New England Yearly Meeting

New England Yearly Meeting (NEYM) is a mostly unprogrammed yearly meeting located in the New England region of the United States, headquartered in Worcester, Massachusetts. It contains about 90 local meetings and churches and about 4,500 members, and currently affiliates with both the liberal organization Friends General Conference and the pastoral Friends United Meeting (See Dual-affiliated yearly meetings.) It is the oldest surviving yearly meeting in North America, having been founded in 1661.

1 Organizational affiliations
2 Positions on social issues
3 Committees and organizations
- 3.1 Youth programs
4 History
5 Regional subdivisions
6 References
7 External links

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Organizational affiliations

NEYM is a member of Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC), Friends General Conference (FGC), and Friends United Meeting (FUM), making it one of the five FGC and FUM dual-affiliated yearly meetings.

As with several of the other dual-affiliated meetings, some Friends within NEYM would like to disaffiliate with FUM because of the FUM personnel policy, which bars employees from engaging in sexual activity outside of a heterosexual marriage. However, at the 2006 annual sessions, the yearly meeting approved sending its regular financial contribution to FUM, with a number of Friends standing aside.^[1]

NEYM also is a member of the Friends Peace Teams Project, and Quakers United in Publishing.

Other organizations NEYM is "associated" with but not necessarily a member of include:^[2]

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Positions on social issues

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The environment

The yearly meeting has minuted support for a number of environmental causes, including the Earth Charter and against genetically modified foods.

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LGBTQ issues

The yearly meeting as a whole has taken no position on same-sex marriage or other unions, but a majority of local meetings and churches have minuted support individually.^[3]

The yearly meeting has also struggled in recent years with the FUM personnel policy, which excludes non-celibate gays and lesbians from employment with FUM.

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Racism

The yearly meeting has shown concern for racism and racial justice over the past few years, creating a Racial, Social and Economic Justice Committee and a Working Party on Racism within its NEYM Ministry and Counsel Committee, and inviting someone to speak on anti-racism for the keynote at the 2002 sessions.

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Committees and organizations

The yearly meeting's official newsletter is The New England Friend (website).

A very incomplete list of official committees and organizations:

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Youth programs

NEYM has active Young Friends (ages 14-18) and Young Adult Friends (ages 18-35) groups.

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History

Main article: History of New England YM

New England YM is commonly held to have been founded in 1661, the year of the first general meeting of Friends in Rhode Island, although it wasn't called "New England Yearly Meeting" until later.^[4]

Around 1817, a number of New England Friends calling themselves the New Lights emerged who denied the divinity of Jesus and emphasized immediate divine inspiration, sometimes to justify unusual behavior like attending meeting wearing swords. The movement quickly died, however, after most were disowned for various offenses.^[5]

Perhaps partly for this reason, there was not sufficient Hicksite sentiment in NEYM for it to be organizationally affected by the Hicksite-Orthodox separation of 1827-1828. NEYM remained as an Orthodox yearly meeting until 1845, when about 500 Friends withdrew to start a new yearly meeting with the traditionalist minister from Rhode Island John Wilbur, who had recently been disowned by the Gurneyite majority.^[6]

The Wilburite yearly meeting a few decades later underwent a further schism as part of the "Otisite-Kingite separation," which was largely fueled by disagreement about which yearly meetings (of the many created by the various 19th-century separations) to remain affiliated with.^[6] By 1944, the Wilburite yearly meeting made the following statement in its minutes:

Whatever may have been the necessity for the division when it occurred, we feel that at this present time the lack of corporate unity of Friends in New England is a deterrent to the spiritual growth and service of Friends. There is, we believe, such spiritual unity now existing, notwithstanding some strong differences in point of view, that the time has come for the uniting of all of the established groups of Friends in New England.^[7]

The following year, the two Orthodox yearly meetings, along with a number of newer independent or FGC-affiliated local meetings united to form a single yearly meeting.^[8]

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Regional subdivisions

NEYM is divided into eight quarters, which generally hold several meetings per year called "quarterly meeting," although often this is not strictly on a quarterly (4 times per year) basis. The eight quarters are: