No More Quaker Heroes - or Villains

  A Book of Quaker Saints by Lucy V. Hodgkin

 

 illustrated by F. Cayley-Robinson

A Yearly Meeting preparation session on 'Uncomfortable Quaker Histories' which I attended on Zoom yesterday allowed me to revisit work I have done myself on challenging Quaker myths and legends and got me thinking about how to take this forward.

We were presented with stories of Quakers in Lancaster and in America (including William Penn) who had been profitably engaged in the Atlantic slave trade and who had not always been challenged effectively by their contemporaries. We were also reminded of the ambivalent attitude of some Friends in the past to the poor - only to be helped if they were suitably grateful and knew 'their place' and never wholly accepted as equals. In this context we were asked if a testimony to equality had ever existed.

Back in the 1980s I gave a series of talks on Quaker Myths and Legends, questioning assumptions that were taken for granted at the time such as equality between men and women and how the peace testimony came about. In 1986 I was part of the group who wrote and presented the Quaker Womens Group Swarthmore lecture 'Bringing the Invisible into the Light'. As well as questioning whether equality had always been an integral part of the Society of Friends, the lecture included examples of painful personal experience such as domestic violence among Friends. The lecture was welcomed by many but also provoked very strong negative reactions - disbelief that Quakers could act in this way and denial that Friends were not always perfect in their relations with others. A lot of the discomfort stemmed from our audacity in challenging some Friends' established world view.

We are now looking at our past again through the lens of sexism, racism and classism and what we are finding is uncomfortable. I would say that this is what an honest study of the past should be. There never were Quaker Saints. Quakers have always been humans with human imperfections, shaped by the wider society they found themselves in but also by changes in the practices and attitudes of the Society of Friends through the centuries. I think it is better and more helpful to identify with past Quakers who were not perfect than to put heroes and heroines on a pedestal from which they may come crashing down. We may feel shame at the actions of Friends in the past and seek in some way to make amends but I believe that we should also try to reach for understanding, to learn where we are going wrong now and how we may change and improve.

We may remove the name of William Penn from a room in Friends House but I hope we can continue to give him his due and not reject him totally as a Quaker villain. We should not reject his writings because of some aspects of his life because his words are still valuable. When my meeting was reading through Quaker Faith and Practice several years ago as part of the revision process I was surprised to find that the extracts Friends found most helpful were not the most modern writings but those by William Penn and Isaac Penington. 

We need meticulous research, such as we were presented with in the preparation session, looking in detail at Quaker links to slavery, attitudes to the poor and other marginalised groups. The more we learn the more we can understand rather than only condemn. Local studies are a good start but these themes also need to be seen in a wider context - for example the way in which womens' meetings evolved, their purpose and their influence.

I have tried in my biographical posts on this blog to include a broad range of past Quakers, including women of course but also lower class Quakers without much money. There are also 'difficult' Friends and those with mental health problems. Just a few examples are Ruth Follows, Thomas Shillitoe, Benjamin Lay and his wife Sarah, Josiah Langdale and Rebecca Jones. James Jenkins was trying to write honest rather than idealised testimonies to Friends he had known in the 18th century, There is much more work to be done to bring invisible poor Quakers, Quaker servants and Quaker people of colour into the light, but a start has been made.

If there is one lesson we can learn from the past it is that there should be no more Quaker Saints. We must do away with Quaker heroes but I hope we will not go to the other extreme and cast Friends as villains. Idealising the past makes us unable to face reality but so does seeing it only in black and white rather than in Quaker gray.
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Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015-2017 - S for Job Scott

Job Scott was born in 1751 at Providence, Rhode Island, the eldest child of Quakers John and Lydia Scott. His mother died when he was ten and from the age of fifteen he says that he got into loose company, learned to dance and delighted in playing cards. He later felt a need for religion but was more drawn to the Baptists than the Quakers. As he said, 'Friends meetings were oftener held in silence than suited my itching ear. I loved to hear words, began to grow inquisitive...and the Baptist preachers filled my ears with words and my head with arguments and distinctions, but my heart was little or not at all improved by them.'

Moses Brown

Eventually he returned to Friends, was convinced and appeared as a minister in 1774 at the age of twenty three. At this time he was employed as a school teacher and also worked as a tutor to the children of Moses Brown, whose wife had recently died. Moses came from a Baptist family but was impressed by Job's example and eventually became a Quaker. The two men worked together for the causes of abolition and peace.


In 1780 Job Scott married Eunice Anthony and the couple had six children. Job was often away from home travelling widely in the ministry and sometimes wrote encouraging poems for his wife to read while he was away. His early experience taught him to be wary of speaking too much in his ministry at home and he frequently felt himself required to give an example of silence when visiting elsewhere.

It is possible that Job also practised as a doctor, although this may have been more of an amateur interest. In a letter written at the end of his life he directs that neither of his sons should be encouraged to become physicians and that his medical books should be disposed of. He speaks with feeling of the dangers of going beyond a little general knowledge of medicine, getting out of one's depth and meddling in dangerous cases.

In 1791 his wife died and in 1792 Job felt called to travel in the ministry to Europe. At the end of that year he set sail from Boston and eventually landed in France at Dunkirk where he met with Robert Grubb, an Irish Friend. From there Job went to England, holding meetings in Kent before proceeding to London and then on to Welsh Yearly Meeting in Carmarthen. Next he went to Bristol and back to London for Yearly Meeting there.

Ballitore Meeting House

Job then travelled to Liverpool and took ship for Ireland, visiting many meetings in that country before attending the national Half Years Meeting in Dublin. He was taken ill with smallpox while staying at the house of Elizabeth Shackleton at Ballitore and in spite of all that doctors and nursing care could do he died in November 1793 at the age of forty-two and was laid to rest in the Quaker graveyard there.

A few years after his death Job Scott's edited journal of his travels in the ministry was published.  Later in the 19th century a fuller version and the rest of Job's writing was published by the Hicksites in an attempt to claim him posthumously as one of their own. The Evangelical faction certainly found Job's writing, with its emphasis on waiting in silence for the promptings of the Inward Light, unsound in doctrine. However the journal, with its reflections on the religious life and on the proper upbringing of children, was very influential and remained popular. Indeed, along with John Woolman, Job Scott is one of the few representatives of 18th century Quakerism to be found in Britain Yearly Meeting's Quaker Faith and Practice.

Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015-2016 - Q for Quaker Faith and Practice

Britain Yearly Meeting is in the process of considering whether the time is right to embark on a full-scale revision of its current book of Faith and Practice, issued in 1994. The 'church government' sections have been continuously updated since then to reflect changes in practice decided by the Yearly Meeting in session but the chapters and extracts have remained the same. As a rule of thumb the book is revised once a generation so perhaps the time is now right but there was no unity when Britain YM considered the matter.

A committee has been set up to consider how a revision might take place and they suggested that as a first step Friends might try to become more familiar with the book they already have. They also suggested a calendar of readings arranged by subject area rather than from start to finish - in fact the Introduction is timetabled last! It was hoped that individuals and groups would follow through the calendar - beginning in October 2015 and going through to April 2017 - so that we could come to a more informed decision when asked to do so.

We are now a year into the process and I have been part of a small group from my local meeting following the calendar and sharing our reactions with each other. Although we have not been asked to do a revision ourselves it is easy to slip into a critical mode sometimes. In general we have found the more formal, didactic sections on what is expected of office-holders and how things should be done more opaque and less easy to understand and relate to. Some of the extracts too seem out of touch with our modern concerns.

For me the best part of the exercise has been reading parts of the book that I have not read before and discovering extracts that speak to me directly. One of the surprises has been that the age of the quotation often bears no relationship to how up to date they feel. Two of my group's favourite authors turn out to be William Penn and Isaac Penington!

I look forward to continuing the reading process and discovering more hidden trasures as well as finding out more about the friends who are reading and discovering with me. If there is one thing I have learned myself it is that if we do not read the book and share it with others no revision will be of any use to Britain Yearly Meeting in the future.

Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015 - M for Mistaken

One much repeated 'Quaker saying' among British Friends is 'Think it possible that you may be mistaken'. It even appears at the back of Quaker Faith and Practice in the 'Index of well-loved phrases' where it is only attributed to A&Q or Advices and Queries.

The sentence certainly appears as part of A&Q and indeed also in the Advices in Christian Faith and Practice, the former version of Britain Yearly Meeting's book of discipline. So it has some pedigree as a 'Quaker saying' but who originally said it?

In fact it comes from the era of early Friends but not from a Quaker. The original, fuller, version was written by Oliver Cromwell to the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland in 1650 imploring them to step away from their pledge of allegiance to the royalist cause. His words were 'I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken'.

I can see the difficulty for the modern reader of 'the bowels of Christ' although in contemporary usage this was not biological but meant 'the pity or tenderness of Christ'. It is understandable that this part of the phrase should be omitted but I think it is a mistake not to acknowledge Cromwell as its author.

Is it a less powerful phrase if it cannot be truthfully claimed as a Quaker saying? I think not and even if taken out of context it can still give us food for thought. However I hope that in any future edition of Quaker Faith and Practice in which it appears as a well-loved phrase we will give Old Noll his due.

Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015 - J for Joy

Still rather stuck with my blog, even after I for Interruption, at last I found a subject for J but have found it difficult to write. 

What do Quakers have to say about Joy? Friends through the centuries have found joy for themselves in the Quaker way but have often seemed to others grave and serious in their demeanour to the point of joylessness.

In many passages in Quaker Faith & Practice joy is mentioned and we are urged to share our joys as well as our sorrows, but how often do we do this? When there are so many troubles in the world and we are aware of and trying to assuage the troubles in the lives of those we know, do we hold back from sharing the joy in our own lives for fear of making others feel worse?

When I thought about this I realised that in not expressing my joy I am falling short. True friendship, which is such an important part of a true Quaker community, means being free to share anything - not just serious concerns and troubling problems but small happinesses and deep joys. William Blake perhaps puts it best in this short poem.


Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine,
Under every grief and pine,
Runs a joy with silken twine.
It is right it should be so,
We were made for joy and woe,
And when this we rightly know,
Through the world we safely go.

Quaker Alphabet Blog 2014 - Q for Questions

Questions are at the heart of how Quakers have always expressed their faith, but these are not questions asking for certain answers or for certainty at all. Rather they are part of an ongoing process of questioning, both individual and corporate, as we strive to listen to the continuing revelation of the truth for ourselves and for our times.

In the early days of the Quaker movement in Britain, Yearly Meeting asked for oral replies from local representatives to a series of factual questions about how many ministers had died and how many friends had died in prison since the last meeting. Slightly more subjective was the question about 'How the Truth has prospered amongst them since the last Yearly Meeting and how friends are in Peace and Unity?' Over the years more questions were asked and replies were written rather than spoken. From 1723 onwards the word 'question' was replaced by 'query' perhaps reflecting the broader nature of the enquiries being made.

During the 18th century the queries were used as a means of attempting to standardize the behaviour of Friends and of naming and shaming practices that were disapproved of, such as paying for the local militia, drunkeness, buying ornate furniture and wearing fashionable clothes. When the queries were revised in 1791 a few short 'general advices' were added to them and these were expanded and revised continually until the present day. 'Advices and Queries' were two separate lists until the 1994 edition of Britain Yearly Meeting's Faith and Practice (the Red Book) when they were combined and organised by theme.

The value of the queries for self-examination had been commended by Yearly Meeting in 1787 and as time went on the emphasis shifted from a corporate towards an individual practice, although from 1931 there has been a requirement for Advices and Queries to be read in meetings for worship. The value of Advices and Queries as a tool for outreach has also been recognised and they have been published seperately and often given to enquirers as a distillation of Quaker belief and practice.

But in recent years it seems to me that we have become less comfortable with questions - either asking or answering them. When a new badge was produced a couple of years ago saying "I am a Quaker - ask me why" many Friends were acutely uncomfortable about it.  and would not wear it. They did not want to be asked questions about their faith (as opposed to general questions about Quaker beliefs and practices) and felt that they were doing enough if they 'let their lives speak'. There has also been  some disapproval of the Yearly Meeting theme 'What does it mean to be a Quaker today' as being too introspective and self-indulgent.

However if questions are uncomfortable perhaps that is all the more reason why we should ask them, and attempt to find answers for them. For example, Craig Barnett has urged British Friends to engage in a lively open-ended discussion about their differences which must include some questioning.

The answers to the questions Friends have asked over the centuries have changed, as have the questions themselves. We are not looking for the one right answer or to formulate a dogma to which all Friends will be required to sign up. Questions help us to 'know one another in the things that are eternal' and that can never be a bad thing.

Quaker Alphabet Blog 2014 - D for Duty

Duty sometimes has a bad press among Quakers today. It is seen as something cold and unfeeling and we are told that we should act instead out of love, should do what we want to do. If the Quaker community is to thrive then certain tasks have to be undertaken, but if doing our duty as elders, overseers, doorkeepers, providers of food and drink, even when those duties are difficult, is disparaged rather than encouraged, then Nominations Committees will continue having difficulty finding names.

For me duty is another word for commitment. My relationship with my widowed mother was often difficult but as her only child I felt a duty to try to look after her. In her last years I cooked a roast lunch for her every Sunday, often staying away from meeting to prepare a meal that I would seldom have cooked from choice. I played endless games of very competitive Scrabble with her and engaged in repetitive and often superficial conversation. I worried about her constantly. I did this because I loved her, but I continued doing it out of duty. Some days were better than others and in the end I felt that my love was returned and a real connection between us was made, but I would never have reached that position without the promptings of duty.

Although it does not use the word, the 10th section of Advices and Queries is also about duty. It  advises us to 'Come regularly to meeting for worship even when you are angry, depressed, tired or spiritually cold.' Yearly Meeting in London in 1765 had the same message for Friends. 'Shall a cloudy sky, a little wet, a little cold, a little ease to the flesh, a view to a little earthly gain, or any common incident, furnish an excuse for declining this duty, and thereby depriving ourselves of the blessed advantage, often vouchsafed to the faithful, of enjoying heavenly communion together in spirit with the Lord of life and glory?' [Quaker Faith and Practice 2.43] It is true that not every meeting for worship we attend will leave us spiritually refreshed but duty and commitment will give us the opportunity to be there when it does.

Writing this blog is a commitment which sometimes feels like a very onerous duty but I am glad that I have duty to keep me going as well as enjoyment for myself and, I hope, for my readers.

Quaker Alphabet blog Week 28 - N for Nominations

I have been hesitating over this post, wondering what to include, but now that my fellow Quaker Alphabet blogger Rhiannon has written her piece this week on Nominations I can content myself with recounting my own experience and filling in some gaps!

Rhiannon has never been on a nominations committee - I have been on rather a lot and of different kinds. I have helped to look for nominations for various jobs at Local and Area Meeting level, for elders and overseers, for Yearly Meeting appointments and for particular Quaker groups.

In some ways the nominating experience is the same and in other ways it changes with circumstances. The most important task of a nominating committee is to discern who might be the right person to ask to undertake a piece of work. This is not necessarily the same as looking for someone who already has the right skill-set or who has done the same sort of job before. Discernment is about looking for possibilities in a person, for their 'qualifications' for the role which may be more to do with their personality or life-experience than with their professional or academic standing. From the other side of the fence I know that I might not have been the person I would have nominated to do some of the things I have been asked to do by Friends but I also know that I have (usually) been surprised by what I have discovered about myself and others by doing them.

Of course this kind of discernment is easier when the nominations committee knows the people it is asking well. When this is not the case, as often in a larger group such as a whole Yearly Meeting, then of course it is necessary to ask people to say what their experience and interests are and Britain Yearly Meeting has a system of 'yellow forms' for this purpose. I do have a small stop in my mind about these forms however, in case nominations committees feel that they can only nominate those who have filled in forms or only to those jobs which follow the 'applicant's' experience and wishes to the letter. I am afraid that I have still never filled in a yellow form myself!

Being on a nominations committee can be interesting and exhilarating, but it can also be depressing and frustrating. The depressing side comes from the frequent refusals (often for perfectly valid reasons) that one hears. Frustration, in my experience, comes from a lack of understanding of the nominations process. Nominations committees do not appoint, they only nominate to the meeting that has directed them to find names. I have lost count of the times that Friends have assumed that having been asked they are appointed and if they are not then appointed vent their frustration on the nominations committee!

In the end both nominating and accepting nomination are about service and we can all only do the best we can with God's help. After all as Beatrice Saxon Snell reminds us (QF&P 12.08) 'My dear, we have to take what we can get.'

Quaker Alphabet Week 8 - D for Discipline

Quaker Faith and Practice, the red book, is as its subtitle reveals 'The book of Christian discipline of the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain'. It was first issued in 1738 following requests for a compilation of those minutes of advice and counsel which the yearly meeting had sent out from time to time over the years to quarterly and monthly meetings. Many revisions have followed at the rate of roughly one a generation. The process for the last revision began in 1985 and was published in 1994 although with changes in practice there have been several new editions since then and the book is kept up to date online. Perhaps the time for a new revision is drawing near.

Australian book of discipline

Ireland book of discipline

Each Yearly Meeting, and sometimes smaller groups such as Freedom Friends Church in Salem, Oregon, publishes their own book of discipline, also revised from time to time. Two of the most recent examples are from Australia Yearly Meeting, the fruit of a 10 year process, and Ireland Yearly Meeting whose Quaker Life and Practice has also been laboured over for many years. I find that reading these different books of discipline both historical and recent gives me a very good picture of the differences and similarities between the branches of worldwide Quakerism.

Although these compilations of Quaker practice have always been known collectively as books of discipline it is noticeable that modern editions do not generally include the word in their main title. What discomfort with the concept does this show? As the introduction to Quaker Faith and Practice says, 'Discipline is not now a popular word. It has overtones of enforcement and correction but its roots lie in ideas of learning and discipleship. Discipline in our yearly meeting consists for the most part of advice and counsel, the encouragement of self-questioning, of hearing each other in humility and love...'

For myself I certainly struggle with aspects of self-discipline in my Quaker life. Living in community, living simply and giving myself time to be open to the Light within are all things I find difficult. What keeps me going in the end is the corporate discipline of Friends.

Discipline in the way meetings for worship of all kinds are held is important to me. Ways change over time - in general we no longer kneel to pray in worship or stand when others minister in this way - but the discipline of waiting attentively for the Light, of waiting to be sure that the words that may come to us are to be shared with others rather than being for ourselves alone is still valid. The discipline of taking part in a meeting for worship for business, speaking only when called by the clerk, speaking only once on each topic, leaving time between contributions, upholding the clerk in the process of drafting and agreeing a minute - all this is vital.

Discipline in the Society of Friends is not easy but it is necessary. For me it is part of an active engagement with our endeavour, individually and corporately, to discern and act on the will of God.