Authenticity of Historic Progressive Quakerism

Liberal Quakerism has both a distinguished history and a Distinctive religious message. But overall, liberal Quakers have not done well either at recalling this history or declaring the message. The work of remembering our history and rethinking our faith is of continuing importance for liberal Friends. In a time of resurgent conservatism, religious as well as political, this effort may be of particular use to those who are dissenters from this new Establishment. It can provide us with a “cloud of witnesses” from whom we can draw support and strength.

• Inventory of the William Rotch Papers
  William Rotch, prominent shipowner and resolute Quaker friend, was born October 4, 1734 on Nantucket into a family already involved in whale fisheries. When the American Revolution erupted, Rotch maintained the pacificist stance of his Quaker religion, which in turn reflected the official policy of neutrality adopted by Nantucket.
• Lucretia Mott, Liberal Quaker Theologian
  How a woman minister set the course and the content of most US liberal Quaker theology, and why she has not received her proper recognition as a seminal figure in our religious history.
• Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers
  The collection contains a large amount of subject material related to the Post’s activities in the abolitionist, spiritualist, and women’s rights movement. Isaac Post, born in Westbury, Long Island, N.Y., in 1798, and Amy Kirby Post, born in Jericho, Long Island in 1802, were both Hicksite Quakers after the Separation of 1827, and as 19th …
• “George Fox” Speaks
  Quaker “Spirits” Speak — This time, the ‘spirit’ speaking through medium, Isaac Post in 1852 is George Fox. This is another excellent specimen of Progressive Quaker theology.
• “Edward Hicks” Speaks– A Specimen of Quaker Theology In Transition, 1852
  Quaker “Spirits” Speak — Two “messages,” purportedly from George Fox and Edward Hicks, delivered by Isaac Post, a Quaker medium in 1852. This one is about Edward Hicks. Excellent specimens of Progressive Quaker theology.
• The Exposition of Sentiments, 1853
  This is the seminal manifesto of the “Progressive Friends” movement, which quietly but decisively shaped the direction and agenda of contemporary liberal unprogrammed Quakerism. Although previously obscure, not to say forgotten, this is a crucial landmark in intra-Quaker apologetic.
• Landmark: Manchester 1895
  Seventy years after Hannah Barnard was rebuked and sent packing by London Yearly Meeting, British Friends were still getting in trouble for openly challenging evangelical dogmas.
• Puritanism, Spiritualism, and Quakerism:
  AN HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY Melvin B. Endy, Jr. The problems posed by the attempt to define Puritanism have driven some scholars to substituting description for definition and others to the use of the term as an umbrella for the religious experience shared by groups as disparate as mildly dissatisfied Anglicans, on the one band, and the Ranters and …
• Growing Up Plain, Conservative Quakerism
  by Wilmer Cooper. Friends United Press/Pendle Hill, 195 pages Reviewed by Chuck Fager Not far from where I live in central Pennsylvania, there is a lovely valley populated heavily by Amish and plain Mennonites. Every Wednesday morning, in the valley’s main town, there is a farmer’s market which serves up a generous slice of true authenticity in our …
• “Catechism and Confession of Faith,”* by Robert Barclay, A Review
  Reviewed by Thomas D. Paxson, Jr. Many who come to the Religious Society of Friends are not introduced in any systematic way to the scriptural passages which most spoke to the experience of early Friends, which strengthened them in their faith and helped them keep to the Light. Nor is this surprising, since few …
• A Great Deep: The Peace Testimony and Historical Realism
  By Chuck Fager Walking in the Way of Peace: Quaker Pacifism in the Seventeenth Century. Meredith Baldwin Weddle. Oxford University Pres, 2001 British Quakerism 1860-1920: the Transformation of a Religious Community. Thomas C. Kennedy. Oxford University Press, 2001. Re-examing Quaker Peace Testimony In our current circumstances, few tasks are more urgent for Friends than to reexamine and reaffirm our …
• Quaker History & Theology: Three Interviews
  By Chuck Fager Editor’s Introduction: In Tenth Month 2002, some very interesting people gathered at Swarthmore College for a Conference on George Fox’s Legacy. Numerous papers were delivered, many of which will be published presently in Quaker History, the journal of the Friends Historical Association. Both in the papers and in personal conversation, many intriguing historical-theological questions …
• “Wrestling With Our Faith Tradition”* A Review
  A review of Conservative Quakerism on the Rise
• “Holiness: The Soul of Quakerism”*
  Reviewed by Chuck Fager It was the British historian John Punshon who told a large Quaker body in 2008 that: . . . one way of studying the Quaker past is to use it as a means of self-justification. At times, interpretations of our history have been produced that have been used in the doctrinal disputes …
• Thomas Hamm Response to “Holiness, The Soul of Quakerism”*
  Holiness: 2.5 CheersThomas Hamm, Earlham College Thomas Hamm Those of us in the little world of Quaker historians have long known that this book was coming. I got an inkling in 1990, when the Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists was held at George Fox College and Carole Spencer presented a paper on women and the holiness …
• Response to Thomas Hamm: Holiness 2.5 Cheers
  Carole Dale Spencer First of all, I want to dismiss any notions that my book was in any way an attack on Hamm’s Transformation of American Quakerism. While we disagree on a few issues, his work was an important catalyst for the beginning of my exploration of holiness and Quakers almost twenty years ago. I had …
• “A History of Southland College: The Society of Friends and Black Education in Arkansas,”* A Review
  Reviewed by Stephen Angell Thomas C. Kennedy is probably the most significant historian of Quakerism writing today that most American Quakers have never heard of. He has recently retired from the history faculty of the University of Arkansas. Most of his research has involved British pacifists. His British Quakerism, 1860-1920: The Transformation of a Religious Community …
• Postscript: Allen Jay on the Spirit of Separation
  Joshua Brown, pastor of West Richmond Meeting, is also the editor of a new edition of the Autobiography of Allen Jay (1831-1910). Jay, an Indiana Friend, was a successful revivalist during the late nineteenth century, as the Gurneyite branch of Quakerism moved toward the pastoral system. Jay’s success as a revivalist came despite his cleft …
• Beyond Liberalism: Rufus Jones and Thomas Kelly in the History of Liberal Religion
  Guy Aiken It was Monday, December 19, 1938, a little over a month since the Day of Broken Glass, and three American Quakers were holding impromptu worship in Berlin. They were in the headquarters of the Gestapo, and two Gestapo officers had just left the room to discuss with their superior the Quakers’ proposal to help expedite the emigration of …
• “350 Years of the Society of Friends in North America: 1661-2011″*
  Reviewed by Chuck Fager Want to see all US Quaker history in a single page? With attitude? Here it is. Well, one very large page: thirty by forty inches. It’s actually a chart, meant to hang on your wall, not nestle among the pamphlets on a bookshelf. FGC Quaker Books sells Friend Kaiser charts for …
• A Review, “Personality and Place, the Life & Times of Pendle Hill”
  Reviewed by Chuck Fager “Sometimes I look around and think, Pendle Hill is God’s little joke on the Society of Friends.” – Janet Shepherd, former Dean NOTE: From one perspective, it’s a conflict of interest for me to review this book. After all, I’m described in it, because I was on staff at Pendle Hill for …
• Quaker Theology is not Explained by Apocalyptic Expectation and Delay
  BY HUGH ROC Introduction Douglas Gwyn’s thesis (Gwyn, 1986) that Quaker theology originates in imminent apocalyptic expectation has achieved a degree of influence. In its own right, Gwyn’s work stands as an expression of passionate personal conviction. Gwyn makes an empathetic bridge across the generations to relate his own sense of portentous times in the twentieth century …
• The Quaker Peace Testimony as Questing Beast
  The 1995 Roundtable was sponsored by the Pendle Hill Issues Program, for which I was then the coordinator. I asked Chel to prepare an overview of the Quaker Peace Testimony, because I was looking, quite frankly, for “new talent” and new thinking in the field.
• Joseph Southall & The Ghosts of the Slain:
  A Quaker Artist Takes on World War One    Editor’s Note: Joseph Southall (1861-1944) was a successful British artist, who was at the peak of his renown and productivity when World War One began. A lifelong Quaker pacifist and socialist, he set aside much of his conventional work to make drawings of protest against the war …
• “AAA Authenticity of Historic Progressive Quakerism”
  A concise explanation of why this Friend considers the liberal strand of Quaker history and thought a legitimate heir of early Quaker experience and thought.
• Hannah Barnard — a Liberal Quaker Hero
  The roll of liberal Quaker heroes and heroines is long and notable, but in my mind one name, that of Hannah Barnard, always seems to move to the front of the list. It is as if her spirit elbows her way past many another better-known figure and demands priority attention.
• Joel & Hannah Bean — Reluctant Rebels
  Historical currents combined with their character to make of the Beans perhaps the key figures, indeed the founders, of the modern liberal Quaker ethos. “Beanite Quakerism” is the term coined by Geoffrey Kaiser, a penetrating amateur Quaker historian, to describe the modern liberal branch of the Society, and once their role is clear, the accuracy …
• Wiliam Rotch of Nantucket A Quaker Hero
  Rotch was a leading Friend in the Quaker community of Nantucket Island, and his story of faithfulness during the American and French Revolutions is a truly memorable story.
• Divine Protection through Extraordinary Dangers
  Goff and her family lived through the ordeal of rebellion and massacre in Ireland in 1798. This amazing memoir is priceless both for its place in the long, sad history of British colonization of Ireland, and its more uplifting place in the saga of the Quaker Peace Testimony applied in situations where its implications and …