Howard Aldrich (1999) argues that organisations are systems of purposive human activity (1999, 3). He contends that they are socially constructed and exist for the general purpose of setting and directing goals as well as for maintaining boundaries between themselves and non-members (1999, 3). Aldrich contends that collectively-agreed and maintained meanings within organisations are significant. They are capable of unifying activity and belief within the group ‘although individual participants might personally feel indifferent toward these goals or even alienated from them’ (1999, 3).
According to Aldrich, this dissonance between individual and collective goals remains a perennial tension generally within organisations. Organisations attempt to compensate for these internal tensions. He states that, ‘organisations are thus structured in ways to suppress, or at least compensate for, the excess baggage that people bring with them’
(1999, 4). However, the tensions within the contemporary Quaker organisation can also be depicted at an institutional rather than simply at an individual level. Rather, the
151
tensions within the group are also at odds with its religious claims predicated on liberating the individual from organisational mainstream church oppression. It is in this organised sense that the religious institution appears flawed insofar as its practices are inconsistent with its harmonious claims.
Gay Pilgrim (2008) writes that early and contemporary Quakers are linked by
heterotopic social practices (2008, 54). She describes this impulse in social terms as a heterotopic alternate ordering whereby the expositions of their faith were juxtaposed against temporal political authority. Pilgrim depicts the concept of heterotopia as a heterodox form of social practice (2008, 53). It is a ‘countersite’ within the wider social setting and is employed as a form of boundary-making by groups who wish to highlight current social practices and the possibility of alternatives (2008, 55). Pilgrim writes that Quakers have adopted heterotopic practices since the group’s inception and that this alternate form of social engagement has prevailed up to the present day (2008, 54). In this sense, Quakers normatively position themselves within social spaces in ways alternative to their local environment. These heterotopic sites of alternative occupation are not only socially marginalised but also ‘simultaneously…embedded in the prevailing social order’ (Pilgrim, 2008, 55). Alternate ordering therefore emerges from and is stimulated by its social context. Pilgrim argues that otherness is thus fundamentally relational but also that the relational aspect of the Quaker church has altered in its contemporary manifestation and its heterodox claims have become subject to individuated diffusion.
152
Pilgrim suggests that the individualisation of what counts as Quaker has led to a loss of collective vision. The church is a site of alternative exploration which is now conducted on individual bases and on individualistic terms learned from outside and prior to
affiliation with the Quaker church (Pilgrim 2008, 61). Moreover, the conceptualisation of the Quaker church in terms of an alternate ordering has now become internalised, according to Pilgrim (2008, 64). Quaker heterotopia is now contested from within rather than without the church (2008, 63). What counts as Quaker in terms of its otherness is now the subject of negotiation internal to the church and individuated internal
conceptualisations of what counts as Quaker (2008, 64). Thus, argues Pilgrim, the liberal Quaker tradition is a synthesis of individual interests which have been grounded outside the church collective but are now presented externally as acceptably
mainstream if not as socially anodyne in practice (2008, 64). The heterotopic impulse has become mollified, turned inward, and is essentially uncritical of the liberal Quaker motif.
The exposition of Patsy and Jack tends to support Pilgrim’s argument that tensions within the Quaker church can be framed as a failure to accommodate liberal, permissive horizons and worldly heterodox practice. Patsy and Jack’s conceptualisation of the church as conflicted illustrates that the liberal church is not internally harmonious. It is not harmonious in these essentially contested terms. In other words, the church is perceived as acting oppressively with regard to its liberal and permissive horizons. It is seen by Jack and Patsy as zealously enforcing collective conformity in practice whilst espousing liberal and permissive horizons. This perception of how Quakers cope with
153
conflict within the church accords with Robson’s (2008) argument that the Quaker church is conflicted about how to manage disharmony (2008, 141).
Quakers, Robson asserts, are averse to conflict and will seek unity rather than adversarially defend fundamental principles in a collective sense. This aversion is framed by Robson as a strategy for managing everyday inconsistencies with respect to group’s espousal of peaceable living and the apparent existence of intra-church strife.
Robson writes that, ‘It is usually a more important aim that the group retains members than that searching process finds a right way forward even at the expense of
disagreement or loss’ (Robson 2008, 145). However, Scully (2008) writes that Quakers ethics are not governed by ‘theoretical consistency’ but by generalised rules on ‘the best way forward’ framed in Quaker terms of implicitly agreed ‘concepts and symbols’ (2008, 110). From Scully’s point of view, general agreement in terms of these concepts and symbols is assumed within the group (2008, 108). However, my research shows that unifying and fundamental assumptions about the Quaker church and its concepts and symbols are not shared in practice across the collective. In this sense, Quakers are not a united collective. When assumptions about what counts as Quaker are not shared and horizons claimed individually by Quakers are framed in contestational terms with regard to the church, disharmony within the church is revealed.
My research supports Scully’s contention that ‘theoretical consistency’ is not privileged within the contemporary Quaker tradition. Rather, the horizons of the research
participants are highly individualised. In this sense, the Quaker research participants do
154
not seek consistency with the collective when converting to the church. Instead, they unite around individualised imaginations of what Christianity is not. This
re-imagination of what Christianity is not is conceptualised in essential terms. What Christianity is, however, from a Quaker perspective, is framed as a matter of individual interpretation. These Quakers see this individual remit of the church as liberating.
However, ‘the best way forward’ for Quakers based upon ‘what seems right’ becomes problematic within the contemporary Quaker tradition (Scully 2008, 109): ergo, there is disharmony within the church. Scully’s view does not fully account for tensions which exist within the group regarding what counts as Quaker and, moreover, what counts as Quaker which is contestable from within the church.
My research, then, builds on Scully’s idea of the Quaker ‘moral collage’ where the collective ethic fits a kaleidoscopic metaphor of intricate and interlocking individualised perspectives. It suggests that the Quaker intention to find the ‘best way forward’, creating a ‘moral collage’ does not depict fully the tensions between the individual and the collective Quaker condition. It assumes that general agreement regarding Quaker concepts and symbols is extant within the group. However, these Quakers do not claim to progress their religious enterprise in generalised or matter-of-fact terms. They convert to the Quaker church on terms fundamentally opposed to the Christian concept
prescribed by mainstream churches. In this sense, I suggest that within the Quaker collective there is a tension between individual and collective conceptualisations of Christianity which underly superficial problems of Quaker decision-making which Scully and Robson identify.
155
Research participants, then, convert to the church on fundamental terms which they claim as heterodox in relation to the construction of Christianity by mainstream religious traditions. This heterodoxy is highly individualised and this individualised perspective frames the fluid and provisional conceptualisation of the liberal Quaker tradition.
However, this concept of what counts as Quaker in terms of a rational certainty of theological uncertainty (Dandelion 2007, 152) is evidently regarded within the church setting as disputatious. Contention, though, is managed by church processes and internecine conflict is disavowed in Quaker terms so that a patina of harmony is
outwardly maintained. So, whilst affiliates do not depict the church as conflict-ridden, my research suggests that there are tensions both within the ‘theoretical consistency’ of its espoused heterodoxy and in terms of how fundamental inconsistencies are managed practically within the church setting (Scully 2008, 109). In the next chapter, I explore what counts as Quaker for affiliates in the context of contemporary work and whether these espoused religious horizons are also consistent in practice.
4.6 Chapter summary
In this chapter, I have depicted how the research participants framed the Quaker church in relation to perceived Christian alternatives. I suggest that they convert to the Quaker tradition in opposition to other mainstream Christian church alternatives. They see traditional, churched Christianity as a prescribed form of belief which stifles the individual quest for fundamental meaning in the contemporary world. The research participants regarded Christianity only as individually pertinent to the religious enterprise. The religious enterprise was rather understood by affiliates as an
156
individually interpreted project and framed in essentially contestational terms. The
impetus to contest religious meaning essentially was equated by affiliates fundamentally with the horizons of the Quaker tradition. This approach to meaning-making was
regarded especially in contrast to the perceived fixed, settled and self-serving
constructions of Christianity promulgated by mainstream churches. This contestational and alternative conceptualisation of the Quaker tradition, however, was also framed problematically. It was framed as a potential tension when applied to the church organisation by affiliates seeking theological coherence from within the contemporary collective.
157