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A Brief History of the Religious Society so Friends

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England were a time of social and economic unrest. Religion and politics were closely interwoven; the idea of separation of church and state was virtually unknown. Religious debates were commonplace. Many people, disillusioned by the hypocrisy and moral laxity of the English clergy, began to question past ideas and practices, looking for new answers. For the first time, the Bible was being printed in English and people could study it directly, instead of depending on specially educated clergymen to interpret it. The movement that produced the Religious Society of Friends arose in this period of religious ferment.

George Fox was born in 1624 in Leicestershire, in the north of England. As a young man he attempted to live a life of purity and love, struggling to find the truth. He could not find what he sought in established religious organizations. After a period of agonized searching, he experienced an inward transformation that helped him understand that the love and power of God are available to all people without the help of priests, ministers or sacraments. He wrote,

I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. And in that also I saw the infinite love of God.

The best known words from Fox’s journal, however, are those that express the conviction of an immediate and personal relationship with God:

Oh then, I heard a voice which said, “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition”….[W]hen I heard it, my heart did leap for joy.

George Fox traveled extensively throughout England, talking to people and holding meetings for worship. Originally, Fox and his followers did not intend to form a new denomination. They believed they were returning to a true, primitive Christianity. They were known as the Children of the Light or Friends of Truth and later simply as Friends. The first formal structure was organized in 1652; this is generally considered the birth date of the Society of Friends. From that time, the current system of meeting organization slowly developed, consisting of monthly meetings; half-yearly, regional or quarterly meetings; and yearly meetings.

The primary group is the monthly, or local, meeting. Several monthly meeting in an area may gather together several times a year, as a half-yearly, regional or quarterly meeting. A larger number of monthly meetings may join as a yearly meeting to share certain responsibilities. The first two yearly meetings were established about 1660, based in New England and in London. There are now many yearly meetings, involving Friends from both the programmed and the unprogrammed traditions.

Women have always been prominent in Quaker organizations. Friends’ belief that there is that of God within everyone led them to see that women as well as men might experience the Inner Light through personal experience. In the earliest development of Quakerism, Margaret Fell was one of the outstanding supporters of the movement and her home served as one of its central gathering places. Other women have participated actively in every era since.

Because early Friends believed in worshipping their own way, without ministers or sacraments, they faced a great deal of persecution. At first, Friends did not realize the implications of their teachings and of their belief that every person should minister before God. Friends insisted on witnessing publicly to their beliefs. They would not swear oaths, because they believed that to do so there were two standards of truth, one for everyday use and another for when one is under oath. Because they believed in the equality of all people, they would not show customary marks of deference to their so called betters, such as removing a hat or using a formal title when speaking. In addition, they witnessed against class distinction by using the familiar thou and thee for everyone, rather than the formal you which implied a social difference. They refused to pay tithes to support state-sponsored religion. Many of these actions were illegal in seventeenth century England and many Friends who behaved in these ways suffered as a result of their beliefs.

For stubbornly making his actions and speech reflect his beliefs, George Fox was jailed many times during his life. Other Quakers were similarly determined. Before religious tolerance was established, thousands of Quakers were imprisoned and many died in prison, both in England and in the New World. The term Quaker was supposedly first used when George Fox, appearing before officials who were charging him, said that they ought “to tremble before the word of God”. The judge is supposed to have replied, “You are the quaker, not I.”

An emphasis on pacifism began very early in the history of Quakerism. When asked to accept an appointment in the army, George Fox wrote:

I told them I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars, and I knew from whence all wars did rise, from the lust according to James’s doctrine…I told them I was come into the covenant of peace which was before wars and strifes were.

The belief that the is that of God in everyone and that acts and attitudes ust be in harmony with this principle led the Quakers as a group to take a definite stand against war as early as 1660. When they were suspected of being followers of a fanatic sect advocating violent overthrow of the king, the Quakers presented a declaration of Charles II:

All bloody principles and practices, we, as to our own particulars, 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.

They went on to say:

[W]e do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the spirit of Christ; which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdom of this world.

In 1654, a number of Quakers traveled out from Northern England, bearing the message of their faith to all areas of England, Scotland and Ireland, and farther abroad. These early Quakers were known as the Valiant Sixty, although there may have been even more people involved. Early in the development of Quakerism, many Friends carried their beliefs to America. Several colonies declared these Quakers to be heretics and passed laws against them. Despite imprisonment, torture and sometimes death,, Friends persisted and their efforts helped to establish religious tolerance in both England and America.

The position of Quakers in America changed significantly when William Penn, a new convert and the son of an admiral in the British Navy, was given a tract of land to satisfy a debt owed to him by the Crown on account of his father’s services. The King named this place Pennsylvania, and it not only became a haven from persecution but also offered Quakers the chance to practice their faith as a Holy Experiment. One hundred years later, the form of government that had been established in Pennsylvania was used as a model by the framers of the Constitution of the United States.

After about fifty years of rapid growth in America, the Quaker movement became stable in numbers and began to form tightly knit communities somewhat withdrawn from the rest of the world. The Revolutionary War and the Civil War were especially difficult times for Quakers; their adherence to the peace testimony placed them at odds with other groups and resulted in the loss of many members who were torn by the conflict around them.

In consonance with their belief that all people are equal before God, Quakers in North America attempted to deal fairly with Native American peoples. John Woolman, a famous American Quaker who died just before the Revolutionary War, began to speak out against slavery. Ultimately, many Quakers came to see the Light reflected in his words. By the time of the Civil War, many Quakers became abolitionists. Quakers were instrumental in establishing the Underground Railroad to help slaves escape to freedom in the northern United States and Canada.

During the nineteenth century, a number of divisions occurred in Quakerism. Because of differences in their interpretations of basic beliefs, several distinct varieties of Quakerism currently exist in the United States. One division happened when a number of groups of Friends were influenced by revival practices and salaried pastoral leadership developed in consequence. The pattern of worship these Friends adopted is reflected in today’s programmed meetings. The freedom that Friends’ meetings have to choose their own course of action has meant that separations and realignments have continued to take place within the Society. However, since World War II, a series of Friends World Conferences and the establishment of the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) have helped promote unity among Friends of all persuasions.

Two other organizations have developed in the twentieth century in response to Friends’ perception of the need to act politically and globally. The American Friends Service Committee ( AFSC) was formed during World War I to provide relief to war victims in Europe, and to provide an avenue through which conscientious objectors might serve. The AFSC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its handling of relief efforts following World War II. At the end of World War II, Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) was developed. At the time, it was the only official religious lobbying group in the United States.