A Brief History of the Quakers

��������� Friends have a lively, inspiring and complicated history.� This website will give you the history in a nutshell.� Its periodization is based on Howard Brinton�s classic work, Quakers for Three Hundred Years.

The Beginning, 1650-1700

��������� The Religious Society of Friends arose in England in the middle of the seventeenth century, a time of turbulence and radical change in both religion and politics.� In politics the Puritan challenge of the monarchy led to Civil War and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell.� In religion, the established Church of England, which placed great emphasis on outward ceremony, was challenged by dissenting Presbyterians and Baptists ��who still identified religious faith was generally with the authority of the Bible and the acceptance of a formal creed.

More radical and short-lived sects arose, such as the Seekers, Ranters, and Fifth Monarchy Men. Many restless spirits arose who questioned received authority and looked for a different foundation for their faith.� Among these restless spirits was George Fox.

George Fox, born in 1624, wandered as a young man among Puritans, Baptists, and Seekers, looking for spiritual fulfillment and relief from inner turmoil.� He spent much time alone and was unable to find help from clergymen.� In 1647 he had the spiritual experience, which we recognize as the turning point in his life:

�And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, Oh 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� Thus when God doth work who shall prevent it?� And this I knew experimentally.�

�At the age of 28, in 1652, after five years of preaching and two imprisonments, he came to northwest England where he shared his discovery, convinced large numbers, and helped to initiate the Quaker movement among fellow seekers.� Many early Quaker leaders, both women and men, felt led directly by the Spirit to travel in the ministry, join with others for worship, and accept the risks of persecution.� Among the convinced was Margaret Fell, whose home became a center for Quaker communication and hospitality, and who later married Fox.

As Quakers were transformed by their direct experience of the Divine, they saw the world in a whole new light.� Fox demanded for himself and for others a life of holy obedience in even the small details of life.� Quaker testimonies developed which gave outward expression to inward convictions.� Central among these was the peace testimony, articulated in a declaration given to the King in 1661:

�All bloody principles and practices, we�do utterly deny, with all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever.� And this is our testimony to the whole world.�

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While the Quaker movement began as a group held together by no visible bond but united by its own sense of kinship of spirit, it was soon found necessary to have some sort of organization to deal with practical matters.� For example, persons suffering loss of property through confiscation of goods to meet fines needed immediate and systematic help.� Arrangements had to be made to validate marriages without officiating clergyman, to care for the poor, to arrange burials, and to keep records of births, marriages, sufferings and deaths.� Friends faced the question: how can a free fellowship based on divine guidance from within set up any form of church government providing direction from without?

As early as 1652 William Dewsbury urged Friends to set up general meetings, to be attended by Friends in a limited area to meet immediate needs.� Care was taken not to produce an authoritarian code.� In 1656 at a meeting of Friends in Balby, Yorkshire, a letter was composed giving advices, rather than formulating rules of behavior.� The letter concluded:

�Dearly beloved Friends, these things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by; but that all, with a measure of the light, which is pure and holy, may be guided: and so in the light walking and abiding, these things may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not in the letter; for the letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life.

As a result of severe persecution and the imprisonment of many Quaker leaders, and fanatical acts of some Quakers, Fox perceived a need to bring order out of confusion by setting up Monthly Meetings for business in both Britain and America, and then a system of Quarterly and Yearly Meetings.� The first Quaker meetings for business were made up of men only, but by 1656 women�s meetings began to appear.

The Quietist Period, 1700-1800

This zealous period was followed by a period of conservation.� No religious movement has ever maintained the fire, energy, and power of its formative period.� If religion is to become a genuine part of life itself, it must become integrated with the routine affairs of daily living.� The period following the end of persecution in England brought about by the Toleration Act of 1689 found the Quakers almost exhausted.� Most of the first leaders had died, many of them in prison, and a second generation was emerging who were not motivated by the acute zeal that comes from the discovery of a new truth or from resistance to violent opposition.� Some of the most active Friends had migrated to America where they were engaged in setting up a new society and a new way of life.� In Pennsylvania, under the leadership of William Penn, they founded a new commonwealth, the Holy Experiment, where they hoped Truth might reign.

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The Quietist movement, which affected Quakers in this era, saw worship as a passive experience, a time of receptivity and waiting for divine guidance.� Yet this guidance could lead to significant action.

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Although Quakerism turned inward in the eighteenth century, a large group of travelling ministers, both men and women, in both Britain and America kept Friends aware of the wider world. Several Friends with a deep interior life, most notably John Woolman, were led to advocacy of significant social reforms.� Also, Quakers in much of that century continued to be active in political affairs, in Rhode Island and New Jersey, as well as Pennsylvania.

The most important product of the flowering of Quakerism in this period in the New World was a unique Quaker culture, a clearly defined way of life with a spiritual basis affecting every aspect of life.� In Quaker communities the meeting was the center, and often included a school.� Its whole emphasis was on life itself in home, meeting, and community.

Exemplifying the best in Quaker thought in this period is a quote from John Woolman, who looked at the whole universe in a spiritual light:

�Our Gracious Creator cares and provides for all his Creatures.� His tender mercies are over all his works; and so far as his love influences our minds, so far we become interested in his workmanship, and feel a desire to take hold of every opportunity to lessen the distresses of the afflicted and increase the happiness of the Creation.� Here we have a prospect of one common interest, from which our own is inseparable, that to turn all the treasures we possess into the channel of Universal Love becomes the business of our lives.��

The Period of Conflict and Decline, 1800-1900

During this period Quakers, while maintaining the mystical emphasis on divine leading, were influenced in two opposite directions, by the evangelical awakening of the Methodist revival and the rationalistic philosophy and influence of the French Revolution. This led to the Hicksite Separation of 1827, during which Quakerism split into two branches, Orthodox and Hicksite.�� The separation was rooted in theological differences of evangelicalism vs. mysticism and rationalism, but reflected other complex differences as well. Whatever differences the two branches had at the time, they were magnified by the subsequent history of each of the branches in the late nineteenth century.� One thing they had in common was a reaction to the stagnation and decline, which had set in some Friends meetings.

��������� In the late nineteenth century many Orthodox meetings, especially in the Midwest, came under the influence of revivalism, which brought in many new members.� A pastoral system developed among many, although not all, Orthodox Friends.

Hicksite Friends remained �unprogrammed� and based their worship on silence and without pastors.� Some Hicksite Friends, such as Lucretia Mott, were swept up in the heady atmosphere of radical reform of the 1840�s and advocated women�s rights�� After the Civil War the utopian impulse declined.� The late nineteenth century is often viewed as a rather conservative period for Hicksite Friends, but seeds were sown which transformed Hicksite Quakerism in the twentieth century.

Hicksite Friends also expanded westward.� For example, Illinois Yearly Meeting of which Evanston Meeting is a member, was founded in 1871 after Friends settled in Illinois.

The Period of Modernism, 1900-1950

By the late nineteenth century, Friends, like many other religious people, were impacted by Darwinism and evolution, scholarly Biblical criticism, the Social Gospel and other religious trends, which can be grouped under the label �modernism.�� Many Hicksites and some Orthodox as well, began to embrace modernism, but with a unique Quaker twist.� They believed that Quaker belief in the Inner Light, which Friends had held since the seventeenth century, paved the way both for an acceptance of a more universalist, non-dogmatic understanding of Christianity, and also the way toward a deeper mystical practice.

Friends began to organize large conferences to discuss children� and adult education and social concerns.� These conferences joined together in 1900 to form Friends General Conference, which united all Hicksite Friends.

In 1902 FGC created the Committee on the Advancement of Friends Principles, staffed by Henry Wilbur, who �believed that the religious society of Friends could play an important role in addressing the scientific advances and social problems of the twentieth century.� Friends needed to turn away from the largely inward focus of nineteenth century Quakerism, shed the restrictions of peculiarity, and actively promote Friends social and spiritual testimonies.� Such a mission would revitalize the Society.

The Committee contributed to new growth and vitality among unprogrammed Friends.� They corresponded and traveled to areas where Quakerism traditionally had been weak, such as parts of the Midwest and West, as Friends moved to towns where there was no Quaker meeting.� Many meetings grew up near colleges and universities.� Most new meetings were unaffiliated, but many later affiliated with FGC.

In the course of the twentieth century a number of Quaker-related organizations arose as channels for Friends� social concerns in addition to the work done by monthly and yearly meetings.� Prominent among these are the American Friends Service Committee, founded in 1918, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation, organized in the 1940s.� The formation of Friends World Committee in the 1930s provided a vehicle for cooperation and dialog among the branches of Friends.

The Most Recent Period, 1950-present

Brinton wrote his book in 1952, so we can name this period for ourselves.� Quakers have experienced both a strong renewal of the mystical or inward direction as well as sustained commitment to social action.

Who are unprogrammed Friends today?� There is a substantial group of unprogrammed Friends in Britain, some in other parts of Europe, and a scattering of meetings elsewhere besides the United States and Canada.� All unprogrammed meetings in the United States are either part of Friends General Conference alone, or dually affiliated with Friends United Meeting (formed by Orthodox yearly meetings), or of independent yearly meetings.� A large percentage of Friends are �convinced� to become Friends, rather than born into it.� Unprogrammed Friends are mostly white, but with a desire for greater ethnic and racial diversity.

Friends have responded to social movements of the late twentieth century, such as the civil rights, antiwar, feminist, and environmental movements, based on a testimony of equality, �that of God� in every person.� Quakers have formed groups to raise new concerns, such as Friends for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, Friends in Unity with Nature, and gatherings of people of color.

Unprogrammed Friends are a theologically diverse group, with universalist and Christocentric strands, and often some combination of the two.� What unites unprogrammed Friends is not theology, but rather a way of living grounded in direct experience of the Spirit in meeting for worship and meeting for business.� This way of living and being together requires careful listening to achieve unity amid the diversity of perspectives.