religion of personal experience and direct communion with God.
George Fox (1624 – 1691) was one of these seekers. Even as a child, he was serious and thoughtful, often pondering the Scriptures and engaging in solitary reflection. At age nineteen, after being urged to engage in conduct that violated his religious scruples, he decided to leave home in order to seek spiritual direction. For four years he wandered through the English midlands and as far south as London. Though he consulted various ministers and professors (that is, professing Christians), none could give rest to his troubled soul. Finally, as he recorded in his Journal,
...when all my hopes in [Christian ministers and professors] and in all men was gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, Oh! then, I heard a voice which said, "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition," and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy. ...My desires after the Lord grew stronger, and zeal in the pure knowledge of God and of Christ alone, without the help of any man, book, or writing.
And so, in 1647, at the age of twenty-three, George Fox began to preach.
His basic message was simple enough: first, that his own dramatic and life-changing experience of a direct, unmediated revelation from God confirmed the possibility of a religion of personal experience and direct communion with God, a religion of continuing revelation instead of a closed, written canon; and second, that this same possibility was available to every person. Fox's message, combined with his charismatic personality, soon attracted a small group of women and men who joined him in spreading the "good news" that "Christ has come to teach His people himself." These first "publishers of Truth" believed the good news to be a revival of primitive Christianity rather than a new gospel. Gradually, Fox and his associates began to enlist others in this revival; and in 1652, Fox persuaded many of the Westmorland Seekers, a numerous and already well-established religious movement, to become Friends (or Friends of Truth), as his followers called themselves, or Quakers, as they came to be called by others. Also in 1652, with the permission of Judge Fell, Fox and Margaret Fell turned Swarthmoor Hall, the Fells' home, into the headquarters for the infant Religious Society of Friends. These two events—the absorption of the Westmorland Seekers into the Quaker movement, and the establishment of a home base—warrant the choice of 1652 as the birth-time of the Religious Society of Friends.
While many religious dissenters who welcomed Fox's message of direct communion and continuing revelation became Friends, those persons who were committed to the Church of England or to other churches regarded his message as unwelcome, heretical, and treasonable. It was unwelcome, since Fox and some of his followers often invaded and disrupted the church services of others. It was heretical, since the idea of continuing revelation displaced the church and even the Scriptures as finally authoritative. It was treasonable, since those who embraced this idea also refused to acknowledge the authority of the state (with its established church) as taking precedence over the authority of individual conscience, and consequently refused to take any oath of allegiance to the state and to pay tithes towards the maintenance of the Anglican Church. Accordingly, the meetings of early Quakers were frequently disrupted by angry mobs, their meetinghouses were vandalized and burned, and they were themselves subjected to imprisonment and cruel treatment by officials of the state. Such persecution continued until 1689 and the so-called Glorious Revolution, when a Toleration Act was adopted that gave legal sanction to the principle of religious liberty. (Some restrictions on rights continued, however, into the 19th century.) Yet, like the early Christian church, the Quaker movement gained more adherents despite—or because of—the persecution. Some historians claim that the Quakers constituted ten percent of the British population by the end of the seventeenth century.
This combination of persecution and expansion yielded several important consequences. First, the Quakers' sense of themselves as a distinct people with a divine mission became stronger. Their refusal to take oaths under any circumstances, to serve in the army, to take off their hats to persons in authority, to use formal speech (the plural "you" when speaking to one's so-called betters), and to dress like the "world's people" all date from this period. Unlike other dissenters, they insisted on holding their meetings publicly in spite of persecution, and thus began earning their reputation for scrupulous honesty. (The fact that Quaker merchants adopted a fixed price system significantly enhanced this reputation.)
Second, though unwilling to formulate any explicit creed or profession of faith, the early Friends were more than willing to engage in religious controversy and to defend their basic beliefs. Thus began the publication of numerous books and tracts intended to explain and justify Quaker principles. Undoubtedly, Robert Barclay's Apology (first published in Latin in 1676 and then in English in 1678) was the most theologically sophisticated of these books. Both Margaret Fell and George Fox wrote pamphlets defending a woman's right to preach and prophesy, one of the more controversial of basic Quaker beliefs.
Third, the early Friends realized that their movement required at least some kind of institutional structure: to provide material assistance and emotional support for those being persecuted, and also to nurture and discipline the individual and group life of its adherents. Thus was initiated, at Fox's urging, the bottom-up system of monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings. Though this system has often seemed undisciplined to non-Friends, it has given stability and continuity to our Religious Society. Separate men's and women's meetings for business were established as another institutional innovation. The latter afforded opportunities for women to exercise administrative and decision-making skills that were not generally available to them in the larger society.
During this initial period of Quakerism, Friends were not only engaged in sharing their "good news" with others in England. They also went to countries on the continent of Europe and in the Near East. Mary Fisher, for instance, was one of six Friends who undertook a mission to Turkey, but was the only one to be received by the Sultan in 1658. Of particular importance were the missions to the British colonies in North America and the West Indies. And under the leadership of William Penn (1644 – 1718), Quaker colonies were established in West Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Friends first came to New England as early as 1656, just four years after the birth of their religious society. In Massachusetts, the Quaker missionaries were imprisoned, tortured and expelled; four of them were put to death between 1659 and 1661, including Mary Dyer, whose statue is near the entrance of Friends Center at 1515 Cherry St. in Philadelphia. In the more tolerant Rhode Island, however, they were not only permitted to proselytize but also to settle. Meetings for worship were soon formed, and the first yearly meeting to be established was held in 1661, though meetings for business were apparently not held until some ten years later.
Quakers began to settle in the Delaware Valley in 1675, following the purchase of land near the present city of Burlington, New (then West) Jersey by two Friends. In 1681, Charles II repaid a sizable debt to the estate of William Penn's father by granting to Penn the land to the west of the Delaware River. The King named this land Pennsylvania in honor of Admiral Penn. William Penn intended to establish there a veritable "holy experiment"—an enlightened proprietorship based on New Testament principles and with liberty of conscience guaranteed.
Unfortunately, Penn's tenure as proprietor of his colony was frequently marked by conflict, and things only worsened when his sons came to power. Perhaps the most lasting vestige of Penn's "holy experiment" is a form of creative tension. Penn's political practice was by no means consistent with his theory, nor was his theory of governance adequately developed. Then as now, the tension between practice and theory, social engagement and mystical illumination, yielded as much heat as light. And yet the underlying principles of Penn's vision are as pertinent as ever: participatory decision making, religious liberty, justice as fair dealing with one's neighbors (the Native Americans, for instance), non-violent resistance rather than military defense, and the abolition of oaths.
II. Consolidation & Withdrawal 1689—Circa 1800
Quakers continued to be maligned and occasionally persecuted, even after the adoption of the Toleration Act by the English Parliament in 1689. But for the most part, Quakers were left alone. Perhaps ironically, their enthusiasm—or in other words, missionary zeal—diminished almost as soon as they won toleration; and the maintaining of discipline among a "peculiar people" tended to replace the expansive evangelism of the early years. What had once been a glorious and creative movement now took on the characteristics of a closed sect.
By 1720, the Quakers had become a minority of the population of Pennsylvania, but they retained political control of the colony until 1755 when, at the onset of the French and Indian Wars, most Friends gave up their seats in the Assembly rather than vote war measures. There was, during this period, a kind of "interlocking directorate" of the political leaders of Pennsylvania and the leading figures within Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Nevertheless, Quakers throughout the eighteenth century tended more and more to withdraw from active public life; increasingly, they sought to deepen their own spiritual lives and to hedge their Society about with distinctive rules and customs. But there were some, Betsy Ross for instance, who chose actively to support the American cause during the revolution and who formed a movement called the Free Quakers; others sought to avoid the conflict by moving to Canada; and a few Quaker leaders were exiled to Virginia.
During this period yearly meetings established requirements for membership and adopted, then frequently revised, Books of Discipline, which were intended to define more precisely the code of Quaker conduct and to prescribe the means of enforcing this code on members. For instance, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's 1704 Book of Discipline included a provision discouraging the marriage of Friends to non-Friends; its 1712 Discipline recommended disownment (that is, expulsion) of members who married "out of meeting"; and its 1722 Discipline required immediate disownment for this conduct. Such policies obviously enhanced the exclusivity of the Religious Society of Friends, as did the Queries and Advices formulated in order to increase Friends' mindfulness of their distinctive code of conduct.
But this period of consolidation was also a period of creativity. Even as Friends turned their energies from worldly matters, and particularly as they withdrew from governing Pennsylvania in 1755, they clarified and refined the testimonies for which Friends are known today. For instance, they became more deeply involved as leaders in the movement to abolish slavery and to achieve racial justice; they expressed concern for the treatment of prisoners; they established a number of philanthropies benefitting Native Americans; and they opposed the payment of taxes for war purposes and adhered generally to the principle of nonviolence.
An unprecedented number of reforming ministers arose at this time and traveled widely in the ministry, combining an effort to improve the discipline and to perfect the setting up of meetings, to preach against slavery and other social evils, and to hold public meetings in which they preached to the general public, just as their spiritual ancestors had done a century earlier. One such minister was John Woolman (1720 – 1772), who exemplified what a Quaker life could be when governed by the testimonies of Friends. His untiring efforts to eliminate the holding of slaves, to improve the treatment of Native Americans, and to end economic exploitation gave substance to the Quaker testimony on equality; and his choice of a way of life "free from much Entanglement and the Desire of outward Greatness," as he records in his Journal, likewise demonstrated the practical import of the Quaker testimony on simplicity. Though he directed his energies primarily to reform within the Religious Society of Friends, his work and his public writings were also clearly intended to influence the practice of the larger society.
III. Schism and Reform Circa 1800-1900
Even before the opening of the nineteenth century, American Friends exhibited two divergent tendencies: on the one hand, an emphasis on continuing revelation; on the other, an emphasis on the Christian origins of Quakerism and the authority of the Bible. For instance, in the 1690s George Keith formed a separatist movement called the Christian Quakers which strongly emphasized the life and teachings of the historical Jesus. Keith—one of the earliest and most effective "publishers of Truth"—had emigrated to East Jersey in 1685, and then to Philadelphia in 1689, where he became the first headmaster of the Quaker school from which both Friends Select and William Penn Charter claim descent. Though previously he had written some thirty books and tracts defending basic Quaker beliefs, he had increasing doubts about those beliefs and also about the structure of governance within monthly meetings. Accordingly, he began a campaign to establish deacons and elders as the guardians of the theological views of those who spoke in meetings for worship. He also proposed that all members be required to affirm a confession of faith or creed. After being rebuffed by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (and then by London Yearly Meeting as well), he established the Christian Quakers, with some fifteen monthly meetings. This movement did not last very long; by 1700 it had all but disappeared, and Keith himself had returned to England and joined the Anglican Church. But it clearly anticipates one of the tendencies of American Friends in the nineteenth century, which has been labeled (or perhaps, mislabeled) the evangelical.
The other nineteenth-century tendency continued to emphasize the Inward Light, or immediate and continuing revelation, as the primary basis for religious faith and practice. The most eloquent and charismatic leader of this movement was Elias Hicks (1748 – 1830), a Quaker farmer from Long Island. Hicks personally believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ, but emphasized the primacy of the Inner Light, and deplored creedal statements. He urged Friends to live apart from the world, he opposed public education, he opposed the construction of the Erie Canal and a system of railroads. But he was a strong abolitionist, and criticized those Friends who used any products of slave labor. His opposition to the wealth and power of city Friends in such centers as Philadelphia drew support from many, though some leading Philadelphia Quakers believed that his remarks were intended to undermine their authority. Hicks became a catalyst for existing differences among members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
Finally, in 1827 there was a formal schism within Philadelphia Yearly Meeting into "Orthodox" and "Hicksite" branches. Economic, geographic, kinship, and governance considerations were involved, in addition to theological differences. Many Orthodox Friends emphasized the importance of establishing a personal relationship with the bibilical Christ; some evidenced the influence of John and Charles Wesley, founders of the Methodist movement. Those who generally sympathized with the religious teachings of Elias Hicks became the Hicksite Yearly Meeting.
Many Hicksite Friends believed that experience of the Inward Christ was more important than understanding the biblical Christ. Orthodox Friends in Philadelphia met at the 4th and Arch Streets meetinghouse, while Philadelphia Hicksite Friends built a meetinghouse at 15th and Race Streets. To confuse matters further, each group continued to refer to itself as Philadelphia Yearly Meeting: that is, each assumed that it alone represented the authentic Quaker perspective and practice. Orthodox Friends were dominant in the city of Philadelphia; and Hicksite Friends, elsewhere in the region previously under the jurisdiction of a single Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. This split was soon followed by similar schisms in Baltimore, New York, New England, Ohio, and Indiana Yearly Meetings.
Further schisms occurred subsequently, occasioned by disagreements among Friends regarding faith and practice, but clearly exacerbated by the strong personalities of the principal controversialists. An English Friend, Joseph John Gurney (1788 - 1847), brother of Elizabeth Fry, who was a well-known advocate of prison reform, also took an evangelical position, emphasizing the Bible and playing down the Inward Light. His teachings influenced the Orthodox Friends in America, and some of his followers in England separated from London Yearly Meeting in 1835. John Wilbur (1774 - 1856) attempted to establish a position that would reconcile differences—that is, he stressed Orthodox Quaker views but also acknowledged the importance of the Inward Light; some of his followers formed another separatist movement among Friends in 1845. Still, it was the basic schism between Orthodox and Hicksite Friends that largely defined Quaker experience in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting for the remainder of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century. (Precisely because this schism defined the Quaker experience in America for such a long time, no definitive account nor interpretation has gained universal assent among Friends even today.)
Despite these divergent trends and conflicts, American Quakers made notable advances and contributions during the nineteenth century. Friends participated in the westward expansion, forming monthly and yearly meetings wherever they settled—but especially in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and on the Pacific coast. Many of these meetings adopted a pastoral system. Education, always a major Quaker concern, was promoted by the establishment of a number of Quaker schools and colleges. Friends also worked for the abolition of slavery and war, for the welfare of African-Americans and Native Americans, for prison reform, for temperance, and for the rights of women. Some Quakers played a prominent role in the formation of the underground railroad, giving aid and shelter to escaping slaves on their way to the Northern states or to Canada. And it is noteworthy that of the five women who organized the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls in 1848, four were Quakers: Lucretia Mott; her sister, Martha Coffin Wright; Mary Ann McClintock; and Jane Hunt. Such activities obviously placed members of the Religious Society of Friends in conflict with many in the larger society.
IV. Reconciliation Circa 1900-1955
Appropriately enough, it was the continuing commitment of both Orthodox and Hicksite Friends to the peace testimony that paved the way for their gradual reconciliation and, in 1955, for the reunification of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Orthodox and Hicksite members attended the Lake Mohonk Conferences on International Arbitration held near the end of the nineteenth century. In 1897, they worked together to support American participation in an arbitration treaty. And in 1901 the two separate (and occasionally contentious) Philadelphia Yearly Meetings jointly organized a conference for world peace to which all American Quakers were invited.
There were other developments in the early 1900s which contributed to the eventual reconciliation of Orthodox and Hicksite Friends. The formation of Friends General Conference in 1900 laid the foundation for cooperation in nurturing Quakers and Quakerism, though it was in itself a Hicksite enterprise.
After the Manchester Conference of 1895, London Yearly Meeting began shifting to a more liberal stance and to develop contacts with Hicksite Friends, inviting some to their summer schools. When Woodbrooke was set up as a Quaker study center in 1903, a number of Hicksite young people were recruited to attend, and thus met Orthodox young people for the first time on British soil. Both British and American Young Friends began to work actively to heal the breach. In January of 1913 Henry Cadbury organized a group of Philadelphia Young Friends from each branch to meet regularly to study the separation. Their report, issued in 1914, stated that it was not a matter of doctrine but of authority which had caused the separation. The group continued to meet, and to develop social occasions in which young people of both branches could get together. In time a few marriages resulted.
In 1916 Joseph Elkinton—a prominent Orthodox Friend—personally conveyed a letter of friendship from his own yearly meeting to the Hicksite Yearly Meeting. In 1917, both branches united with Friends Five Years Meeting to organize the American Friends Service Committee to provide service opportunities for conscientious objectors of all American yearly meetings, and implement Quaker testimonies in response to the First World War. Formation of the Friends Committee on National Legislation in 1943 played a similar bridging role, as did Pendle Hill and, at least in the immediate Philadelphia area, the Friends Neighborhood Guild. Working together proved efficient, and by 1930 a number of committees with similar objectives merged as a means of gaining greater effectiveness: of particular significance was the formation of a unified Peace Committee. At the same time, the Disciplines of the two yearly meetings were revised in the direction of commonalities rather than differences: for instance, at least some of the queries included in the two Disciplines were, after a time, identical. The process of healing was further helped by two social groups organized for the purpose—the Friends Social Union and the Divotee Golf Club of Atlantic City. Women of the two yearly meetings worked together on issues of suffrage and of peace.
The two yearly meetings both took action in the 1920s to lay down their separate women's and men's meetings for business. This was done at the request of the women. Thus ended an institution that in the seventeenth century had been radical—acknowledging women's spiritual gifts; that in the nineteenth century had been an important training ground for Quaker women entering public life; but that came to be seen in the age of female suffrage as second class status in religious life. That this step was taken by both yearly meetings at about the same time was further evidence of their readiness to come together.
These developments, which resulted from the individual and shared efforts of a number of Orthodox and Hicksite Friends, established a growing desire for reunification. In 1933, changes were made in the Disciplines of the two Philadelphia Yearly Meetings to provide for the formation of united monthly meetings, that is, monthly meetings with membership in both Orthodox and Hicksite yearly meetings. An even more decisive step towards unity was taken in 1946, when the two Philadelphia Yearly Meetings agreed to establish the Philadelphia General Meeting which would be held in the autumn and attended by both Orthodox and Hicksite Friends, though separate sessions would continue to be held in the spring. Also in the mid-1940s, the two yearly meetings formed a Religious Life Committee which met for its own spiritual nourishment and also to prepare for visiting monthly meetings in both yearly meetings; clearly, the need had been felt to affirm religious unity. Finally, in 1950, a committee was formed with representatives from both yearly meetings to prepare a common book of discipline. This committee submitted its work, entitled Faith and Practice, to both yearly meetings and to the General Meeting in 1954. The following year, a schism that had lasted for 128 years was amicably brought to an end, and a single, reunified Philadelphia Yearly Meeting convened—with standing room only—at Arch Street Meetinghouse.
V. Unity Amidst Diversity 1955-
Friends in Canada and in New York were reconciled and reunited at about the same time as those in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. New England Yearly Meeting had already experienced this process some ten years earlier. And indeed, there was among Friends throughout North America a growing interest in dialogue and cooperation. The Friends World Committee for Consultation, which had been founded in 1937 following the Friends World Conference at Swarthmore College, encouraged this development. Even more, the Fourth World Conference of Friends held at Guilford College yielded what became known as the Faith and Life Movement, with regional and then national meetings during the 1970s and early 1980s in which all North American yearly meetings participated; all shared the objective of finding common ground. On the other hand, there were important differences that continued to divide Friends, both within and between the various yearly meetings, and not the least concerned how to respond to two major social and political issues of the 1960s—the Vietnam war and the civil rights movement.
Social Concerns
Members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM) were encouraged to participate in efforts to end the war in Vietnam. For instance, the PYM News for May 1965 included a call to attend a vigil at the Pentagon sponsored by the Interreligious Committee on Vietnam, of which Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was itself a member. Then, at the 1967 yearly meeting sessions, the decision was reached to support the Phoenix project sponsored by an Action Group of Concerned Friends. This project involved sending medical supplies to North Vietnam despite the illegality of such action. The clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting resigned his clerkship soon thereafter, because as a sitting federal judge he was personally and officially committed to uphold the law; other Friends likewise wrestled with the question of whether civil disobedience was an appropriate method of registering opposition to the Vietnam war.
Following its 1964 sessions Philadelphia Yearly Meeting issued A Quaker Call to Action in Race Relations. In that call, Friends acknowledged failure in carrying out the implications of the Quaker testimony regarding human equality and advocated various steps to promote fair housing and fair employment. During the summer of 1964, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting sponsored a project in Mississippi to rebuild churches and construct a local community center. Many Friends, however, felt that their efforts should be focused on the needs of disadvantaged minorities in their own geographic area. Accordingly, in 1966, Friends in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting initiated a community action project in Chester, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia Friends were thus already attempting to respond to the urban crisis when they were presented with the Black Manifesto.
In the summer of 1969, the Black Economic Development Conference confronted various religious groups, including Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, with the demand that they pay reparations, given the alleged participation or complicity of such groups in the institutional arrangements that had disadvantaged African-Americans over the years. Shortly thereafter Philadelphia Yearly Meeting scheduled three called sessions in order to consider how it should respond to the Black Manifesto. Some 27 members of the local Black Economic Development Conference attended the third session, on 31 January 1970, and stood at the front of the meetinghouse for 45 minutes, with brief speeches by three of its leaders. Though the yearly meeting decided to reject the demand for payment of reparations, it did establish a Minorities Economic Development Fund which allocated funds (established in part through individual contributions and in part from the yearly meeting endowment) to support various community action projects in the Philadelphia area, including some sponsored by the Black Economic Development Conference.
Subsequently, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting wrestled with other manifestations of the ongoing problems of race relations and war. In the spring of 1978, it attempted to establish a "Friendly Presence" in West Philadelphia to encourage nonviolent resolution of the growing conflict between MOVE, a local commune, and the city of Philadelphia. In 1984 and again in 1988, the yearly meeting became the object of an IRS suit resulting from its refusal to levy the salary of one of its employees who did not pay the military portion of federal taxes.
The members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting have confronted other social concerns since 1955. Among these have been gender roles within monthly meetings and the general society, the rights of homosexuals, the investment of yearly meeting funds in companies with business interests in South Africa under apartheid, the Sanctuary movement for refugees in the US without credentials, the AIDS crisis, and the need for conflict resolution skills in families and schools.
Reorganization of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
When The Messenger (the newsletter of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting [Hicksite]) began publication in late 1928, there were some 10 yearly meeting committees with 3 devoted to social concerns. The latter were the Committee on Peace and Service, the Committee on the Interests of the Colored Race, and the Committee on Philanthropic Labor (which was charged to support prohibition, prison reform and child welfare agencies, among other things). A similar distribution of committees existed in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting [Orthodox]. By the mid 1960s, following reunification and even with the merger of committees from the two yearly meetings that had not merged previously, there were still 40 distinct yearly meeting committees and some 15 of these were independently operated and funded. Clearly, some kind of restructuring was needed.
And so, in 1966, Representative Meeting solicited responses from monthly meetings and from individual Friends to two basic questions: How should our religious society be organized so that it allows its members the most effective opportunities for service to the world and its own members? How should the finances of the yearly meeting be handled in order to use our moneys and funds most effectively in the service of God? The first question has been answered with decisions to restructure Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in the mid-1970s and then in the mid-1990s. And likewise, the second question has been answered with the adoption of different approaches to fund raising and budgeting in the late 1960s and then in the late 1990s.
The first restructuring of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting occurred in 1974, which coincided with ground breaking for the new Friends Center at 15th and Cherry Streets in Philadelphia. The new organization included three general committees—Worship and Ministry (which replaced the previously separate Yearly Meeting on Worship and Ministry), Nominating, and Personnel: and also three coordinating committees. The latter were to provide oversight and support for various committees and working groups dealing with specific programs and functions in relation, respectively, to the education and care of members, testimonies and concerns, and general services. Also, Representative Meeting was reorganized so that, in addition to members appointed by yearly meeting committees and a small number of at-large members, each monthly meeting appointed its own members. And finally, a committee formed in 1964 to undertake the revision of Faith and Practice completed its work, which was approved at the 1972 sessions of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
Beginning in 1994, a Structures and Workings Committee formed primarily of the clerks of monthly and quarterly meetings, began to consider once again how our yearly meeting might best be organized. It recommended a general plan to replace the three coordinating committees with five standing committees: Worship and Care, Education, Peace and Concerns, Support and Outreach, and General Services. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in its 1996 sessions approved this plan, and also the formation of an Implementation Committee, charged with working out the details—in particular the roles and responsibilities of the standing committees. This was completed by the 1998 annual sessions. Apart from the standing committees, there were to be two independent committees—Nominating Committee and a Financial Stewardship Committee; and Representative Meeting was renamed Interim Meeting. Otherwise, all yearly meeting services, programs and working groups were to come under the general oversight of an appropriate standing committee. In particular, the Worship and Ministry Committee, which had been independent of the previous coordinating committee structure, was brought under the aegis of the Worship and Care Standing Committee, though it has been renamed the Meeting on Worship and Ministry; similarly, the Personnel Committee became the Personnel Services Group under the aegis of the General Services Standing Committee. To complement this reorganization, the yearly meeting staff changed its basic role from committee support to general provision of services, so that assistance in coordinating volunteers or planning conferences, for instance, might be available to any of the project, service, or working groups that operate under the aegis of the five standing committees.
There have also been two approaches to financing yearly meeting activities. In early 1969, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting adopted centralized budgeting and a new pattern of fund raising. Each monthly meeting was expected to pay an assessment or quota based on its adult membership; and a Combined Appeal (subsequently named the Annual Appeal, and then the Annual Fund) replaced separate appeals issued on behalf of some 13 different yearly meeting committees. In addition to the funds from meetings and individuals, a significant portion of the yearly meeting budget comes from bequests and income from bequests. Then in 1997, concurrently with its restructuring, the yearly meeting replaced the quota system with a covenant mechanism, such that each monthly meeting voluntarily pledges the level of its support for quarterly and yearly meeting activities and services based on the resources that it can make available for these purposes (rather than the number of its adult members). The yearly meeting also adopted a procedure for increasing the involvement of monthly and quarterly meetings in the setting of priorities for the activities and services of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and hence for its budget.
Recent Growth and Change
Since reunification in 1955, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting experienced significant growth in its associated institutions. The number of Friends schools proliferated. Several life care retirement communities were formed, beginning with Foulkeways in 1964. And the Burlington Meetinghouse was renovated and expanded as a conference center for the increasing number of younger Friends and families.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting had some 30,000 members in 1775, and about half that number by 1925, which were unevenly divided between two yearly meetings. Since then, the yearly meeting has continued to experience a gradual reduction in recorded membership. In 1994, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting recorded 12,100 members. Of these, about half had newly joined the Religious Society of Friends during the past 15 years. Many of our monthly meetings experienced an influx of active attenders. A large number of young families participated in the revitalization of the First Day Schools. At this time, attenders were not included in the membership statistics of the yearly meeting.
Our monthly meetings, our yearly meeting, and Friends institutions have continued to offer a vital and active service to members, attenders, and the community at large. We remain committed to a life of obedience to the Spirit, and seek to be faithful witnesses to the Truth.
