Realignment Among North American Friends?
There were two major developments in the larger organizational structures of North American Quakers in the twentieth century. The first one was that several yearly meetings, or parts of yearly meetings, separated from the mainstream Orthodox at different times to pursue a more strongly evangelical Protestant course. These yearly meetings, with the addition of a yearly meeting that had been independent of the associations, coalesced into what is now Evangelical Friends International (EFI).
The second major development was the coming back together of some of the yearly meetings that had split. There were variations in what were the affiliations of the uniting bodies, but four of these re-united yearly meetings have come to be jointly affiliated with FGC and FUM. These four yearly meetings, plus a new yearly meeting that jointly affiliated when it formed, are often referred to as the united yearly meetings. Probably a large majority of the local meetings (congregations) in these yearly meetings are similar to FGC-only meetings in character, a much smaller number are similar to FUM-only meetings, and some are in-between.
The Realignment Debate and FUM's Direction
The 1990-93 Triennium of Friends United Meeting (FUM) was marked by an energetic debate over a possible "realignment" among Friends and the fallout from that debate. Stephen Main, FUM General Secretary, early in the Triennium began speaking out calling for such a realignment. Main saw a real problem in the lack of true unity in FUM on the centrality of Jesus Christ because of the many Friends in the united yearly meetings who didn't share this understanding of the Quaker faith.
Main saw Friends as being basically in two camps. One camp was strongly centered in Jesus Christ and committed to spreading the Christian gospel. The other camp was "universalist" in approach, and accepting of other spiritual paths as being equally valid as the Christian path. Main felt that each camp could be most effective if it was united in working from its perspective, and not trying to bridge the gap between the two perspectives. He saw the presence of universalist Friends from the united yearly meetings in the basically Christ-centered FUM as being divisive and eroding FUM's effectiveness.
Structurally, the realignment position suggested the joining together of Evangelical Friends International (EFI) and Christ-centered FUM Friends into one association. Universalist Friends would not fit into this association, potentially resulting in splits within some of the yearly meetings affiliated with FUM. Only
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