Holmes summed up his argument thus:

"Reduced to its simplest form, our theology involves a choice of a way of life which centers on the general good rather than on individual desires, and a dependence on the experience of a super-self which will enable us to continuously live in accord with that way of life. The expansion of these experiences into a systematic theological system we leave to individuals." (Ibid., 765)

The "super-self"? Could this be an echo of Isaac Post’s progressive spiritualism? Quite possibly; Holmes was said to be keenly interested in matters psychic, tho by no means an uncritical believer. This reputation has persisted; indeed, in 1980, a medium published a lengthy transcript of a conversation with a spirit, who turned out to be none other than Jesse Holmes himself! (Holmes 1980: 119).

Nor was Holmes alone in this interest among prominent liberals of his generation, even where George Fox was concerned. For instance, John W. Graham, a British Friend well-known among American liberals, devoted a whole chapter in his 1927 book, The Divinity in Man, to "The Subliminal Self of George Fox," in which he saw Fox as "not the first, nor the last outstanding religious leader through whom ‘mighty works’ and unusual powers have been manifested."

He then cited Fox’s own statements to show that "he had trances and visions, had telepathic faculties and premonitions, effected spiritual healing . . ." and even wrote a "little Book of Miracles," which had, Graham noted, been lost, apparently deliberately. (Graham, 229f) Not surprisingly, Graham was much involved in the British Society for Psychical Research.

Thus we see the psychic thread persisting and even entwining with that f the skeptic in this complex, if not entirely consistent fabric of liberal Quaker thought.

But I digress somewhat. Let’s return to Holmes’s articles, and what is to me their most important and contradictory feature, namely the utter dismissal of theology as no more than a minor private concern of individual, while at the same time announcing that a "simple" BOMFOG (i.e., "Brotherhood of man-Fatherhood of God") social gospel theology was not only the inarguable bedrock of Quakerism, old and new, but the base of original true Christianity to boot.

Nor was this all. Indeed, Holmes declared that liberal Quakerism is "able to offer to a scientific age a genuinely scientific theology on which to base a genuinely Christian life. We have no occasion for pride in this [yeah, right] . . . .But we call our faith to the attention of many who are tired of superstitious observances and crude theologies–who long for an intelligent and intelligible religion . . . ."(Ibid.) Like a button of a few years ago said, he was indeed proud to be a humble Quaker.

Within a few years, Holmes’s view had won about as much formal sanction as FGC offered. In 1926 a committee of which he was a member completed a Uniform Discipline for the seven FGC yearly meetings, which was adopted by all of them with only minor variations. In it, Fox was predictably described as of the "seeking type of mind," who "proclaimed that God speaks directly to each human soul through a present, living experience of Christ. The heart of this great message was the gospel of this inner revelation, the Inward Light, requiring no human mediator. . . ." (FGC 1926, 10f)

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