Tag Archives ⇒ quakers

Letter Regarding FUM Finances

October 23, 2025
· Martin Kelley

I thought that the expose on Earl­ham Col­lege was going to be this week’s Quak­er finan­cial melt-down sto­ry but Friends Unit­ed Meet­ing did the prover­bial “hold my beer” and announced it’s in seri­ous finan­cial per­il.

Friends Unit­ed Meet­ing (FUM) is the largest Quak­er mem­ber­ship orga­ni­za­tion in the world. Sim­pli­fy­ing quite a bit, it grew out of the Gur­neyites, the more churchy branch of Quak­ers who often adopt­ed min­istry and inter­na­tion­al mis­sions. Those mis­sions are the rea­son why there are so many Quak­ers in places like East Africa and Bolivia. Most of the world­wide body of Friends are part of that move­ment and many are for­mal mem­bers of FUM.

The­o­log­i­cal­ly, today’s FUM is a “big tent” asso­ci­a­tion that tries to hold togeth­er a wild­ly diver­gent set of beliefs and cul­tur­al norms, with gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty being the most com­mon light­ning point. There’s always cor­ners of FUM threat­en­ing to leave or threat­en­ing to with­hold mem­ber­ship dues. There was seri­ous talk in the 1990s of a “realign­ment” that would split up FUM along evan­gel­i­cal and uni­ver­sal­ist lines but some­how that’s nev­er quite hap­pened and the tent has held. To its cred­it the big tent approach means that FUM has been a key facil­i­ta­tor of cross-branch dia­logue among North Amer­i­can Friends.

The finan­cial prob­lem is pret­ty straight­for­ward, a sto­ry as old as nonprofits:

Our audits have not been done in a time­ly fash­ion, inter­nal finan­cial con­trols have been miss­ing, and we did not ensure that good account­ing prac­tices were being fol­lowed. We have not been care­ful enough in review­ing finan­cial infor­ma­tion giv­en to us or in devel­op­ing the abil­i­ty of new board mem­bers to under­stand FUM’s com­plex finan­cial structure.

I’m gen­uine­ly sur­prised that FUM lead­er­ship was this asleep at the wheel but I sym­pa­thize. A non­prof­it I worked for in the 1990s went through a sim­i­lar cri­sis when a few years of back­logged audits came back and showed us we were in far worse shape than we had imag­ined. The oth­er major U.S. Quak­er asso­ci­a­tion, Friends Gen­er­al Con­fer­ence, went though some­thing sim­i­lar in the 1980s; the sto­ry I’ve heard is that the lawyers told them they were broke to go bank­rupt and they fig­ured their way out of the finan­cial hold.

Many non­prof­its go through boom and bust cycles but this sounds more than just that. I do hope Friends Unit­ed Meet­ing can pull through.

Letter Regarding FUM Finances
Let­ter Regard­ing FUM Finances 

Dear Friends, we will put the bad news first: at our cur­rent income and expen­di­ture rate, FUM will…

mailchi.mp mailchi​.mp

Reviving Queer Worship

October 15, 2025
· Martin Kelley

In my lat­est author pod­cast inter­view, I talk with R.E. Mar­tin and Jason A. Ter­ry about the efforts to bring back wor­ship focused specif­i­cal­ly on the queer com­mu­ni­ty to Friends Meet­ing of Wash­ing­ton (FMW). I espe­cial­ly appre­ci­ate the work of con­nect­ing with elders who par­tic­i­pat­ed in this wor­ship in decades past — through the worst of the AIDS epi­dem­ic and through the strug­gle for grow­ing accep­tance of the 1990s.

You can watch the full episode of my talk with R.E. and Jason and read their arti­cle, “Advices and Que[e]ries: Cho­sen Fam­i­ly and Cho­sen Ances­tors.”

The Octo­ber issue of Friends Jour­nal is specif­i­cal­ly about affin­i­ty groups: how and why and when we might break off into wor­ship groups that specif­i­cal­ly include and exclude Friends. Octo­ber authors Vanes­sa Julye and Cur­tis Spence are inter­viewed as part of this mon­th’s Quak­ers Today pod­cast episode, “Quak­ers & Affin­i­ty Spaces: Find­ing Whole­ness in a Sep­a­rat­ed World.”

South Jersey Trips

September 26, 2025
· Martin Kelley

Odds and ends: last week­end my Friends meet­ing took a trip to John Wool­man Asso­ci­a­tion in Mount Hol­ly, New Jer­sey, ded­i­cat­ed to the 18th cen­tu­ry Quak­er abo­li­tion­ist; high­ly rec­om­mend­ed if you’re in the area. On the way out of town I vis­it­ed the Shinn Cur­tis Log House from 1712, which was so encased by addi­tions over the cen­turies that the orig­i­nal house was for­got­ten until demo­li­tion of the lat­er house in the late 1960s. 

My state pub­lic media PBS sta­tion has announced they’re ceas­ing oper­a­tions next year, hit hard by both fed­er­al and state bud­get cuts. Wedged between two top-five U.S. media mar­kets (New York and Philly), statewide news is often an after­thought to their sta­tions, so our PBS has been impor­tant. It’s also com­mis­sioned lots of quirky local his­to­ry doc­u­men­taries. In oth­er media news, I’m excit­ed for next year’s Man­dalo­ri­an movie, though my two Star Wars kids are wor­ried that the trail­er is too cute.

Glad to see my new col­league Ren­zo Car­ran­za in the lat­est Quak­er­S­peak.

Standing with the Marginalized, with Anthony Manousos)

September 22, 2025
· Martin Kelley

This week I talked with my old Friend Antho­ny Manousos about the [waves hand in the air] polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion we’re in. I’ve known Antho­ny for over 28 years now, back when we were part of a con­fer­ence to try to kick-start what lat­er was reborn as Quak­er Vol­un­tary Ser­vice (spoil­er: our attempt failed for what I think were most­ly gen­er­a­tional issues). Antho­ny is still protest­ing and wit­ness­ing to make a bet­ter world. I loved hear­ing his sto­ry of coali­tion work and the joy of orga­niz­ing with music. His arti­cle, “We Have No King,” appears in this mon­th’s Friends Jour­nal. 

I asked him what Quak­ers bring to protests:

One of the impor­tant things that we bring is our way of wor­ship. And our way of wor­ship helps to bring the tem­per­a­ture down. I think what the cur­rent regime wants is a vio­lent move­ment oppos­ing them. That plays out what they want (and cer­tain­ly the assas­si­na­tion of Char­lie Kirk plays into that sce­nario). What Quak­ers bring is a com­mit­ment to peace­ful protest. And when we’re around, we can be that strong, com­mit­ted, peace­ful pres­ence. And that’s important.

I also asked him a follow-up ques­tion of what we need to do to get out of the way and accept the lead­er­ship of oth­ers in social change. You can lis­ten to his answers or read them in the show notes. 

A Journey of Conscience: Ron Marullo’s Story

September 16, 2025
· Martin Kelley

I talked with Friends Jour­nal author Ronald Marul­lo this week. His arti­cle, “I Aint’ March­ing Any­more” (a nod to Phil Ochs of course), recounts his path to con­sci­en­tious objec­tion dur­ing the Viet­nam war, helped by a very knowl­edgable Quak­er coun­selor. It always amazes me that just a few con­ver­sa­tions at the right time can help some­one clar­i­fy their beliefs and set their lives on a dif­fer­ent path.

I was espe­cial­ly inter­est­ed in talk­ing about the after-effects of the CO process since I went through some­thing sim­i­lar myself. Around age 17 my father start­ed lob­by­ing hard for me to go to the Naval Acad­e­my at Annapo­lis. Except for a few years in Pres­by­ter­ian Sun­day School we had grown up most­ly a‑religious and I found the idea intrigu­ing. I think in ret­ro­spect I was most­ly excit­ed by the idea of an order­ly life that might address my ADHD (called hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty in those days). I got far enough into the process to take a phys­i­cal and get a let­ter of com­men­da­tion from our con­gressper­son but then thought more about the mil­i­tary itself. I real­ized I did­n’t feel com­fort­able join­ing an orga­ni­za­tion whose pur­pose was threat­en­ing to kill. I had on prin­ci­ple, and with­out much delib­er­a­tion, decid­ed not to engage in school­yard fights years before, and suf­fered the reg­u­lar humil­i­a­tions that comes of being the small­est kid in class who every­one knows won’t fight back. To the dis­ap­point­ment of my father I stopped the appli­ca­tion process for the navy. As I pon­dered what to do next, I asked myself what oth­er val­ues might come from my new­found paci­fism. Over the next few years I explored var­i­ous leads and — being in the Philadel­phia area — start­ed run­ning into Quak­ers, some of whom had a kind of inner con­vic­tion I found intriguing.

So while I was far too young to ever wor­ry about a draft, I did have a sim­i­lar defin­ing “what do I believe” moment as a teenag­er. As Ron says in our author chat pod­cast:

That was a turn­ing point in my life. I made deci­sions from fill­ing out those forms and answer­ing those ques­tions actu­al­ly made con­crete what I had inside me, ide­al­ly. You think about this and think about that and whether or not you hold it true. But when you have to put it all on paper and you have to sub­mit it to the world, it changes you. And I’ve lived by that phi­los­o­phy since that age. I’ve done it in my edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ence with chil­dren. I’ve done it in my pri­vate life with friends, care­giv­ing oth­ers. My wife and I have been doing that, you know, for decades.

- YouTube
 — YouTube 

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload orig­i­nal con­tent, and share it all with friends, fam­i­ly, and…

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Black Resistance to Quaker Enslavement

August 4, 2025
· Martin Kelley

Nice detec­tive work in this arti­cle by Jim Fussell. In recent years, we’ve flipped the tra­di­tion­al script of Friends as unal­loyed sav­iors for their work on man­u­mis­sions and the abo­li­tion of slav­ery. We now affirm that many held slaves begin­ning in 1655, when Quak­er mis­sion­ar­ies Ann Austin and Mary Fish­er land­ed on the heav­i­ly enslaved island of Bar­ba­dos and con­vinced a num­ber of the White enslavers to become Friends. A few years lat­er Mary Fish­er then went on trav­el to Turkey to try to con­vince the sul­tan of the Ottoman Empire. Despite her amaz­ing brav­ery, in her will Fish­er named a “Indi­an girle Slave, named Reigner.” .

We now talk about the era in which Quak­ers were slave­hold­ers but Jim goes a step fur­ther to talk about the enslaved Africans’ resis­tance to Quak­er enslavers. In an era in which we’re once more appar­ent­ly debat­ing if vio­lence against prop­er­ty is okay, the sto­ry of two enslaved women, Grace and Jane, burn­ing a plan­ta­tion tobac­co barn seems almost quaint­ly direct action.

Just a moment...
Just a moment… 
www.friendsjournal.org www​.friend​sjour​nal​.org

When a Philadelphia Hostel Provided Refuge for Victims of Internment Camps

July 31, 2025
· Martin Kelley

Great sto­ry in Hid­den City Philadel­phia about Quak­er aid to government-displaced Japan­ese Amer­i­cans dur­ing WW2. A coali­tion of peace activists, Quak­ers, and reli­gious pro­gres­sives opened a hos­tel in West Philly and orga­nized col­lege admis­sions to area schools.

When a Philadelphia Hostel Provided Refuge for Victims of Internment Camps
When a Philadel­phia Hos­tel Pro­vid­ed Refuge for Vic­tims of Intern­ment Camps 

For­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed Japan­ese Amer­i­cans found sanc­tu­ary in the Quak­er City dur­ing WWII

Hidden City Philadelphia Hid­den City Philadelphia 

Navigating Gender Transition as a Quaker

July 13, 2025
· Martin Kelley

New from Quak­er­S­peak, an inter­view with Willa Taber:

Joy was my guide­post through my tran­si­tion,” Willa reflects. “I real­ized that at the age of 70, I was too old to post­pone joy. I real­ized short­ly after that that at four years old, I was too old to post­pone joy, but I didn’t know it then.

Willa was one of the reg­u­lar Quak­er blog­gers back in the day1. I had most­ly lost touch, only hear­ing third hand of the tran­si­tion some­where. I’m glad she’s doing well and still wit­ness­ing to the Truth as revealed to her.