Quakers can be quite righteous. We tend to point out the positives and even our testimony of truth hasn’t stopped us from passing over the inconvenient truths in our past and our present.
Recently I have been noticing and naming this as virtue signalling, the word used to describe the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue.
What are the stories we keep telling ourselves? What are the narratives taught in Sunday Schools?
LOOK OVER HERE, for example at the Quakers such as Elizabeth Fry who until recently was on the British £5 note who went into women’s prisons and improved conditions. So we are celebrated for reforming prisons (but where is the conversation about abolition?).
LOOK OVER HERE, at the Quaker Retreat centre in York famous for being ahead of its time in treating mentally ill people as people and leading the way in occupational health (but again, where is the conversation about social models of psycho-emotional health?)
LOOK OVER HERE, at the early Quakers who spoke out to abolish slavery and support the Underground Railroad movement, (but what about those who continued to own enslaved people beyond abolition and the way many Quaker businesses profited from the sugar trade built on the backs and deaths of so many people.)
LOOK OVER HERE, at the Quakers who spoke out about witch hunts in Salem, (but so late in the era, what was our part in early witch hunting in the UK and the US?)
LOOK OVER HERE, at the Quakers who were conscientious objectors (but what about those of us who are yet to divest our money from banks which support the arms trade?)
LOOK OVER HERE at the Quakers able to take environmental action and put solar panels on our roofs and buy organic food (and yet how do we judge those who can not afford to make such choices?)
LOOK OVER HERE, at me virtue signalling by being critical and trying to stay woke and on top of the curve of the moral spectrum and be on the right side of history…
My faith taught me from an early age to virtue signal, to learn how to show I was an ally rather that to actually be one and to teach me how to be exceptional white middle class woman. Although being a Quaker also teaches me as an adult to hold the complexity of history, to speak and seek the truth and to know my complicity in oppressive systems as well as my part to play to dismantle them, i am acutely aware of the omissions we choose to conveniently not emphasise and the ways in which we have a duty to start digging and sharing more of the dirty as well as squeaky clean parts of our individual and collective past and present.
In 2021, British Quakers collectively committed (Quakers don’t vote but rather make decisions rooted in silent worship) to becoming an actively anti-racist community and inclusive and welcoming for non-binary and trans folk. This was based on realising the Quaker Testimony of Equality is not necessarily enough to ensure actions reflect values.
In 2022 this was added to with a minute made in the yearly meeting gathering that made first references at the national level to financial and other reparations for how Quaker institutions have profited from and continue to proliferate oppressive systems such as slavery.
The decision making process of Quakers is slow but it does enable us to evolve and react and reflect the practices and morals of the present day. This means we can perhaps virtue signal more than other Christian denominations and faiths, but how does it actually translate in practice?
There is a famous Quaker phrase, what does love require of us?
Right now it requires discomfort, actions, humility and accountability. Love requires us to have courage to really live our faith.
1 comment
A 12-step phrase springs to mind in all of this (yes, my sponsor is coming out of my mouth again): we emphasise progress over perfection. As an Anglican, I recognise that Quakers have made more progress than we have and I take my lead from that.