| (The Twentieth Street and Fifteenth Street meeting houses in New York City housed the largest meetings in their respective Orthodox and Hicksite branches.) |
After Friends in the New York area split into two yearly meetings in 1828, their disciplines tended over the years to reflect the differences between them. When the two groups agreed, in 1955, to become one again, neither of their disciplines adequately expressed their common beliefs or the desired organizational structure of the unified yearly meeting. Through two revisions (1964 and 1974) Friends labored to express the spirit of the group without compromising the integrity of any member's deepest convictions. Both former disciplines were freely drawn upon, as were the disciplines of other yearly meetings, the writings of Friends, and fresh insights that spoke to the condition of the New York Yearly Meeting in the mid-twentieth century.
The present edition is the result of committee work begun in 1978. It includes an historical sketch of Quaker origins and describes the basis of our faith as well as our methods of practice and procedure, using many quotations to remind us of our inheritance. A glossary is included in the appendix for those unfamiliar with traditional Quaker terminology. There are also sample membership forms that meetings may copy and use.
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It seems to me to be a major issue for the
Society of Friends ... whether on the whole the emphasis
is to be for a type of open, expectant religion,
or whether it is to seek for comfortable
formulations that seem to ensure safety, and that will be
hostages against new and dangerous enterprises in
the realm of truth. Are we charged with hope and
faith and vision, or are we busy endeavoring to coin
repetitive phrases and to become secure resting
places for the mind?
--Rufus M. Jones,
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