For many Friends in Baltimore Yearly Meeting, questions about Friends United Meeting seem distant. We really do not know why we are affiliated with FUM or indeed, who they are. This is probably true of most of the Yearly Meetings in FUM, not just our own.

For a hundred and forty years, there were two Baltimore Yearly Meetings. By 1900, one of these was affiliated with what would become Friends General Conference and the other with what would become FUM. Part of the uniting of the two Yearly Meetings involved deciding how to handle these outside relationships. How we came together and what we have done since then affects our attitudes today.

Bliss Forbush, in A History of Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Friends, published in 1972 as part of the 300th anniversary of the Yearly Meeting, dates this effort to 1923, when Baltimore YM (Park Avenue) sent “greetings” to BYM (Eutaw Street), which “united in an earnest response and a wish the feeling might grow and find us closer together.” Park Avenue later was Stony Run; Eutaw become Homewood. Park Avenue was affiliated with Friends General Conference; Eutaw Street with Five Years Meeting [later FUM]. Three years later, a Cooperating Committee was established.

In 1931, joint and concurrent sessions of the two Yearly Meetings started. The time of the annual sessions moved to March to accommodate this. From the minutes of the two Yearly Meetings, it is apparent that some sessions were held jointly while other sessions were held only by one of the two YMs. It is not clear if two sessions were held concurrently or if one YM met and the other had time off. The Young [Adult] Friends movements of the two YMs joined into one body.

By 1959, three Yearly Meetings (New England, New York, and Canada) had united and the Cooperating Committee remarked this had brought great joy and stated: “We recognize that there are still many differences of opinion among us, both theological and practical…in practice these differences seldom coincide exactly with Yearly Meeting divisions…many differences in terminology or background [give] enrichment to our own insight.” Starting in 1963, pushed by the five united Monthly Meetings and Young [Adult] Friends, successive joint Committees were appointed to search for a basis of unity. One intermediate step was the “Statement on the Spiritual Basis for Unity” accepted by both Yearly Meetings in 1964; it appears in this Interchange.

A joint Committee was then appointed to consider a possible organizational basis for the joint operation of BYM (consolidation, in other words). A suggestion was made to include a FUM Section and a FGC Section. Each Monthly Meeting would continue the existing relationships with either FGC and/or FUM; it would continue to use its current Discipline. All sessions of the Yearly Meeting would be united, except for two Section meetings held at least once during Annual Session, but not simultaneously. Work on a Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice started in the 1970s.

The Section structure proved cumbersome; by 1990 it was dropped, except for using it to count membership to direct contributions to FGC and FUM. When FUM made its ill-advised personnel decision in 1988, many BYM Friends did not feel that it affected them. They were not interested in FUM and their monies did not go there. BYM’s representation to FUM reflected the number of members supporting contributions.

In 1998, one Monthly Meeting did not submit statistics permitting a division of funds between FGC and FUM; it suggested that the ratio of contributions be held constant for three years while the Yearly Meeting decided what to do, but increased our representation on the General Board and at Triennials. While we were working on this issue, the difficulties at the 2002 FUM Triennial occurred and following that, the elimination of our General Secretary from consideration for a FUM field position. Although the Yearly Meeting agreed to remain a member of FUM and to be “engaged,” it has not been able to decide on continuing financial support for FUM. Now, we are attempting to decide if we are to remain engaged.

Howard Fullerton, Presiding Clerk
(Sandy Spring Friends Meeting)