Is the AFSC Hiding behind historic integrity of Friends?

One might think that Friends would to go to their Monthly Meeting, the basic unit of Friends Society, and repudiate the AFSC, as either a parachurch in and of itself?

Or, embrace the AFSC, and work with it to see what has happened to this once admirable ‘service’ organization? Or is it something that has outgrown the Friends and will go off in its own direction, as other witness projects have in the past?

The General Secretary of AFSC, or the reporter quoting her, has again ‘utilized’ the 'Quaker' name in a recent article in the New York Times. The article is about the AFSC's controversial embrace of a slippery Islamist politician (The President of Iran). Wouldn't we equally criticize AFSC if it hid behind the Quaker name on the embrace of a shady Zionist politician, or of a disreputable politician from a Christian-state, if then the AFSC would be in danger of public or polarized criticism.

The evidence shows that when the AFSC promotes divisive issues, and it knows the result will bring it criticism from the polar political opposites, it hides behind the 'Quaker' shield. The AFSC tries to get more and more mileage from its 'Quaker'-ness, by leveraging the more and more distant historic integrity of Friends. This is to promote its own temporal corporate agenda - which mainly is - to exist and to pay salaries - no matter what it actually does, or what connections it actually has to the Quaker Faith.

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The AFSC was exposed as leveraging the ‘Quaker’ name when it was convenient, and faced criticism or potential criticism from conservative Americans. This after private meetings were held unsuccessfully to ask AFSC to consider and possibly utilize external data such as QiN news reports showing the 'face' it presented to the informed public.

Please see QiN January 2007.

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The AFSC seems to do very little face-to-face ‘service’ work - it mainly finances non-Quaker groups, organizes war and immigration protest marches, and maintains a slick website.

The AFSC, like a raft adrift is now attempting to tether itself to another free floating raft - large expensive Quaker prep schools - themselves freely adrift off the shore of the Religious Society of Friends’ mainland. The AFSC is attempting this apparently at its Annual Public Gathering Nov. 3, in Philadelphia.

I was for many years a part of a large public for-profit corporation's 'Annual Meeting' production process, which this event must parallel in the non-profit world. These are nothing more than public relations, tightly orchestrated and controlled information sharing sessions. There both large Quaker schools and the AFSC apparently would like to tether to the celebrity status and wealth of Oprah Winfrey.

Please see AFSC.
Please also see FCNL.