I. Living Our Faith 1. a Brief History
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
I. Living Our Faith 1. A Brief History Quakerism emerged in 17th century England, a period of religious and political upheaval in which the inherent authority of royalty, feudal lords, and the church were all actively questioned. The years had ended in which those who would translate the Bible into English were persecuted. The King James Bible of 1611 made the Scriptures available to more English-speaking people than ever before. Now people could read the Word of God for themselves, one by oneindividually or together, in their native tongue. Many beliefs that became part of Quaker faith and practice were not original with Quakers, who felt and knew the powerful currents of change in their time. A sect called the Levellers stressed human equality. The Puritans sought simpler forms of worship and believed that individuals, reading the Bible, could hear and understand the voice of God. The Seekers, disillusionedDisillusioned with churches altogether, waited for God to be revealed,the Seekers waited, sometimes in silence, for God to be revealed. The Ranters knew that God was indwelling in each soul, though their ways of expressing what they thought was the Spirit included overindulgence in tobacco and alcohol. The phrase “the Inner Light” was not original with Quakers; nor was the belief that there was something of God in each person. Yet Quakers survived when other sects did not, absorbing some members from those other groups. Why? Many answers have been suggested, and there is truth in each one: Quakers had gifted leaders who were committed to ministry and supported each other as “Publishers of Truth.” Committed Quakers, unlike many in other sects, did not recant when called before the authorities. They were willing to suffer persecution. When Quakers did suffer persecution, the community held. They supported each other and held “Meetings for Sufferings” to assist the families of those who had been jailed or lost their property. They wrote letters to each other, loved each other, and endured. The faith andthe practice of Quakers were united and balanced. The immediate experience of God induring worship andwas interwoven with the social testimonies that grew from that experience were present fromfrom the earliest days. Quaker testimonies grew from the Divine guidance that Friends perceived and discerned as they gathered in expectant silence. From early on, there were Meetings for Business. If Quakers knew the joy of being lifted by God in worship, they also knew how to be practical and work through problems together. The unity they felt in worship was carried over to their practice of making decisions. Quaker elders let individuals know when they spoke “out of the light”Light” or “walked disorderly”: there was seeking, there was listening, but there was also a foundation of Truth that governed behavior. Quakers balanced the truth-seeking of individuals with the discernment of respected elders. Far from the spirit of “anything goes,” Quakers knew there was one Voice that mattered, one Light and one Seed, and that not everything people thought they heard came from that source. The years since our beginnings have brought us more leaders, more ways to practice our faith, and more Meetings worshiping in different cultures and times, each listening for God’s voice and seeking to follow. As Quakers, we look back with gratitude and learn what we can from our history; but as believers in continuing revelation, we each listen to the Inner Light, test what we hear, and live and act in the here and now of our own place and time. Quaker Leaders George Fox, who initiated the gathering of the people later called Quakers, was born in Leicestershire in 1624. As a teenager he troubled his parents by refusing to attend Sunday services, preferring to spend the time in Bible reading and solitary meditation. From the age of nineteen, George Fox went on frequent walking journeys over the midland counties of England, talking about spiritual matters with those he met along the way. Clergymen were often confounded by his incisive interpretation of scripture and could provide little guidance for the young man. After much searching and despair, he reports the following experience in his journal: And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do, then, Ohoh, then, I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition’; and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy. ...And this I knew experimentally. George Fox, 16471648 Here and there he found kindred spirits, and he continued to experience “openings,” such as: I saw the infinite love of God. I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, and an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. In that I also saw the infinite love of God, and I had great openings. And again: [I saw] that every [one] was enlightened by the Divine Light of Christ …and that they that believed in it came out of condemnation and came into the Light of Life, and became children of it. George Fox, 1647 In his later ministry, Fox challenged people to open themselves to the direct experience of that Divine Light, also called the “Seed” and the “Inner Light.” Margaret Fell, who later married Fox, recalled the words he spoke when she first heard him preach: “You will say Christ saith this, and the apostles say this, but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of light and hast thou walked in the light, and what thou speakest is it inwardly from God?” George Fox, 1648Margaret Fell, 1652 On a journey northward in 1652, George Fox climbed Pendle Hill in Lancashire and saw a vision of “a great people to be gathered.” He continued northward about thirty miles to Preston-Patrick Chapel. There he found a congregation of seekers who had assembled for worship. These people, including their ministers, responded to Fox, and soon more than sixty Quaker ministers, men and women, were traveling in the ministry, sustained and inspired not by words or ideas but by a deep experience that transformed their lives. Within a decade, despite persecution, the message of Quakerism had been carried to every county of England, to Wales, to Scotland, to Ireland, to several countries of Europe, and to such distant places as Constantinople and the American colonies. At first Fox and his followers called themselves Children of Truth, or Children of Light, or sometimes Friends of Truth. Because of persecutions they were often in courts and prisons. George Fox relates that Judge Bennett of Derby first dubbed them Quakers in 1650 because in their earnestness they trembled. Other early sources report that the origin lay in Friends’ own trembling as they felt the presence of the Divine. Eventually, they adopted the nameSociety of Friends, or the Religious Society of Friends. Today, the name “Quaker,” once given in derision, is accepted and often used interchangeably with “Friends.” Fox taught that those who led their lives in strict obedience to God’s will would come to “walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone.” This is the word of the Lord God to you all, a charge to you all in the presence of the living God;God, be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come; that your life and conductcarriage 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; whereby in them ye may be a blessing, and make the witness of God in them to bless you: thenyou. Then to the Lord God you shallwill be a sweet savour, and a blessing. George Fox, 16521656 No clergyman, no intercessor, no liturgy or ritual was required to experience the Divine Presence. The sense of that Presence within and among them became so real to the early Quakers that they marveled that “Christ has come to teach his people himself.” Even as Friends emphasized each individual’s access to the Inner Light, however, they understood the importance of community. Many Friends came from groups such as the Baptists and Seekers that had organized themselves outside the established church. Quakers adapted the business approaches they were familiar with as they began to care for members in need or in jail, to support ministers, and to handle other affairs. Acting rightly in the world was always important for Friends, and elders labored to help excitable converts conduct themselves with decorum and integrity. In addition to local Meetings for Worship and less frequent ones for Business, general meetings were held for traveling ministers and elders. One such Meeting, convened at Balby in 1656, was the source of official “advices” on conduct that might be considered an early antecedent for today’s Faith and Practice. These early Friends advised, for example, that “friends in callings and trades are to be faithful and upright” and to pay their debts punctually; that collections are to be made for the poor; that ministers are “to speak the word of the Lord from the mouth of the Lord, without adding or diminishing”; and that none are to “be busybodies in other’s matters.” Early Friends discovered that Divine revelation came equally to women, men, and children. Some of the most active and intrepid ministers were women. Among those who played key roles in the early history of Quakerism was Margaret Fell, who was “convinced of the truth” in 1652.