Quaker Theology

2. Authenticity of Historic Progressive Quakerism

  • 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…

  • 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.

  • 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…

  • 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.

  • “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.

  • 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 Read More

  • 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 Read More

  • 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 Read More

  • “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 Read More

  • 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…

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • “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.

  • “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.

  • 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…

  • 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.

  • 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.