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4 Fruits of the Spirit: Friends Testimonies
NOTE TO FRIENDS: This draft is a revision of parts of chapters 4, 5, and 6 of the 1993 NPYM Faith and Practice, according to the new outline which gathers all material about a topic (description, quotations, advices, queries) into the same place in the book. This chapter “Fruits of the Spirit” deals with Quaker testimonies. Some parts of this chapter are new to Faith and Practice, as requested by NPYM Friends: Integrity, Harmony with Creation, “Be Not Afraid,” plus new material in Community and Stewardship. Comments or questions about specific additions, deletions, or changes appear in [[italics in double square brackets]]. These comments will not appear in the final version of Faith and Practice. 4 Fruits of the Spirit: Friends Testimonies [[Note to Friends: these introductory paragraphs are new to Faith and Practice.]] Testimonies are fruits of the Spirit marking directions for our lives. On one level, testimonies can be seen as values or principles of morality. On a deeper level, what Friends call “testimonies” are the result of being changed by direct interaction with Transcendent Reality. Transformation from worldly to spiritual—our journey into Light—is the result of an encounter with the Spirit and of our response to that encounter. Learning a moral code will not in itself make us good. Stories, histories, and journals can help us understand how to act rightly in the world. But it is only when we are drawn to the good and have internalized it—as opposed to merely understanding it—are we able to be good. Friends traditionally describe personal transformation as a gradual development over a lifetime. -
The Light Within the Light Within Is the Fundamental and Immediate Experience for Friends
Readings for “Quaker Basics”, Week 2 John 1:9 (NRSV)1 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. [a] John 1:9 Or He was the true light that enlightens everyone coming into the world Matthew 28:20 (NRSV) 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [a] Matthew 28:20 Other ancient authorities add Amen Isaiah 7:14 (NRSV) 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman[a] is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. [b] Isaiah 7:14 Gk the virgin Isaiah 7:14 That is God is with us Matthew 1:23 (NRSV) 23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” http://www.pym.org/faith-and-practice/friends-beliefs-and- practices/the-light-within/ The Light Within The Light Within is the fundamental and immediate experience for Friends. It is that which guides each of us in our everyday lives and brings us together as a community of faith. It is, most importantly, our direct and unmediated experience of the Divine. Friends have used many different terms or 262.09607 phrases to designate the source and inner certainty B655Q of our faith—a faith which we have gained by direct Week2 1 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. -
Faith and Practice at a Quaker School
Faith and Practice at a Quaker School Faith and Practice at a Quaker School Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them: then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one. George Fox, 1656 “Membra Sumus Corporis Magni” We are all members of a great body. © Graham Ralph 2013 © Illustrations, Harvey Herman 2013 ISBN 978 1 904446 50 7 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Graham Ralph 2013 Faith and Practice at a Quaker School Published and printed by Quacks Books 7 Grape Lane Petergate York YO1 7HU iv This document has been written and compiled by Graham Ralph, a teacher at Bootham School, 1980 – 2012. Illustrations by Harvey Herman, Bootham Old Scholar. Thanks to the many people who encouraged me to compile this document; to Jenny Bailey who did her best to tidy up the text; to Jonathan Taylor who supported me in taking the sabbatical term to do it and the whole Bootham community who did all my work whilst I was away enjoying myself. The publication of this book was aided by financial contributions from Bootham School, Quaker Outreach in Yorkshire and the Sessions Book Trust. v vi Contents 1 Introduction 3 Meeting for Worship 9 The Responsibility of the Individual 13 Truth and Integrity 19 Equality 23 Peace and Conflict 29 Simplicity 33 Service 39 Stewardship 45 Decision Making 51 Learning 57 Living in a Caring Community 61 Some dates in Bootham History 63 Quaker Terms 69 Quaker Meetings / Membership 71 References vii viii Introduction A central belief of Quakers is that there is that of God in everyone, and the searching for that within ourselves and others leads us to experience the truth and the light of the world. -
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Column1 Column2 Column3 Column4 Column5 Column6 Column7 Column8 Column9 Column10 Column11 AUTHOR TITLE CALL PUBLISHER City PUB. COPY# SUBJECT 1 SUBJECT 2 SUBJECT 3 NOTES NUMBER DATE Aarek, William From Loneliness to Fellowship: a Swarthmore George Allen London 1954 1 Quakerism, Psychology study in psychology and Lecture & Unwin Ltd. Introduction Quakerism Pamphlets Aarek, William From Loneliness to Fellowship: a Swarthmore George Allen London 1954 2 Quakerism, Psychology study in psychology and Lecture & Unwin Ltd. Introduction Quakerism Pamphlets Abbott, Margery Post Christianity and the Inner Life: PH #402 Pendle Hill Wallingford, PA 2009 1 Christianity - Twenty-First Century Reflections Spiritual Life on the Words of Early Friends Abbott, Margery Post To Be Broken and Tender: A 289.6 Western 2010 1 Quaker Quaker theology for today Ab2010to Friend Theology Abbott, Margery Post, Walk Worthy of Your Calling, 289.6 Friends Richmond, IN 2004 1 Pastoral Travel - Parsons, Peggy Quakers and the Traveling Ministry Ab2004wa United Press Theology - Religious Senger eds. Society of Aspects Friends Abbott, Margery Post; Historical Dictionary of Friends 289.6 Scarecrow Lanham, MD 2003 1 Society of Chijoke, Marry Ellen; (Quakers) Ab2003hi Press Friends - Dandelion, Pink; History - Oliver, John William Dictionary Abrams, Irwin To the Seeker Brochure Friends Philadelphia ND 1 Quakerism, General Introduction Conference Alexander, Horace Everyman's Struggle For Peace PH #74 Pendle Hill Wallingford, PA 1953 2 Pendle Hill Pamphlet Alexander, Horace G. Gandhi Remembered PH#165 Pendle Hill Wallingford, PA 1969 1 Pendle Hill Gandhi, Pamphlet Mohandas - Non- violence Alexander, Horace G. Quakerism in India PH #31 Pendle Hill Wallingford, PA ND 1 Pendle Hill Pamphlet Alexander, Horace G. -
Early Friends
Children of the Light-Roots and Transitions, 1647-1677 Robert Griswold Talk given at the Colorado Regional Spring Gathering April 18, 2021 Though reality is all around us, people have always preferred to live in a virtual reality of their own making. There was, however, a strange group of people who arose in England in the mid-17th century. They didn’t fit in socially. And they scorned all of the available religions known to them. This included all the branches of Christianity. They considered the steeple houses, the creeds, the hireling priests, the sacraments and rituals all to be an abomination and corruption. They were certain that these religions were deceptions that shut people into a virtual reality and away from any real spiritual life. They had a new vision that arose from within them, not from what they might have been told. They gathered in homes and in open places, sitting or standing in silence. Sometimes these odd folks came into the local churches and castigated the people there for being all wrong in their religious practice. They often got beat up or thrown out. They claimed to have a new authority called an inward light. They said what mattered was being true to the Inward Light found in silence. They had a life changing vision. What worried people around them was that this group of “light” folks kept growing until there were hundreds of them. And this group challenged the virtual reality constructed by the society around them. I think it is hard for us today to realize just how radical this vision was and how much it worried the people around them. -
Quakers Living Adventurously: the Library and Archives of the Society of Friends Transcript
Quakers Living Adventurously: The Library and Archives of the Society of Friends Transcript Date: Wednesday, 23 January 2013 - 1:00PM Location: Barnard's Inn Hall 23 January 2013 Quakers Living Adventurously: The Library and Archives of the Society of Friends David Blake In this lecture I aim to do two main things: To tell you something about the history of the Library of the Society of Friends over almost 340 years and to talk about some of the things Quakers have done, illustrating them with materials held by the Library. But first I will talk briefly about the Society – say something about its name, tell you about its foundation and add just a little about what Quakerism is. However, I don’t consider myself to be an expert on this and the focus of this lecture will be very much on the library. The Formation of the Society and its Early History First, then, the name of the Society. The official name is the Religious Society of Friends in Britain, but to many people it is known simply as the Society of Friends. The word ‘Quaker’, which comes from the tendency of early Friends to shake as they worshipped, springs more easily off the tongue and indeed, if you look at our website you will see the banner ‘Quakers in Britain’. But Quakers - despite being very modern in many ways, witness their views on same sex marriage – seem to like tradition and you will hear the terms Quaker and Friend used all the time and interchangeably. Many names have been retained: the Chief Executive is still known as the Recording Clerk and one of the main bodies remains the Meeting for Sufferings. -
Quaker Manual of Style and Glossary
make these apparent and assure an appropriate group has reached a particular place of decision or outcome. shared understanding, and to test whether this sense Quaker: Originally, a derogatory term applied to Friends of the meeting is in accord with the group’s faithful Quakers because their excitement of spirit when led to speak in obedience to the leading of the Spirit. a meeting for worship was sometimes expressed in a Silence/Silent Worship: Expectant, living silence, not shaking or quaking motion. Now this term is simply merely the absence of noise. The quietude of Friends an alternative designation for a member of the meeting for worship—and other periods of observant Religious Society of Friends. worship—embodies the special quiet of listeners, the Quaker Process: A catch-all expression often used to special perception of seekers, the special alertness of describe the various and collective techniques by those who wait. The silence invites the sharing of which Quakers make decisions and go about their messages which arise from a stirring of the Spirit. Quaker other business. Quaker process can include discern- Standing Aside: An action taken by an individual who has ment, threshing, worship-sharing, sense of the genuine reservations about a particular decision, but Meeting, and other methodological terms described who also recognizes that the decision is clearly sup- Manual of in this glossary. These constituent aspects have in ported by the weight of the Meeting. The action of common a commitment to obedience to the leading standing aside allows the Meeting to reach unity. of the Spirit. -
From Plainness to Simplicity: Changing Quaker Ideals for Material Culture J
Chapter 2 From Plainness to Simplicity: Changing Quaker Ideals for Material Culture J. William Frost Quakers or the Religious Society of Friends began in the 1650s as a response to a particular kind of direct or unmediated religious experience they described metaphorically as the discovery of the Inward Christ, Seed, or Light of God. This event over time would shape not only how Friends wor shipped and lived but also their responses to the peoples and culture around them. God had, they asserted, again intervened in history to bring salvation to those willing to surrender to divine guidance. The early history of Quak ers was an attempt by those who shared in this encounter with God to spread the news that this experience was available to everyone. In their enthusiasm for this transforming experience that liberated one from sin and brought sal vation, the first Friends assumed that they had rediscovered true Christianity and that their kind of religious awakening was the only way to God. With the certainty that comes from firsthand knowledge, they judged those who op posed them as denying the power of God within and surrendering to sin. Be fore 1660 their successes in converting a significant minority of other English men and women challenged them to design institutions to facilitate the ap proved kind of direct religious experience while protecting against moral laxity. The earliest writings of Friends were not concerned with outward ap pearance, except insofar as all conduct manifested whether or not the person had hearkened to the Inward Light of Christ. The effect of the Light de pended on the previous life of the person, but in general converts saw the Light as a purging as in a refiner’s fire (the metaphor was biblical) previous sinful attitudes and actions. -
4 Fruits of the Spirit: Friends Testimonies
NOTE TO FRIENDS: This draft is a revision of parts of chapters 4, 5, and 6 of the 1993 NPYM Faith and Practice, according to the new outline which gathers all material about a topic (description, quotations, advices, queries) into the same place in the book. This chapter “Fruits of the Spirit” deals with Quaker testimonies. Some parts of this chapter are new to Faith and Practice, as requested by NPYM Friends: Integrity, Harmony with Creation, “Be Not Afraid,” plus new material in Community and Stewardship. Comments or questions about specific additions, deletions, or changes appear in [[italics in double square brackets]]. These comments will not appear in the final version of Faith and Practice. 4 Fruits of the Spirit: Friends Testimonies [[Note to Friends: these introductory paragraphs are new to Faith and Practice.]] Testimonies are fruits of the Spirit marking directions for our lives. On one level, testimonies can be seen as values or principles of morality. On a deeper level, what Friends call “testimonies” are the result of being changed by direct interaction with Transcendent Reality. Transformation from worldly to spiritual—our journey into Light—is the result of an encounter with the Spirit and of our response to that encounter. Learning a moral code will not in itself make us good. Stories, histories, and journals can help us understand how to act rightly in the world. But it is only when we are drawn to the good and have internalized it—as opposed to merely understanding it—are we able to be good. Friends traditionally describe personal transformation as a gradual development over a lifetime. -
A Quaker Weekly
• A Quaker Weekly VOLUME 3 DECEMBER 7, 1957 NUMBER 49 IN THIS ISSUE ~TAND ruham'd and Collecting Whittieriana almost despairing before holy and pure ideals. As I read the by C. Marshall Taylor New Testament I feel how weak, irresolute, and frail I am, and how little I can rely Whittier~ Quaker Liberal and Reformer on any thing save our God's by Howard W. Hintz mercy and infinite compas sion, which I reverently and thankfully own have followed me through life, and the as Most Winning Spokesman of the surance of which is my sole Moral Life ground of hope for myself, and for those I love and pray by Anna Brinton for. -JoHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER William Edmondson and Ireland's -First Quaker Meeting by Caroline N. Jacob PRICE OF THIS SPECIAL ISSUE TWENTY CENTS Internationally Speaking $4.50 A YEAR 786 FRIENDS JOURNAL Decennber 7, 1957 Internationally Speaking FRIENDS JOURNAL RESIDENT EISENHOWER, speaking to the nation Pabout science and security, referred to "a great step toward peace" as being as necessary as a great leap into • outer space in connpetition with the developnnents of the Russian satellites. The probability that space satellites are a step toward the developnnent of intercontinental nnissiles ennphasizes the innportance of the great step toward peace, as does the suggestion that local NATO connnnanders are to have authority to decide whether a' Published weekly at 1616 Cherry Street, Philadelphia 2, situation requires response with atonnic weapons. This Pennsylvania (Rittenhouse 6-7669) By Friends Publishing Corporation latter suggestion innplies the end of national sovereignty. -
Laurence S. Kuenning the Bunyan-Burrough Debate of 1656-7 Analysed Using a Computer Hypertext (Westminster Theological Seminary: Unpublished Phd Thesis, 2000)
Laurence S. Kuenning The Bunyan-Burrough debate of 1656-7 analysed using a computer hypertext (Westminster Theological Seminary: unpublished PhD thesis, 2000) Kuenning uses a computer hypertext to compare John Bunyan and Edward Burrough’s writings, to see what the terms of the debate were for each side and how far they understood each other. He concludes that while they did not, they were still in profound theological disagreement. ‘Bunyan’s Luther-inspired gospel of justification by faith apart from works leads him to Calvinistic concepts of predestination and irresistible grace, the former being elaborated in terms of an eternal covenant of redemption between Father and Son … [T]he terms of this covenant require an Anselmian incarnation of Christ as truly God and truly man in order to accomplish that satisfaction for sin which makes possible the justification of sinners by imputed righteousness.’ Bunyan insists on conviction of unbelief understood as something in addition to moral transgressions (which can come from law or conscience), and faith in Christ’s external work alone. Burrough has a very different soteriology (doctrine or theory of salvation): namely, conviction of sin by the inner light, which also shows the Saviour. He sees Bunyan’s religion as all ‘external’, all about words and doctrines, not inner change. Kuenning compares how they misunderstand each other, and clarifies what is essentially at stake: these different soteriologies, rather than the doctrine of Christ’s person, concerning which they largely agree but misunderstand each other (though Burrough holds the distinctively Quaker view that Christ is physically present in his saints, in his risen and glorified flesh). -
Quakers in America
“I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.” - William Penn Quaker Affirmations Quaker History, Part 2: W M Penn, Courtesy Library of Congress, LC-DIG-pga-00455 Quakers in America Quaker Affirmation, Lesson 2 Quaker history in 3 segments: 1. 1647 – 1691: George Fox • Begins with the ministry of George Fox until the time of his death, and encompasses the rise and swift expansion of the Friends movement 2. 1691 – 1827: The Age of Quietism 3. 1827 – present: Fragmentation, Division & Reaffirmation 2 Review: • Fox sought to revive “Primitive Christianity” after a revelation of Christ in 1647 and a vision of “a great people to be gathered” in 1652. • Many people in England were resentful of the government-led church and longed for a more meaningful spiritual path. • A group of Friends dubbed “The Valiant Sixty” traveled the country and the world to preach Fox’s message. • Around 60,000 people had joined the Society of Friends by 1680. • Friends in mid-1600s were often persecuted for their George Fox beliefs, and George Fox was often in prison. • George Fox and many other Friends came to America 1647 - 1691 to preach. 3 George Fox, Courtesy Library of Congress, LC=USZ62-5790 Review: What was the essence of Fox’s message? • There is that of God in everyone. • The Inner Light lives within; it discerns between good and evil and unites us.