Friends Meeting at Cambridge

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Friends Meeting at Cambridge (FMC) is a large liberal unprogrammed meeting in the Salem Quarter of New England Yearly Meeting, located in the Harvard Square area of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1 Basic information
2 Meeting times
3 History
4 Recent issues
- 4.1 Child abuse policy
5 References
6 External links

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Basic information

The meetinghouse address is:

5 Longfellow Park

Cambridge, MA 02138-4816

Longfellow Park is off of Brattle Street, a short walk from Harvard Square.

The meetinghouse office phone number is 617-876-6883, and office hours are from 10:30 am to 3:00 pm on weekdays.

The meetinghouse is wheelchair accessible, and has has technology to aid people with impaired hearing.

First Day School is held from 10:45 to 11:45 am, and child care is also available.

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Meeting times

The main meeting for worship is held Sunday morning from 10:30 am to 11:30 am, and is preceded by a more discussion-based "forum" from 9:30 to 10:15. The morning meeting has a reptutation for being among the more active (or "popcorn-y") meetings in New England.

There is also an evening meeting for worship Sundays from 5 to 6 pm, which is much smaller and usually quieter, and a Wednesday morning meeting from 8:30 to 10 am.

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History

FMC began in 1910, when a worship group for (mostly liberal) Friends living in the Boston area was started at the initiative of Friends General Conference. At first it was primarily made up of liberal Friends, but eventually began to attract refugees from the (Gurneyite) Boston Friends Meeting, which was becoming more evangelical at the time. By 1937 the meeting officially incorporated as a nonprofit.^[1]

Around the same time, FMC along with other independent meetings in New England such as Providence and New Haven began to advocate for a reunification of New England Friends. (Beginning in the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, Friends in New England were divided between into two to three separate yearly meetings, between traditionalist Wilburites and more evangelical Gurneyites.) By 1944, the reunification had begun, and the same year FMC merged with the Boston meeting. It also affiliated directly with Friends General Conference that year.^[1]

Almost all the above information is incorrect. I would like to correct it but at the moment do not have access to the best source for this history, George Selleck's book Quakers in Boston. I hope to return later.

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Recent issues

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Child abuse policy

For over a year, the meeting has been discussing child abuse and ways to reduce the risk of it happening with the meeting community. As of February 2007, the discussion is perhaps coming to a head, with many Friends feeling criminal background checks would be a worthwhile addition to existing risk reduction policies, while many other Friends object to this, some based on objections to participating in the criminal justice system.^[2]

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