I’ve been mean­ing to get more into the habit of shar­ing upcom­ing Friends Jour­nal issue themes. We start­ed focus­ing on themed issues back around 2012 as a way to bring some diver­si­ty to our sub­ject mat­ter and help encour­age Friends to talk about top­ics that weren’t as regularly-covered.

The next issue we’re look­ing to fill is a top­ic I find inter­est­ing: Quak­er Spaces. I’ve joked inter­nal­ly that we could call it “Meet­ing­house Porn,” and while we already have some beau­ti­ful illus­tra­tions lined up, I think there’s a real chance at juicy Quak­er the­ol­o­gy in this issue as well.

One of my pet the­o­ries is that since we down­play creeds, we talk the­ol­o­gy in the minu­tia of our meet­ing­hous­es. Not offi­cial­ly of course — our wor­ship spaces are neu­tral, uncon­se­crat­ed, emp­ty build­ings. But as Helen Kobek wrote in our March issue on “Dis­abil­i­ties and Inclu­sion,” we all need phys­i­cal accom­mo­da­tions and these pro­vide tem­plates to express our val­ues. Ear­li­er Friends expressed a the­ol­o­gy that dis­trust­ed forms by devel­op­ing an archi­tec­tur­al style devoid of cross­es, steeples. The clas­sic meet­ing­house looks like a barn, the most down-to-early hum­ble archi­tec­tur­al form a north­ern Eng­lish sheep­herders could imagine.

But the­olo­gies shift. As Friends assim­i­lat­ed, some start­ed tak­ing on oth­er forms and Methodist-like meet­ing­house (even some­times dar­ing­ly called church­es) start­ed pop­ping up. Mod­ern meet­ing­hous­es might have big plate glass win­dows look­ing out over a for­est, a nod to our con­tem­po­rary wor­ship of nature or they might be in a con­vert­ed house in a down-and-out neigh­bor­hood to show our love of social justice.

But it’s not just the out­sides where the­ol­o­gy shows up. All of the clas­sic North­east­ern U.S. meet­ing­hous­es had rows of bench­es fac­ing for­ward, with ele­vat­ed fenc­ing bench­es reserved for the Quak­er elders. A theologically-infused dis­trust of this mod­el has led many a meet­ing to rearrange the pews into a more cir­cu­lar arrange­ment. Some­times some­one will sneak some­thing into the mid­dle of the space — flow­ers, or a Bible or hym­nal — as if in recog­ni­tion that they don’t find the empti­ness of the Quak­er form suf­fi­cient. If asked, most of these deci­sions will be explained away in a light-hearted man­ner but it’s hard for me to believe there isn’t at least an uncon­scious nod to the­ol­o­gy in some of the choices.

I’d love to hear sto­ries of Friends nego­ti­at­ing the meet­ing space. Has the desire to build or move a meet­ing­house solid­i­fied or divid­ed your meet­ing? Do you share the space with oth­er groups, or rent it out dur­ing the week? If so, how have you decid­ed on the groups that can use it? Have you bick­ered over the details of a space. Here in the North­east, there are many tales of meet­ings com­ing close to schism over the ques­tion of replac­ing ancient horse­hair bench cush­ions, but I’m sure there are con­sid­er­a­tions and debates to be had over the form of fold­ing chairs.

You can find out more about sub­mit­ting to this or any oth­er upcom­ing issue our the Friends Jour­nal Sub­mis­sions page. Oth­er upcom­ing issues are “Cross­ing Cul­tures” and “Social Media and Technology.”

Aug 2016: Quaker Spaces

What do our archi­tec­ture, inte­ri­or design, and meet­ing­house loca­tions say about our the­ol­o­gy and our work in the world? Quak­ers don’t con­se­crate our wor­ship spaces but there’s a strong pull of nos­tal­gia that brings peo­ple into our his­toric build­ings and an unde­ni­able ener­gy to inno­v­a­tive Quak­er spaces. How do our phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tions keep us ground­ed or keep us from shar­ing the “Quak­er gospel” more wide­ly? Sub­mis­sions due 5/2/2016.