Both from the outside and from the inside, we are undoubtedly a mixed bag (including Quaker Fudge, to use Elsa Dicks's phrase, of which more later). The following are some plausible deductions the onlooker might make about who 21st century British Quakers are.

(1) The Green Party at prayer

Maude Royden was the secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation with other Christian pacifists during the war of 1914-18. She was a speaker on social and religious subjects, and in 1917 became assistant preacher at the City Temple in London, the first woman in that office. That was the year that she informed readers of The Times newspaper that "the Church should go forward along the path of progress and be no longer satisfied only to represent the Conservative Party at prayer."

Many press reports recently have declared that climate change is the new religion. There is almost complete overlap between Quaker testimonies and the philosophy of the UK Green Party. Alongside are groups such as Friends of the Earth. Our onlooker asks whether the Green Party are religious - but then also asks if Quakers are religious. And if some Green Party meetings were silent, could we tell the difference?

(2) The Quaker Interfaith Society

The first UK National Interfaith Week has just been held. During the week there was a conference at Windsor entitled "Many Heavens, One Earth : Faith Commitments for a Living Planet". The Friend reported: Together the nine religions represented some four billion people worldwide. Also participating were a range of secular environmental organisations. A comment was made that each faith tradition contains within its teachings, practices and foundational stories the seeds of particular witness it can make. Our onlooker asks whether Quakers were counted in the religions or in the secular organisations. And which faith tradition are Quakers in?

But we note that the Quaker Universalist group is well-established, and Timothy Peat Ashworth from Woodbrooke knows of no other place where this kind of honest, open dialogue between diverse faith positions is happening within the one community. Our onlooker hopes that the survival and influence of Interfaith or Universalist Quakers can be greater than the Theosophical Society.

(3) The Woodbrooke Banana Boutique

The list of Woodbrooke courses and activities (as already briefly considered) is impressive, and participation is clearly supportive to those who attend. But a strong message is being sent about The Whole Banana.
Our onlooker asks if it is the same approach as the Interfaith or Universalist Quakers, and wonders about the Whole Banana Skin? What is left inside? Might we slip up on it?

(4) The Quaker Umbrella Shop

Our onlooker has understood that Quakers are inclined to try to be all things to all people - but wonders why people would choose a Quaker umbrella?

(5) Power Truth Speakers

The phrase "speaking truth to power" originates from Friends although Larry Ingles points out that it goes back only 50 years. Our onlooker is impressed by work such as that of the Quaker United Nations Office, and the Quaker Council for European Affairs (which has just had its 30th anniversary), as well as Quaker Peace & Social Witness with its wide British involvement including criminal justice and asylum. But are Quakers a major contributor to all these activities?

(6) The Quaker Fudge Factory

There is a remarkable amount of activity going on - outlined in the previous paragraphs - whether viewed from the outside or the inside. But there is a lot of fudge involved within the Society. Ambiguity is often presented - very fairly - as a strength, but there are real questions as to how much real difference can be accommodated in one organisation. Some examples follow:

- The Meeting for Worship: If Quakers are unclear or take very different views about what if anything there is to 'worship', is the meeting in practice a largely silent meeting for fellowship or just 'a meeting for friends'?

- The silence: Dandelion draws attention in several places to the "danger for liberal-Liberal Friends of silence no longer bringing presence into absence, but being in and of itself only silence". He considers that "silence functions as the best approach to the unknown for a group highly wary of words." Our onlooker is puzzled by the obvious enthusiasm of Quakers for words - lots of words, written or spoken - at all other times except the meeting for worship, and (our onlooker is informed) for a time at the margins of business meetings.
   Our onlooker is somewhat concerned, as are many of the onlooker's Friends, about whether it is divisive or promoting of disunity for Dandelion to make even stronger statements such as, "There are those who will say that our unity lies in the silence of our meetings for worship, a silence beyond words and ideas. That silence can also be used as a cloak to cover up and smother our disunity, in which nothing considered 'divisive' can be uttered or done."

-  The Quaker business method: Dandelion goes on (in several meanings of that phrase): "The Meeting for Worship for business, for example, also based in silence, has traditionally been seen as a means to the discernment of the will of God. For those without a God or a God with a will, this formula is anachronistic. Instead, for these Friends, the business method is a temperamental or political preference." That sounds almost unkind, but there is another way of construing the method.
    In the 2009 Swarthmore Lecture, Eccles writes, "If we understand God as a constructive creative force in the universe, then 'seeking the will of God' or 'praying to be rightly led' describe a process in which we seek so to align ourselves with that creative force which we call God that the decisions we make are constructive and creative. Inspiration may come from outside ourselves, from other people or from inner experience, but in the end the decision is ours. We have to create it." Eccles then encourages us to be visionary - he quotes the beginning of an Ode by O'Shaughnessy (set to music by Elgar): We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams. Poetry and music are a special interest of our onlooker who points out that the end of that stanza runs: Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems. Our onlooker asks hopefully if that is how Quakers see ourselves.

-  The spirit and 'God language': Our onlooker has detected that some Quakers consider that they cannot with integrity use traditional Christian or Quaker language such as 'God', 'the Spirit', 'the divine'. But language like that crops up everywhere, and our onlooker is confused. (This issue of language is considered in more detail in Section 4, our brief theological excursion below.)

- Conflict: Our onlooker was interested to hear that a recent use of the idea of 'Quaker fudge' was in the comments of a former Yearly Meeting Recording Clerk relating to conflict. "I find it ironic and sad that one of the hardest things for us to manage is conflict. (Some meetings) are prepared for some loving plain speaking. ... Without it we may put up with conflict for too long, hoping that the individuals concerned will mend their ways and the problem will pass. Sweeping a problem under the carpet does not work. That popular delicacy, Quaker fudge, can have a sour centre."

- Membership: Quaker Faith and Practice (11.01) describes membership as discipleship within a broadly Christian perspective. Our onlooker has read an American who suggests that membership should be based on whether one feels comfortable with the other members of the Meeting. Is that enough? Our onlooker has also noticed that meetings seem fairly uniform in terms of ethnicity and class - even sometimes age. Is there a problem?

- The status of publications such as Quaker Faith and Practice: Are these advisory only? Our onlooker is still reading QF&P with great interest.

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This is all very jolly, and our whimsical onlooker is on balance impressed although often not clear about the special input which Quakers have to offer.

And there remain two unsettling questions. Who is doing all this? The number of people is small. And, to whom is the activity directed? We remember the concern of John Punshon, relating to 100 years ago, that we should be clear about who apart from other Quakers are to receive the message and the witness.