05. Quaker History
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Editor’s Introduction by Chuck Fager
To be candid, I’m not accustomed to being consulted by Evangelical Friends. I’m not one, and over the past forty years, I’ve often found myself on opposite sides from many vocal or leading Evangelicals. Read More
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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…
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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.
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Friends General Conference, Founding Gathering
Two Addresses from the Founding of the major liberal Quaker association of the modern era. These stirring speeches show the dynamic spirit that launched this movement.
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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…
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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.
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FGC’s “Uniform Discipline” Rediscovered
An introduction to the lost “Rosetta Stone” of 20th Century liberal Quaker religious thought — Henry Cadbury’s discovery and reconstruction of George Fox’s suppressed Book of Miracles.
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Friends as a “Chosen People”
An Examination of Contemporary Quaker Identity, by Chuck Fager.
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“Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey”* A Review
Chuck Fager It’s my fate to spend a fair amount of time on the larger Quaker-oriented Facebook groups.That is often a challenging, and even dispiriting experience, especially when talk turns to “what Friends believe,” and how that is evidenced in actual Quaker history. It’s a chore because the level of ignorance and misinformation about Quakerism…
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Reflecting Theologically from the Gathered Meeting: The Nature and Origin of Quaker Theology
By R. Melvin Keiser. Read More
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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…
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Everyday/Extraordinary Resistance: Two True Stories from the Vietnam Years
Leafleting a Meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marion Anderson By 1970, I had been organizing against the war full-time for five years. First, in Washington where I was an organizer of the televised National Teach-In which was watched by about ten million Americans and then in Michigan as chairman of Michi-gan Clergy and…
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Remembering Tom Fox Introduction to: Tom Fox Was My Friend. Yours, Too.
Chuck Fager Christian Peacemakers Kidnapped in Baghdad John Stephens called me with the news: Tom Fox and three other members of the Christian peacemaker Teams’ group (CPT) in Baghdad had been kidnaped. It was just after Thanksgiving, late November, 2005. Read More
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Passages by Tom Fox & James Loney
1. From James Loney Easter 2006 For 118 days we lay in a tomb – Norman Kember, Harmeet Sooden and me. Tom Fox too, for 104 days, until he was murdered in the early morning hours of March 9. Read More
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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.
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Whittaker Chambers, Alger Hiss, and Quaker Leadership: A Problem for Friends
H. Larry Ingle Lately, I have come to see Whittaker Chambers as one of the most fascinating Quakers in the middle of the 20th century. He was also the member of the American Communist Party for about thirteen years, from 1925 to 1938. He joined the rural Pipe Creek Meeting, a part of the Hicksite…
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“Holy Nation: The Transatlantic Quaker Ministry in an Age of Revolution”* Reviewed
Reviewed by Chuck Fager Can this be just a coincidence?ྭThe full-color cover image on Holy Nation is an Edward Hicks “Peaceable Kingdom” painting. It’s the one featuring William Penn in the background, making a peace treaty with the Indians, while to the right the lion, lamb and other animals are gathered placidly along with several children. Read…
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Excerpt from: “Holy Nation: The Transatlantic Quaker Ministry in an Age of Revolution”*
The Society of Friends cast themselves as a “holy nation” during this period, drawing on the Jewish tradition of Zion to articulate their relationship with God and to govern their interactions with outsiders. This parallel explained their suffering and gave meaning to their persecution. Friends drew inspiration from the ancient Hebrews who remained faithful and…
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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…
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A Review, “Personality and Place, the Life & Times of Pendle Hill”
Reviewed by Chuck Fager Read More
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“From Personality & Place”* An Excerpt
Douglas Gwyn In Pendle Hill’s Upmeads library hangs a print of Edward Hicks’ The Peaceable Kingdom. Hicks (1780–1849) was a noted Quaker minister who lived in Newtown, Pennsylvania (about 45 miles northeast of Pendle Hill). He was also a painter at a time when Friends still shunned the arts. His great theme was the prophet…
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Varieties of Interpretation of Francis Howgill’s Works: Apocalypse, Light and Convincement in Tension
Frederick Martin Francis Howgill was one of the “First Publishers of Truth,” the early Quaker traveling ministers, and a leader of the early Quaker movement in the 1650’s and 1660’s. Not as widely known today, in the beginning of the movement he was an effective preacher, a widely-loved elder, and a prolific author. He is…
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“Following Jesus: The Heart of Faith and Practice”* A Review
Reviewed by George Amoss Jr. Paul Anderson is Professor of Biblical and Quaker Studies at George Fox University). His Following Jesus: The Heart of Faith and Practice is a collection of 36 essays, some of which had appeared in earlier forms in Evangelical Friend, a periodical that Anderson edited for a time. The book reflects the contradiction inherent in…
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“Paper Trail: Writings from the Front Line of Peace Action, Quaker House/Fort Bragg, 2001-2012″* A Review
Reviewed by John Kiriako This is an eminently readable first-person account of a daily fight for peace during what is arguably the most militarily active period of the past two generations. First, the reader should know what the book is NOT. It is not anti-military. (In fact, Fager specifies that the message is “YES to…
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“Angels of Progress: A Documentary History of the Progressive Friends: Radical Quakers in a Turbulent America”* Reviewed
Reviewed by Stephen W. Angell Read More
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The Fall of Man
Angelina Weld Grimke From the Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends, 1859, pp. 45-52. Eagleswood, N.J., April 26, 1857 Read More
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“Let the holy seed of life reign” Perfection, Pelagianism, and the early Friends
John Connell Read More
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“The Early Quakers and the Kingdom of God: Peace, Testimony and Revolution”*
Reviewed by H. Larry Ingle Read More
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“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…
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Beyond Liberalism: Rufus Jones and Thomas Kelly in the History of Liberal Religion
Guy Aiken Read More
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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…
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“A History of Southland College: The Society of Friends and Black Education in Arkansas,”* A Review
Reviewed by Stephen Angell Read More
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Selected Excerpts from, To Be Broken and Tender: A Quaker Theology for Today
“Waiting and Attending” One day in prayer I saw a mound of clay being worked by two hands, one the hand of a child, the other the hand of an adult. Then I saw the infinite faces of Jesus. Some faces were familiar— one, the face in the children’s book of my youth, another the…
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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…
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Thomas Hamm Response to “Holiness, The Soul of Quakerism”*
Holiness: 2.5 CheersThomas Hamm, Earlham College Thomas Hamm Read More
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“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: Read More
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“Seeking Paradise: The Spirit of the Shaker”* Reviewed
Reviewed by Robert Pierson “The peculiar grace of a Shaker chair,” wrote Thomas Merton, “is due to the fact that it was made by someone capable of believing that an angel might come and sit on it.” (p.85) Seeking Paradise reflects the Trappist monk’s enduring fascination with this “peculiar grace.” The editor, Paul Pearson, calls…
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The Psychology of Salvation: Recovering, Reframing, and Reclaiming the Early Quaker Experience
As it continues to lose its historic identity as a distinctive Christian movement, contemporary Quakerism becomes increasingly diffuse, a condition leading to diminished vitality, commitment, depth, community, and influence. Throughout the range from Christocentrism to nontheism, Friends express various views of what Quakerism is about, what its essential principles and practices are.
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“Wrestling With Our Faith Tradition”* A Review
A review of Conservative Quakerism on the Rise
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“Farmington! Farmington!” A Review*
Licia Kuenning and her prophecy.
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A Conservative Yearly Meeting is Born
Lloyd Lee WilsonAdapted from Remarks at Representative Body, North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative), 10/30/2004 Several years ago, Wil Cooper gave a plenary address to our yearly meeting sessions. After his prepared remarks, a member of the audience (not a Friend) rose to ask a question. Friends, this man observed, in his experience talked about themselves…
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Friendly Healing in Frampton and the Forest
By Richard Lee Frampton on Severn was around before William the Conqueror and his Normans conquered England. It is an old village on the edge of the Royal Forest of Dean. Still, no one knows for sure just how old Frampton is. It was in Frampton where my Ol’ Gran taught me the Old Ways…
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Nimrod and the Tower of Babel: Genesis 10-11 in Seventeenth-Century Quaker Writings
By Esther Greenleaf Murer This paper grows out of the Quaker Bible Index, an attempt at a comprehensive Scripture index to make readily available Seventeenth and Eighteenth-century Quaker writings. The first version, which appeared in 1993 and is available on CD-ROM, included about 10,000 Scripture references to works by Fox, Barclay, Penn, Woolman and others.…
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“If Grace Be True: Why God Will Save Every Person*” and “A Treatise on Atonement*” Reviewed
Reviewed by Chuck Fager Dissident Quaker Meetings in Indiana Almost two hundred years ago, Hosea Ballou foretold what would befall two Quaker pastors in Indiana, Philip Gulley and his good friend James Mulholland, in 2002: Read More
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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. Read More
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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 Read More
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“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 texts…
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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. Read More
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Caroline Emelia Stephen (1834-1909) and Virginia Woolf (1882-1941): A Quaker Influence on Modern English Literature
By Alison M. Lewis, Ph.D. Read More
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Editor’s Introduction #3 — Notes on Contributors
By Chuck Fager. Read More
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First Thoughts on Sixteenth Century Spanish Mysticism and the First Quakers: Communion with The Light in Early Modernism
By Alvin Joaquín Figueroa. Read More
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George Fox Among Christian Mystics
By George H. Tavard. Read More
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The Case Against the Richmond Declaration
The “Richmond [Indiana] Declaration of Faith” has been used by many groups (and strongly rejected by many others) as the equivalent of a formal creed since it was produced in 1887. This essay explains why one liberal Friend can’t accept it.
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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.
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“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.
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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.
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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.