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Quakerism & Witchcraft POPEYE POOPED OUT??? With autumn weather here, we are again in the "hot cereal season," when oatmeal makers go all out to sell their grey glop to America's youth. But according to a statement by a Quaker Oats Company spokesman last month, Popeye the "Quaker Man" will NOT be returning. The two-fisted sailor is going back to spinach; he was out-slugged by Quaker Power. A Friendly Letter DOUBLE ISSUE: #114 & #115 ISSN #0739-5418 TENTH & ELEVENTH MONTHS, 1990 Dear Friend, If you find the article in this issue valuable, I institutions, agencies and media able to look and speak have a request to make of you. But first, there is some across these yawning cultural gaps is increasingly explaining to do. important. The case could even be made that the longterm health of our society may depend on how well A Friendly Letter is usually four pages long. The such institutions are maintained and how effectively they article in this issue, however, is three times normal size. function. It wasn't planned. that way; the subject--Witchcraft and Quakerism--simply would not fit into the standard format. This is where my request comes in. In our small It was too complex, too emotionally freighted, and, I Quaker comer of the world, A Friendly Letter has tried to came to feel, too important. If you are among those who fill such a cross-cultural function. If you are a regular prefer the shorter length, I hope you will take a deep reader, chances are it has worked that way for you, at breath and press on through the extra pages anyway. least to some extent. This is also the first double issue ever. This too And if it has, then my request is that you take was not intentional; the research and writing just took the gift subscription flyer inserted in this issue, and that long. In preparation I read six books, totalling 2500 seriously consider sharing A Friendly Letter with at least pages; spent ten-plus hours in long distance telephone two F/friends this holiday season. interviews(the MCI bill will be horrendous); and traveled seven hundred miles to upstate New York and back. I ask this in part for a reason of mutual self- There was much more that could have been done, had interest: a desire to avoid a subscription rate increase. there been more time and budget. The article itself has Production costs continue to rise; postal rates will soon been through almost a dozen drafts. jump substantially; and as that looming phone bill underscores, reporting is expensive. In the face of these I did all this because the involvement of some facts, the only sure defense is a broader circulation base. unprogrammed Friends in witchcraft seemed to highlight in a special way many key issues facing Friends today. But to my mind these are, if inescapable, still Moreover, as it developed, the story seemed to become secondary considerations. I seek your help primarily to a kind of parable of the condition of society at large: be better able to work at seeing, understanding, and increasing fragmentation into mutually ignorant speaking across the gaps within the Society of Friends, subcultures; the growth of media images as a substitute and through it to the world outside. for real contact and communication among them; their vulnerability to the manufacture and exploitation of fear In pursuit of this mission, you are the ultimate for commercial, political and religious purposes. judge of my performance. And if the extraordinary effort that has gone into this issue seems worth it to you, It is my sense that many of the hottest disputes sending gift subscriptions to Friends and Friends is one of that inflame our political landscape--abortion, obscenity, the most effective ways to express that confidence. school textbook censorship and more--are as much cultural conflicts as much as anything else. Americans I hope you will come through for me, and for understand this, just barely anyway, when it comes to Friends. race. But it is equally true of religion, though there the cultural partitions are often harder to see. And Quakers are as subject to these trends as any other group; it is wishful thinking to imagine otherwise. If this reading of the signs of the times is at all accurate, one implication is that the need for bridging Copyright <l:l 1990 by C. Fager. Subscription rates: US, Canada & Mexico--$17.95/yr; elsewhere--$20.00/yr. WITCHCRAFT AND QUAKERISM: THE GREAT DIVIDE IN NEW YORK? New York Yearly Meeting Despite continuing differences, the but were horrified by the opening (NYYM)is a kind of field laboratory for committee members were upbeat; they session, which included chanting the an ongoing experiment in institutional planned to report that they had names of various ancient goddesses. Quaker ecumenism. Unfortunately, in maintained a Friendly spirit, and this at During the chant the Clintondale recent years, many of the results of this least seemed reason for optimism. women huddled in a comer, reciting test have not been promising, and the Lords Prayer, then packed hurriedly never more so than at its 1990 session. But on 7/24, the Tuesday night of and went home. Clintondale Meeting the 1990 Yearly Meeting, all hopes for soon resolved to take its protest of this New York is one of the a peaceful session suddenly went paganism to the full Yearly Meeting. reunited YMs, knit together in 1955 aglimmering, when a minute was read from Hicksite and Orthodox groups from Clintondale Meeting, a small Once it was read on the YM floor, which had separated in 1828. The pastoral church in the Hudson Valley. there was division about what to do Orthodox YM brought into the union The minute was short and stem: with this minute. A move was made to several pastoral meetings, and some send it to Ministry and Counsel Com- members who are strongly evangelical, "Clintondale Friends Meeting rejects mittee for consideration and guidance. even fundamentalist in their views. the teachings of Goddess worship and Many approved of this; but the Clinton- The Hicksites' religious outlooks range their correlates of paganism and dale Friends present emphatically did from liberal tohumatiist, atheist and witchcraft, ana callsonNew York Yearly -n-ot. They -wanted to be heard, and beyond. (For a survey of liberal Quaker Meeting to do the same. Paganism and they wanted to be heard now. This was theologies, see AFL #28.) witchcraft have no place in the life and not a time for procedural finagling; to teachings of the Religious Society of them it was a matter of life and death. The 1980s were not easy for Friends .•• NYYM. While many other unprogram- MAKING SOMETIIING CLEAR med yearly meetings were growing, WHERE BOMBSHELLS ARE BORN New York's membership declined by Walter Eichler was one of the about ten per cent; the body struggled Paganism? Witchcraft? The Clintondale Friends. He had not been to meet its budget; and worst of all, its minute, although it came as a surprise to Yearly Meeting before, and had annual sessions were wracked by to many Friends, had considerable driven for several hours specifically to chronic wrangling over doctrine and history behind it. It began with an attend this session and voice thi~ morals. An effort to rewrite its Faith announcement the previous fall of a concern. He repeatedly tried to speak, and Practice has been a major focus of women's weekend workshop at Powell but the Clerk did not recognize him. NYYM's recent divisions. By last year, House, NYYM's conference center. The Finally his pastor, Dan Whitley, this process had become so acrimonious topic was the Quaker experience of the intervened and he was given the floor. that the Yearly Meeting put it Goddess, and in the announcement for temporarily on hold. Initially this was it the workshop leader, Carolyn As he recalls it, Eichler told the to be for a year, but it could well Mallison, described herself as, among group, in sum, that it didn't really continue indefinitely. other things, "a student of Wicca," the , matter what they thought about this name for certain forms of modem minute, because God had already DON'T GIVE PEACE A CHANCE witchcraft. decided the issue: Yall can't be a Christian and believe in things like In this impasse, the moral sticking -This was not the first such witcllcra ft and Goddess worshi p-: as points are what one Friend calls the workshop Mallison had led at Powell evidently many here do. Some things in "pelvic issues" --abortion, homosexuality, House; she had also led interest groups the Bible are complicated, he insisted, and sexual/family issues in general. At on Goddess spirituality at NYYM for bllt some things in it are clear, and this the other pole are perennial doctrinal several years. But a few Clintondale is one of them: the Bible condemns questions: How Christian is or should Friends, seeing the reference to Wicca, sorcery. witchcraft, and the worship of Quakerism be? What, and who defines felt such a session should not be held goddesses. It's not mysteriolls; it's a "Christian"? What are the limits of on NYYM property. After much labor, matter of the First Commandment. Quaker fait;h and fellowship? And and not without dissent, the meeting underlying them all, though few will agreed, and protests were sent, first to Eichler is a big man with a gruff ask it openly: has NYYM's experiment Powell House, then to the YM Ministry voice, and he spoke brusquely about failed--was reunification a mistake? and Counsel Committee, and finally to these things.
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