Quakers

The Quakers, formally known as the Religious Society of Friends, comprise a small, radical, Protestant denomination formed during the religious upheaval in 17th century England who sought the revival of original Christianity. They earned the name "Quakers" for how members shook, or "quaked", reflecting their struggle against their inner motives "under the Light." Many migrated to America, especially to Philadelphia in the colony of Pennsylvania, which was owned by Quaker leader William Penn. Quakers were active leaders of many American reform movements past and present, especially abolition of slavery, Indians' rights, prohibition, women's rights, civil rights, prison reform, hospital reform, and world peace. Other famous Quakers include founder George Fox, abolitionist John Brown, feminist Lucretia Mott, and presidents Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon.

Current status

There are about 100,000 Quakers in the United States today. Hamm (2003) identifies seven currently contested issues--the centrality of Christ, leadership, religious authority, sexuality, identity, unity, and growth. The Quakers are heavily involved with the Peace Testimony, support for "People of Color," the American Friends Service Committee, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation. They are well known for their support of liberal arts colleges including Haverford and Swarthmore (near Philadelphia) and Earlham (in Richmond, Indiana). A majority are affiliated with the Society of Friends (Five Years Meeting); others belong to the smaller Religious Society of Friends (General Conference), the Religious Society of Friends (Conservative), and the more fundamentalist Association of Evangelical Friends.

About 20,000 Quakers now live in Britain, and several thousand in Canada. Overseas missions, starting in 1903, were most successful in Africa, especially Kenya, which has 300,000 Quakers in 15 Yearly Meetings.

Quaker beliefs

The core beliefs among American Friends in the 21st century are worship that is based on the leading of the Spirit; the ministry of all believers; decision making through the traditional Quaker business process; simplicity as a basic philosophy of life; and a commitment to education as a manifestation of Quaker faith.

Although Quakers revere the Bible and quote from it extensively, they do not consider it as authoritative as the Inner Light. They deny the special authority of an ordained clergy and reject all ritual in religious worship. They believe that a true church is created by the fellowship of man rather than a building people meet in to worship. Small groups of Quakers gather weekly for devotion in "meetings" where members usually sit together silently in a bare room, waiting for the Inward Christ to speak through one of them who may be inspired to "give testimony." There is no altar, no recitation of prayers, and no hymn singing at the meeting. The Bible is rejected as the authoritative word of God and replaced with the authoritative messages of the Inward Christ.

Testimonies

In the Quaker faith, the word "testimony" is used to describe a "living truth within the human heart as it is acted out in everyday life." A testimony differs from a creed in that they are spiritually, inwardly governed by the individual and are not imposed upon the membership. They serve as basic guidelines to live by, with the flexibility to be interpreted by the individual "under the Light."

• Testimony of Peace - This is the testimony that Quakers are most known for. It stems from their belief in human equality and their conviction that love is at the heart of existence. Quakers live this testimony by being actively involved in peace activism.
• Testimony of Simplicity - The call for simple living and resisting the temptation of material dependencies in order to maintain spritual responsiveness.
• Testimony of Truth and Integrity - The belief that truth should be spoken in all aspects of life.
• Testimony of Equality - The belief that all humans are of equal spiritual worth. It rejects the social class hierarchy and encourages equal treatment in all areas for all human beings.

History

Founding

George Fox, drawing c.1834

The origin of the Friends can be traced to the mid-17th century in England. When Henry VII severed ties with the Roman Catholic Church and formed the Anglican Church in 1534, it instigated a new era of religious dissent. Oliver Cromwell's victory in the English Civil War gave the Puritans control of Parliament and furthered the atmosphere of dissent. The Quakers emerged from the radical fringe of the Puritan movement. Although impossible to link the formation of the Quakers to any one person, George Fox is seen as the driving force behind the movement. Fox, who was raised in the Anglican Church until the age of 19, set out to find a greater spiritual understanding of God in 1643. He wandered the countryside for three years meeting with religious leaders in search of this understanding, but did not find the answers he was seeking. This led him to become disillusioned by these external teachings and he began seeking answers inside himself. in 1647, he believed to have heard the voice of God, which said to him "there is one, even Christ Jesus, who can speak to thy condition". It redefined his beliefs on the nature of the relationship between God and man, such as the idea that Christ lived inside all men and women, a church was a meeting of fellowship instead of a building, and that academics was not important to be a minister. These new ideas were radically different from the elaborate ceremony of the Church of England and the belief in Biblical authority of the Puritans. Fox spent the next several years preaching throughout the northwest, experiencing great success in convincing (converting) new followers to his cause. His followers took the name "Friends of Truth", based off of the Bible verse John 5:15 in which Jesus stated "I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." Although there is no official founding date for the Quaker movement, it is often attributed to 1652 Fox's trip to Pendle Hill in which he received a vision that let him "see in what places he had a great people to be gathered."

Persecution in England

Small groups of Quakers(who were known as the "Camp of the Lord in England," and later the "First Publishers of Truth" and "the valiant sixty") began preaching their message across the entire country in the 1650's. They were a disruptive group, frequently interrupting church services to spread their message. They taught heretical ideas that minimized the importance of the historic Jesus in lieu of the Spirit and the rejection of the Trinity. The refused to play tithes, take oaths, or treat the aristocracy with customary social respects. This led to persecution in the forms of jailing, beatings, and loss of employment. Margaret Fell began organizing "Monthly Meetings" in order to assist persecuted Quakers, which were their first "formal" gatherings. In 1655, James Nayler, an early leader, brought unwanted attention to the Quaker movement when he was convinced by some of his followers to ride into Bristol in a reenactment of Jesus' ride into Jerusalem. He was arrested, tried before Parliament, tortured, and imprisoned and the event led to greater levels of persecution among the Friends. This led to the need for more organizational control and Fox called for group confirmation to support individual "leadings"(messages from the Spirit) and advised more experienced Friends to be watchful over the actions of others.

In 1658, Cromwell died and the Church of England was reestablished as the official church which led to further persecution of the Quakers. The Restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660 was met shortly afterward with Venner's Rising in 1661, which was a failed attempt to overthrow the monarch. Many Friends were suspected as collaborators and by March over 5,000 per imprisoned. Fox and other Quaker leaders petitioned Charles with their Declaration Concerning Wars and Fighting by declaring that "All bloody principles and practices, as to our own particulars, we utterly- deny; with all outward wars and strife, and fightings with - outward weapons, for any end, or under an pretense whatsoever; this is our testimony to the whole world." Persecution would continue in England until the passage of the Religious Toleration Act in 1689 which allowed them to practice their religion openly.

Role of women

One of their most radical innovations was a more nearly equal role for women. Despite the survival of strong patriarchal elements, they believed in the spiritual equality of women, who were allowed to take a far more active role than had ordinarily existed before the emergence of radical civil war sects. Early Quaker defenses of their female members were sometimes equivocal, however, and after the Restoration of 1660 the Quakers became increasingly unwilling to publicly defend women when they adopted tactics such as disrupting services. Women's meetings were organized as a means to involve women in more modest, feminine pursuits. Some Quaker men sought to exclude them from church public concerns with which they had some powers and responsibilities, such as allocating poor relief and in ensuring that Quaker marriages could not be attacked as immoral. The Quakers continued to meet openly, even in the dangerous year of 1683. Heavy fines were exacted and, as in earlier years, women were treated as severely as men by the authorities.

Friends were among the first women to petition Parliament, the monarchy, and the Anglican Church hierarchy. The Quaker women, exhibiting agency or self-sufficiency, entered into a larger political debate with these religious and secular authorities as they petitioned for the restoration of the monarchy and protested injunctions, the payment of tithes, forfeiture of property, the tendering of oaths and imprisonment, on behalf of themselves and their spiritual sisters and brothers. This shared dialectic--centering on ideas of subjugation and resistance, obedience and punishment, coercion and subversion--demonstrates how the women used their positions of spiritual authority to actively negotiate for power and to gain legal redress. From the emergence of the sect in the 1640s until the mid-1670s, the body of the Quaker woman became a site of legal and political contest as female Friends sought to display the detrimental physical and emotional effects caused by official harassment, imprisonment, and the anti-Quaker legislation. They deliberately reminded authority figures that as handmaidens selected by God, no earthly authority could gainsay their claims. From the 1670s to the end of the century, as the Society of Friends grew more institutionalized, a shift occurred as Quaker women gradually adopted intelligent and logical arguments based on carefully culled biblical examples and legal precedents. Using reasoned and calm voices, they aimed their publications at a court of public opinion to persuade their readers, as well as the authorities they opposed, of the legitimacy of their ideals and beliefs. In a period when the monarchy and Parliament fought a civil war, Quaker women recognized and positioned themselves within these larger contests of power--physically, spiritually, and intellectually--allowing them to participate in the political community in ways that women usually could not in the late Stuart Era.

Colonial Pennsylvania

William Penn, a favorite of King Charles II in 1682 received ownership of Pennsylvania, which he tried to make a "holy experiment," by a union of temporal and spiritual matters. Many Quakers moved to the colony (along with others), which guaranteed religious freedom. Quakers took political control but were bitterly split on the funding of military operations or defenses; finally they relinquished political power. They created a second "holy experiment" by extensive involvement in voluntary benevolent associations while remaining apart from government. Programs of civic activism included building schools, hospitals and asylums for the entire city. Their new tone was an admonishing moralism born from a feeling of crisis. Even more extensive philanthropy was possible because of the welth of the Quaker merchants based in Philadelphia. Quakers for a while controlled West Jersey, where they created landed estates

The Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends, founded in 1821 by refugees from the slave South, was the largest Society of Friends meeting in the world by 1850. Earlham college, founded 1859, was their intellectual center. It was coeducational from the first and after the Civil War the students abandoned plain dress and plain speech, and engaged in debate tournaments and intercollegiate sports that made competition respectible in the Quaker ethic. Darwinism was taught, and the modernist religion department alienated some conservatives in the community. The American Friends Service Committee proved highly popular among students, as it embodied humanitarian service and liberal attitudes toward race and world peace.

Disagreements over doctrine and evangelism split Quakers into the modernizing Gurneyites, who questioned the applicability of 17th century writings to the modern world, and the conservative Wilburites. Wilburites not only held to the writings of Fox and other early Friends, they actively sought to bring not only Gurneyites, but Hicksites, who had split off during the 1820's over antislavery and theological issues, back to orthodox Quaker belief.

Inm the late 19th century Hicksite Quakers looked optimistically toward the future despite declining membership rolls and the decline of their rural base. Advocates of a more liberal Quaker theology reconciled traditional beliefs with Higher Criticism of the Bible and a relativist view toward other faiths. Hicksites dismissed the quietism of an earlier generation and, drawing on contemporary intellectual and social currents, embraced causes such as education, ending racial discrimination, and other social reform.

Abolitionism

The Quakers were the single group most responsible for promoting antislavery and abolitionism in the 1770-1860 era. Sassi (2006) compares Anthony Benezet's influential 1771 antislavery tract, Some Historical Account of Guinea, with the sources from which he gleaned his information about Africa and the slave trade, the narratives published by European travelers to West Africa. Benezet, a Philadelphia Quaker and humanitarian reformer, cited the travel literature in order to portray Africa as an abundant land of decent people. His purpose was refutation of the argument that the slave trade was a beneficial transfer of people from a land of barbarism and death to regions of civilization and Christianity. However, Benezet employed the travel narratives selectively, suppressing contradictory evidence as well as controversial material that could have been used to construct an alternative depiction of African humanity. Nonetheless, Benezet's research shaped the subsequent debate over the slave trade and slavery, as antislavery writers incorporated his depiction into their rhetorical arsenal and proslavery defenders searched for a rebuttal.

After officially adopting a policy of emancipation in 1775, New York Quakers attempted to aid their former black servants through education, employment, and donations as compensation for their slavery.

In 1816 Virginia Quaker merchant William Hartshorne made the radical proposal that Virginia Quakers join their brethren outside the South in not participating in a slave-based economy, and not grow, buy or sell tobacco, cotoon and sugar, nor sell to plantations. The merchants of the South simply could not disentangle themselves from slavery, forcing many to compromise their religious principles in order to remain economically viable, and others (especially in North Carolina) to migrate to Indiana.

Midwestern Quakers were devoted to abolitionism. The Indiana Yearly Meeting set up a Committee on the Concerns of the People of Color ("African Committee"). Both Orthodox and Hicksite had radically abolitionist splinter groups - the Indiana Yearly Meeting of Anti-Slavery Friends and Congregational, or Progressive, Friends. Midwestern Quakers were influential in providing education for black children, helping runaway slaves and freedmen who had freed themselves from kidnappers, and providing relief to the poor.

Although many Quakers became active abolitionists, many leaders feared that social activism would destroy their religious society, and therefore abolitionism, even as they made clear their opposition to slavery. In response, many abolitionists established "comeouter" churches dedicated to advancing the principle of immediatism, seeking to align churches with the American Anti-Slavery Society's agenda of racial equality. Other reform groups known as Progressive Friends advocated for women's rights. Both Anti-Slavery Friends and Progressive Friends engaged in civil disobedience. The contrast between the Society of Friends and the splinter groups demonstrates how republican religion was tied to social and political stability.

Peace Testimony

The Peace Testimony prohibited Friends as a group from supporting a war. It proved highly controversial among Quakers, for they also believed in their duty to uphold the government. There has always been a continuum of beliefs among Friends, from pacifism and peace activism, to outright military activity. The Quaker-controlled colony of Rhode Island took part in King Phillip's War of 1675-76. By contrast, the Quaker-controlled Pennsylvania colonial government blocked the formation of local militias; helpless settlers were massacred in Indian raids in the French and Indian War of the 1750s. The failure to protect settlers caused serious dissension in the Quaker community, which verged on schism. The solution adopted was for the Quakers to withdraw completely from the government.

Although the Peace testimony remained important for some Quakers, in practice the majority supported American wars, according to an Indiana case study. When the United States entered World War I in 1917 nearly all Indiana Quakers ceased any peace advocacy and probably two-thirds of eligible Indiana Quakers served in the military. In World War II, most Quakers regarded it as as a just war and it is estimated that 90% served, although there were some conscientious objectors. In the late 1940s some radicals refused to register for conscription, but they were not well supported and many Quakers regarded the Korean War (1950-53) as a justifiable police action. Although opposition to the Vietnam War steadily grew, conservative Quakers were uncomfortable with the radical tendencies of conscientious objectors and some Indiana Quakers openly supported the war. No Indiana congregations endorsed civil disobedience, and two opposed it. In 1990 the Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends declared opposition to the use of force in the Persian Gulf, but by then the majority of Indiana Quakers no longer considered themselves pacifists.

American Friends Service Committee

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) began in in 1917 and in 1947 received the Nobel Peace Prize. Founded to aid conscientious objectors during World War I, the AFSC continued to promote pacifism during World War II. During the Cold War, it focused on providing relief to European countries that suffered from superpower conflicts and worked for reconciliation between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1947 the AFSC decided to become more involved politically and to rely on professionals, but it failed to effect changes in American public policy. The turn to professional lobbying diluted the Quakers' religious message.

Missions

Hanson (2005) explores the work of Henry Wilbur in the organization and outreach of the Friends General Conference (FGC) and the Committee for the Advancement of Friends Principles (CAFP) during the early 20th century. Wilbur became involved in promoting Quakerism when he moved to New York in 1896 and argued for better organizational structure for the Advancement of Friends Principles in 1899. The CAFP was created in 1902 with the mission of evangelization among Friends and others seeking religious truth, primarily through the organization of reading groups and weekend conferences. In 1905 Wilbur became the first paid staff member of the committee. Wilbur's efforts and expertise became so essential to the Quaker community that, in 1911, he became the general secretary of the FGC.

Images of Quakers

The images outsiders held of Quakers has included friendly and hostile elements. In his campaign for president in 1928, for example, Herbert Hoover's religion came under attack as inappropriate for a commander in chief.

The Quakers became known for their entrepreneurship and business acumen, and their interlocking business ties; they were trusted by outsiders who welcomed the self-censorship Quakers imposed on each other to maintain high ethical standards. Many leading British entrepreneurs of the 18th and 19th centuries were Quakers, especially pioneers in textiles, railways and food products. Quakers were disproportionately representation among the scientists of the Royal Society.

There was a great deal of popular representation of Quakers---in jokes, popular magazines, novels, images, advertising and other media---from 1850 to 1920. Popular representations of Friends typically approved the devout distinctiveness attributed to stereotypical Quakers, as evidenced by their plain dress, plain speech, and refusal to swear oaths. The fact that Quakers were changing was ignored as the popular perception idealized a plain-dressed, old-fashioned representative of a national purity, piety, and unity.

The most striking images of Quakers included plain speech, abolitionism and women's rights, pacifism and war, plain dress (in the form of the Quaker bonnet), and the famous Quaker Oats character used in advertising oatmeal. The plain speech testimony seemed to acquire new and greater significance in the broader culture at the same time Quakers were abandoning the witness. Plain speech became an attractive and admirable anachronism, signifying an imagined set of old-fashioned values. The Quaker witnesses for reformism and pacifism were reshaped to suit opposing purposes. Plain dress and appearance became the attractive and malleable image of a religious sectarian, as authors, artists, and entrepreneurs fashioned a normative and vaguely religious referent for American moral superiority.

Bibliography

• Abbott, Margery Post et al. Historical Dictionary of the Friends (Quakers). Scarecrow Press, 2003. 432 pp.
• Barbour, Hugh, and J. William Frost. The Quakers. Greenwood Press. 1988, 412pp; historical survey, including many capsule biographies online edition
• Barbour, Hugh. The Quakers in Puritan England (1964).
• Benjamin, Philip. Philadelphia Quakers in an Age of Industrialism, 1870-1920 (1976),
• Braithwaite, William C. The Beginnings of Quakerism (1912); revised by Henry J. Cadbury (1955) online edition
• Braithwaite, William C. Second Period of Quakerism (1919); revised by Henry Cadbury (1961), covers 1660 to 1720s in Britain
• Brock, Peter. Pioneers of the Peaceable Kingdom (1968), on Peace Testimony from the 1650s to 1900.
• Bronner, Edwin B. William Penn's Holy Experiment (1962)
• Connerley, Jennifer. "Friendly Americans: Representing Quakers in the United States, 1850-1920." PhD dissertation U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 2006. 277 pp. Citation: DAI 2006 67(2): 600-A. DA3207363 online at ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Davies, Adrian. The Quakers in English Society, 1655-1725. Oxford U. Press, 2000. 261 pp.
• Doherty, Robert. The Hicksite Separation (1967), uses the new social history to inquire who joined which side
• Dunn, Mary Maples. William Penn: Politics and Conscience (1967)
• Frost, J. William. The Quaker Family in Colonial America: A Portrait of the Society of Friends (1973), emphasis on social structure and family life
• Frost, J. William. "The Origins of the Quaker Crusade against Slavery: A Review of Recent Literature," Quaker History 67 (1978): 42-58,
• Hamm, Thomas. The Quakers in America. Columbia University Press, 2003. 293 pp., amalysis of current situation, with brief history
• Hamm, Thomas. The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800-1907 (1988), looks at the impact of the Holiness movement on the Orthodox faction
• Hamm, Thomas D. Earlham College: A History, 1847-1997. Indiana U. Press, 1997. 448 pp.
• Hewitt, Nancy. Women's Activism and Social Change (1984).
• Illick, Joseph E. Colonial Pennsylvania: A History. 1976. online edition
• Ingle, H. Larry Quakers in Conflict: The Hicksite Reformation (1986)
• Ingle, H. Larry. First among Friends: George Fox and the Creation of Quakerism. Oxford U. Press, 1994. 407 pp.
• James, Sydney. A People among Peoples: Quaker Benevolence in Eighteenth-Century America (1963), a broad ranging study that remains the best history in America before 1800
• Jones, Rufus M., Amelia M. Gummere, and Isaac Sharpless. Quakers in the American Colonies (1911) to 1775 online edition
• Jones, Rufus M. Later Periods of Quakerism, 2 vols. (1921), covers England and America until World War I.
• Jones, Rufus M. The Story of George Fox (1919) 169 pages online edition
• Jones, Rufus M. A Service of Love in War Time: American Friends Relief Work in Europe, 1917-1919 (1922) online edition
• Jordan, Ryan. "The Dilemma of Quaker Pacifism in a Slaveholding Republic, 1833-1865," Civil War History, Vol. 53, 2007 online edition
• Kennedy, Thomas C. British Quakerism, 1860-1920: The Transformation of a Religious Community. Oxford U. Press, 2001. 477 pp.
• Larson, Rebecca. Daughters of Light: Quaker Women Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad, 1700-1775. Knopf, 1999. 399 pp.
• LeShana, James David. "'Heavenly Plantations': Quakers in Colonial North Carolina." PhD dissertation: U. of California, Riverside 1998. 362 pp. DAI 2000 61(5): 2005-A. DA9974014 Fulltext: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Moore, Rosemary. The Light in Their Consciences: The Early Quakers in Britain, 1646-1666. Penn State U. Press, 2000. 314 pp.
• Nash, Gary. Quakers and Politics: Pennsylvania, 1680-1726 (1968),
• Rasmussen, Ane Marie Bak. A History of the Quaker Movement in Africa. London: British Academic Press, 1994. 168 pp.
• Russell, Elbert. The History of Quakerism (1942). online edition
• Smuck, Harold. Friends in East Africa (Richmond, Indiana: 1987)
• Trueblood, D. Elton The People Called Quakers (1966)
• Tolles, Frederick B. Meeting House and Counting House (1948), om Quaker businessmen in colonial Philadelphia
• Tolles, Frederick B. Quakers and the Atlantic Culture (1960)
• Vlach, John Michael. "Quaker Tradition and the Paintings of Edward Hicks: A Strategy for the Study of Folk Art," Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 94, 1981 online edition
• Walvin, James. The Quakers: Money and Morals. 1997. 243 pp.
• Yarrow, Clarence H. The Quaker Experience in International Conciliation (1979), for post-1945

Primary sources

• Gummere, Amelia, ed. The Journal and Essays of John Woolman (1922) online edition
• Jones, Rufus M., ed. The Journal of George Fox: An Autobiography online edition
• Mott, Lucretia Coffin. Selected Letters of Lucretia Coffin Mott. edited by Beverly Wilson Palmer, U. of Illinois Press, 2002. 580 pp
• West, Jessamyn, ed. The Quaker Reader (1962, reprint 1992) - collection of essays by Fox, Penn, and other notable Quakers

External links

• www.quaker.org - huge list of links to Quaker organizations, writings, genealogy, businesses, etc.
• Street Corner Society - collection of Quaker writings
• Religious Society of Friends in Ireland
• Religious Society fo Friends in Australia
• Religious Society of Friends in England
• Religious Society of Friends in Canada
• Quakers Online - online Quaker community
• Quakerpedia - New Quaker wiki-based encylopedia
• Conservative Quakers of America
• The QuakerPages - collection of writings, sermons, and other links
• Quaker Electronic Archive
• Quakers and the Arts
• Famous Quakers
• primary sources and older secondary books
• more primary sources and older secondary books