Is All Our Work the Peace Testimony?

Reflecting on the Inward Seeking and the Outward Practices

Years ago, talented Quaker writer and peace worker Chel Avery wrote about the Peace Testimony as Questing Beast. Her interest was to explore the many aspects of the peace testimony that people declared and the many ways it is held.

My thoughts come from somewhat the same place, although 30 years later, I see little reflection on the peace testimony among Friends. As I think about what it is today, I wonder: Can we consider the peace testimony today without considering where it has been? Avery did a great job of interviewing people and looking at books of discipline to determine the ways Friends individually and corporately thought about it. There is a lot of change over time, including fuzziness that has grown around the word “testimony” itself, as well as “peace.” What is peace beyond choosing not to fight in a war?

When I think of testimony, I think of it in the words of Harvey Gillman in 1988’s A Light That Is Shining:

The word “testimony” is used by Quakers to describe a witness to the living truth within the human heart as it is acted out in everyday life. It is not a form of words, but a mode of life based on the realization that there is that of God in everybody, that all human beings are equal, that all life is interconnected. It is affirmative but may lead to action that runs counter to certain practices currently accepted in society at large.

The core of my activism has always been the conviction that there is that of God in everyone, whether or not they act as if that is true. When I learned about the peace testimony, I did not learn that it started as the testimony against war until I saw an old book of discipline from the 1800s.

When I joined my meeting in 1975, I saw a poster from Britain on a wall that declared “the peace testimony,” including text from the letter to King Charles II. The letter, written by George Fox and others, was sent to the king to assure him that Friends were not part of the uprising. The words in that letter are about Friends’ steadfast conviction not to kill with outward weapons.

That letter has been cited by many as evidence that Friends were early pacifists, even as later Friends have largely supported police forces with guns to keep order in the community. Friends speak out against war and take actions in support of building peace internationally, and still, pacifism is not universally endorsed by Friends, even as they accept a peace testimony.

During a visit to a meeting, I learned from Jerry Frost, former director of the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College, that the modern idea of a peace testimony was invented in the twentieth century. Early Friends’ refusal to fight helped define them, but did this reframing of the peace testimony change how the testimony was envisioned? The word peace carries an understanding of the inward work: building balance, centering on the spiritual connection, and practicing a state of being devoid of worry. Many Friends still only follow this definition. They see work on issues to bring peace as activism that requires first that we get to an inward peace.. Friends have a tendency to avoid conflict and anger, yet ignoring these elements of human existence does not provide real balance. I find that seeking that inward balance is an ongoing practice. I cannot imagine doing the work to attain the state of peace at any level without that practice, particularly when faced with conflict or anger.

When I read early Friends, I see their practice includes both the inward seeking and the outward practices: they are not only against war but also work with families in prison and also go out into the streets to bring Truth. Particularly in the Journal of George Fox, there was not a “stop” to conflict and anger; sometimes we see him write about working through those feelings. He was clear that he had come to that place of understanding, that he was “come into the covenant of peace which was before wars and strifes were.” This was his individual testimony: the peace of inward balance. Yet, the words about the testimony remained “against war” until the twentieth century.

By the twentieth century, Friends had fought (or not) in the Civil War and other wars, and in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting some had been read out of meeting for fighting, which meant they could not attend business meeting. There has been little that I can find in the general literature about this shift in the language from “against war” to “peace.” Perhaps they were motivated by a yearning for action, something to do, and not simply to use words to identify what they were against.

In the mid-twentieth century, before Friends in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting officially came back together from Orthodox and Hicksite positions, there were committees from both yearly meetings meeting together, looking at the issues the Depression had made clear—unemployment, militarism, and poverty—and suggesting ways and activity to work against the inequity they saw. They did not describe it as peacework, but as I read what Adam Curle (a prominent British academic and Quaker peace activist known for his innovative approaches to conflict resolution and peace studies) has written, I see connections: the link to oppression. As a mediator, Curle’s work took him to many places in Britain and around the world, and he came to see how the oppression some are under can lead to violent responses, which never work and cause more injury for themselves. To ignore their plight due to their violence, however, was not the answer. He was clear that the ones who are oppressing—who fight back with more violence than the oppressed—do not serve themselves either. Both sides need support to change.

What does not support the oppressed is remaining distant from them, joining the chorus of attack (the language of blame), or claiming neutrality. The challenge is to support the oppressed by listening and lifting up those voices; to understand the fears of those oppressed, who have not asked that violence be committed in their names; and to work with those who oppress, if possible: to help them to understand that their position needs to change for their own benefit.

While Friends have supported the means to do that through the League of Nations and later the United Nations—both clearly linked to fostering peace and preventing war—each organization was formed with some assumptions that have not worked well. There is more work to do and more to learn.

Perhaps, as Avery concluded, the peace testimony is more of an individual calling but I wonder. A peace testimony adds considerably to the more limited vision of a testimony against war. It goes beyond simply “not killing.” Conversations about what peace means beyond ending a war would be a place to discover ways of being in our community and in the world. Peace requires investment in the communities we live in, both in our meetings and beyond, to work for equity, justice, food security, and maybe even our national economy. What if we talked about this in our meetings, shared our different leadings, and noticed common elements? Could these conversations help us see the many ways our actions might contribute to the common goal? Might it help us feel more hope? If we looked at our communities and worked more actively to assure equity, how might we support, for instance, public education? Or in learning about the justice system, might we discern what actions would heal the broken system? Might we learn more about community banking or public banking? That seems a good place to start, rather than simply feeling hopeless and unable to even talk about these issues.

Today we witness recent results of oppression in Gaza, in Sudan, and in every corner of the world where poverty rules. In our current national situation, we see how the necessary work to address injustice and inequity is being undone. Local efforts help to strengthen basic tools of life—food, shelter, fairness, immigration safety—are all critical for a world at peace. When we act to meet community needs, as many do, let us recognize our work fuels peace.

The inward work is crucial alongside the efforts to address the inequities among us that lead to war. Pacifists know that violence solves nothing. Seeking strength to notice and be present to seemingly outrageous situations is crucial to understanding the way to respond to oppression that challenges pacifism. We see how ignoring anger and not facing conflict has not helped either our peaceableness or any sort of peacework. When we feel overwhelmed and cannot see connections, how can we hope to find our way from envisioning to building peace in our community and the world? So this is not an either/or. Another binary bites the dust.

This is where we are today: two wars, Ukraine and Gaza, challenge assumptions about neutrality; basic needs such as hunger, education, housing, and healthcare in our communities and in the world that challenge our confidence to succeed; the U.S. has a government determined to be in charge of everything, including changing how history is told, which angers us; and our criminal justice system continues to address justice issues unevenly, which confounds us. All of these issues are mixed together in a world created and sustained by assumptions and fears about race, belonging, class, creating order, and trust.

These concerns can inspire us to act, and we have our meetings, fellow members, and Quaker organizations to help us with information and tools. I am inspired by communities around me who have less than I have, yet whose resilience amazes me. When I hear neighbors unwilling to let injustice stop them or see victims of war continue to stand up for their right for a home, then I understand their talk of hope and faith.

For me, the faithfulness to the call to act is about considering strategies with others as we move forward on issues; we may never see the full result. For me, the teaching of Jesus’s life and death is about that faithfulness: to address the state of those experiencing oppression and where there is suffering and not to think of neutrality as a good thing but to find ways to act. Supporting those who suffer requires getting involved; ignoring the suffering supports oppression.

And when it gets painful, notice when passion against injustice arises, and recognize where unregulated passion may be working against the ability to find balance: not to balance injustice but to find strength to continue the work. Worship and holding spirit-centered conversations that allow for listening and sharing emotions, such as frustration, can help us find balance. When we can treat the complexities we face—anger, fear, and conflict—as gifts from Spirit, as places to learn from, we build strength to continue through the hard times.

The resilience we see from those who have suffered oppression, where hope has not died, are lessons for us. There are lessons for our worshiping community to learn in order to ensure our getting support for this everlasting work: through inward reflection and grounded commitment in worship and in conversation.