The Hope of the Believer . . .

Visiting Other Churches: New Series, No.3...  

THE QUAKERS: THE QUIET REBELS 

Of all the 70 churches I have visited in my home town of Denton, Texas the Quaker church was the smallest, except that they do not use the word church. I responded to a notice on the church page of our local paper — "Society of Friends (Quakers)" it read, giving only a phone number. The lady who answered the phone, a "birthright Quaker" and a nearby neighbor, invited me to their next "Meeting," which is held only monthly. It was to be at her home on a Sunday afternoon.

There were only four of us present. Having ascertained that I had attended Quaker meetings before (when I was a student at Harvard), they did not bother to apprise me of the uniqueness of their gathering. After a delightful tea together prior to the service, the four of us quietly took our places in her living room. The only other man present, a university professor, was asked by the hostess to lead the service. But it could just as well have been led by a woman, for traditionally Quakers have made no sexual distinctions and have always had women ministers. Neither have their enemies made that distinction, imprisoning and hanging the women as well as the men during their dark days of persecution.

In most Quaker services, however, there is little "leading" to do. It is the Spirit or the Inner Light that leads, and quite literally as they see it. There was nothing said, no introduction, no suggestion as to what to meditate upon. No hymn, no prayer, no reading. We simply sat there together for one hour, presumably meditating. Since I realized what the meeting meant to them, that they were communing with the Inner Light that is within us all, which is seen more or less as Christian, I sought to do as they were doing. But it takes a certain discipline, along with years of practice. I would think about the goodness of God for awhile and recall some of the great promises of Scripture, and I would pray "in the spirit," but still my mind would sometimes wander. I found myself thinking about how noisy things were by contrast at my own church that I had earlier attended that same day!

Silence is basic to Quaker worship, a kind of art. Their scholars have written voluminously about silence! It is a matter of coming to terms with oneself, but more than that. It is not only communion with God but with each other. One might wonder why they don't just stay home and be silent if that is all they do once they gather. But there is virtue in "meeting," a vital term in Quaker religion, for the Spirit moves, reveals, and enlightens in the meeting of quiet seekers.

I supposed that one or more of the three Quakers would eventually speak up with a "message," which would be the result of communing with the Inner Light, but none did, which may be interpreted to mean that the Light laid nothing on their hearts urgent enough to pass along or that it was strictly personal. The leader ended the silence by beginning conversation of a general sort, part of which was political. I was surprised that "at church" he would make some very anti-Reagan judgments, rather hateful I thought for a supposedly humble Quaker. He was incensed by Reagan's aid-to-the-Contras policy in Nicaragua. That a Quaker would oppose such a policy did not surprise me, but the vindictiveness did. While I did not agree with his conclusions, I remained silent and nonaggressive, in spite of my inclinations to the contrary. I left the meeting a bit self-righteous, supposing that I had been a better "Quaker" than he. It was not the best of experiences.

I had a better experience when I visited the Friends Meeting House in Cambridge, Mass., an historic edifice that is enclosed by an old brick wall, a Quaker shrine that dates back several generations. We gathered in an elegant but simple room with uncushioned pews that faced each other in horseshow fashion. While there was a "front" of sorts, there was no table, no pulpit, and no furnishing except the pews. Quakers practice no ordinances, such as baptism and Communion. There is usually no singing, no prayers, no readings, no preaching. The children were in First Day school (Traditionally they avoid using the Roman names for days of the week since they are names of gods, so Sunday is First Day, Monday Second Day, etc.), leaving the adults at peace in their "Meeting," which began promptly at 9 a.m.

We sat in an impressive silence for 26 minutes. The antiquity and simplicity of the room enhanced the quietness. Then a woman spoke up, a professor in a nearby university, and quoted something from Tagore, the Indian philosopher. She spoke no more than two minutes. Nine more minutes of silence. Then a man spoke up about something he had read about the Billy Graham revival that had recently been in the area, wondering to what extent this might be reflective of a longing for God. Then several others spoke, six perhaps, for a few moments each, words of encouragement. Then there was more silence, giving the hearers an opportunity to ponder on what had been said. The idea is that the Light is speaking through those who break the silence and so the "Meeting" is enlightened by the Spirit, who moves through the "Meeting." Or something akin to that.

Promptly at 10 a.m. the meeting ended when the "clerk," who was seated with the rest of us, arose and started shaking hands, but still in silence. We left the room in silence. In the foyer of the quaint old place I had the good fortune of conversing genially with several of them, telling them that I was doing my Ph.D. at Harvard under the guidance of a noted Quaker scholar, Henry J. Cadbury, whom they recognized as one of the great Quakers of the 2Oth century.

About the time I arrived at Harvard, Prof. Cadbury had recently returned from Stockholm, Sweden, where he had received the Nobel Peace Prize in behalf of the American Friends Service Committee, which he served as chairman. Always simply dressed even at Harvard, which is not atypical for a Quaker, Cadbury had to rent appropriate attire for the occasion. The Nobel committee honored the Quakers for their works of mercy around the world, especially in those nations bereft by war, including America's enemies. So impressive were their kindly deeds in devastated Germany following World War I, especially in feeding hungry children, that the German people could not believe what they were seeing. Similar impressions have been made in Vietnam and other nations through the years. The Quakers are adept at "Doing Good," which is the title of a book written about their worldwide humanitarian projects by a non-Quaker.

I came to equate Quakerism with my kind and genial professor. He would do things like invite Ouida and me to his home for Thanksgiving, realizing that we were far from home and probably nowhere to go. While he was one of the world's eminent New Testament scholars, his simple ways and humble spirit were disarming. Prof Cadbury had a reputation as "a notorious liberal" and I as a confirmed conservative but I soon saw that he was willing for me to believe what I pleased, so long as I could defend it.

We had some good times together and we came to respect each other despite our differences. One day in class, in which every student already had at least two degrees, we were weighing the evidence for the resurrection of Christ. A Unitarian minister insisted that the resurrection narratives have to be rejected since they are too good to be true. The consensus of the class, including the professor, was that that was reason enough to be suspicious of the resurrection story, it was too good to be true, that the witnesses were idealizing. As the only one in class who was a believer, I spoke up and said something like, "Thank God that the evidence is such that I can believe that what is too good to be true is indeed true!" Prof. Cadbury, who had many Quaker brethren who believed as I did, gave his inimitable grin and looked to the class for a response, and finally said something like, "Yes, maybe that is a good reason for believing it. It is too good to be true!"

I remember many such anecdotes, but the one that impressed me the most was when Prof, Cadbury let his Quaker pacifism show in such an impressive way. "It isn't so bad for a man to die," he said, "but it is terribly bad for me to kill him." That statement had it all — ethos, pathos, logos. The character of the man who said it, the passion with which he said it, the forceful logic of the statement.

When Margaret Bacon, who authored The Quakers: The Quiet Rebels from which we borrow the title for this essay, was writing Prof. Cadbury's biography, she wrote to me as one of his old students, asking me to recall as I might from my association with him. She quoted from me several times in the book she called, Let This Life Speak. Cadbury's life did indeed speak, and that is the way I see Quakerism. It speaks. It speaks of peace, goodwill, nonviolence, sanity, and moral responsibility.

But Margaret Bacon's description of Quakers as quiet rebels could be and has been questioned, for they have not always been quiet even if always rebels, especially in their early history. Emerging from the Puritan movement of 17th century England, which was itself the work of rebels and reformers, the Quakers went beyond the Puritans in their effort to restore New Testament Christianity, especially in reference to the leading of the Holy Spirit. George Fox (1624-1691), their founder, was in and out of jail most of his life for believing in Spirit-possession, preaching what he called "the Truth," proclaiming "the day of the Lord", and disrupting others' religious services. He is recognized by modern historians as an extremist and a radical, but as Elton Trueblood, a Quaker historian, says in regard to Fox, quoting Alfred North Whitehead, "True greatness is always characterized by extremism."

Called "Quakers" because they seemed to tremble under the leading of the Spirit but calling themselves "Friends" as Jesus referred to his disciples (but always only as a "Society" and never as a church), there were more than 30,000 of them by 1660 in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and the American colonies. They came to he hated, imprisoned, and even martyred by the authorities for their peculiarities, such as the simplicity of their dress, the way they talked ("thee" and "thou" to highborn and lowborn alike), refusal to doff their hats to superiors or to take oaths, and for rejecting outward forms of religion. Even though the Puritans setup Massachusetts Bay Colony Lobe free of the religious oppression back in Europe, they did not extend that freedom to the Quakers when they came to the new world. They were expelled from the colony, imprisoned if they returned, and in some cases were executed. Four Quakers, one a woman, were executed in public hangings on Boston Common in 1659 and 1660. Branded by the Puritans as the "cursed sect of heretics," a sea captain could be fined for even having a Quaker on board his ship when he landed at Boston harbor.

But still the Quakers came to America, freedom of religion being one reason, but also to spread their cause and to set up an ideal government, which they did at least in part for several decades in Pennsylvania under the leadership of William Penn, "a holy experiment" he called it. It was the one colony that provided for marriage without benefit of ordained clergy, a Quaker influence. Back home in England where it was against the law to have any religious gathering not under the auspices of the Anglican Church as many as 4,000 Quakers were in prison at one time, 500 of whom did not survive the severity of England's jails, some of which were not cleaned of human excrement for years at a time!

One would suppose that the Quakers would have a heritage of internal unity along with their history of persecution, but they too have divided and subdivided through the years. One reads of Orthodox Quakers, Hicksite Quakers, Wilburite Quakers, etc. There are evangelical and fundamentalist Quakers, premillennial Quakers, and even Quakers that baptize by immersion! While they are one in having "recorded" ministers rather than "ordained" ministers, some "meetings" have both pastor and sermon while most still do not. In his book on the Quakers, Trueblood has a chapter on "A Practical Alternative to Clergy and Laity," in which he calls for the training of all Christians to be ministers, each according to his gifts. He sees this heritage in Quakerism as his church's most practical contribution to Christianity in general.

But still they are united in their humanitarian concerns, in being pacifists, in working for peace, and in the value of silent worship. And there is general agreement that the Inner Spirit, so basic to Quaker thinking, pervades all humanity in some way and is at work in all religions of the world. While their affirmation of "That of God in every man" may have become a cliche (Cadbury called for a moratorium on its use and Trueblood sees it as dangerously humanistic), it nonetheless undergirds their passion for doing good and encourages their ecumenical involvement. It is noteworthy that it was when their leaders questioned the traditional view of the universal pervasiveness of the Inner Light that the Quakers had less passion for deeds of mercy. There has thus been a corollary between their belief of something of God in every person and their commitment to peace and justice. Do we not all learn something from this? One who is cynical about human nature and sees no potential for man's redemption is not likely to be a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

And the good that they do around the world is far out of proportion with their small numbers, which is probably no more than 250,000 worldwide. And what they do they do well, such as building colleges. They have ten colleges, all in the United States, all good colleges, some of them outstanding and elite, such as Haverford, Swarthmore, and Earlham. Other famous institutions were started with Quaker money, inspiration, and leadership but are not actually Quaker, such as Cornell, Bryn Mawr, and Johns Hopkins.

The bottom line is that the Quakers are doers, do-gooders in the best sense, as well as thinkers, and we have some things to learn from them. We can all be more conscious of the inner light of Christ that "enlightens every man that comes into the world" (Jn.1:9), especially in reference to the universal search for truth as is evident in all cultures and all religions. They can teach us to love our enemies and to do good to those that persecute us. And they show us that as Christians we all have to be pacifists to some degree, war being what it is. And not least, they can teach us to "aspire to lead a quiet life" (1 Thess. 4:11), which we should have learned long ago.