“What Canst We Say?” includes the texts of the various iterations and modifications of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Book of Discipline as it evolved between 1715 and 1755. It also includes an examination of the processes by which these developments occurred, including the texts of some Yearly Meeting minutes and publications produced during this time.
The Yearly Meeting was very conscious that it was seeking a document with which the community could develop a deep unity, but also that the attainment of such unity was a process, rather than a declaration of truth. There was full expectation that the contents of the Book of Discipline would be changed, and that asking questions of the current text was a part of the responsibility of the Yearly Meeting community. The documents issued at the completion of several of the sections of the Discipline included statements on how the text was to be used, as well as explanations of how the principles described in the text could be questioned, challenged, and evolved.
Life within the Yearly Meeting during these times involved many aspects which were not dealt with extensively in the Book of Discipline, but which were important to the development of the community and to the identity of the Society of Friends in the world. Three of these issues (the rules on marriage between relatives, the evolution of the Yearly Meeting on the issue of slavery, and the role of women in the development of the Discipline) are discussed in the Appendices.
Author: David R. Haines
Pleasant Green Books. 2025
176 pages. $20.00 / paperback
ISBN (paperback) 978-0-9979848-4-2