There’s a revealing line in the memoir of Samuel Bownas, a British traveling minister who visited the English colonies in North America in 1702 and 1727, staying a few years each time. On his second journey, he noted that “very few of the elders, that twenty years before were serviceable, zealous men, were now living.” Moreover, “many of the rising youth did come up in the form more than in the power and life that their predecessors were in.” There you have it: the golden age of Quakers was over 300 years ago.
But, of course, it wasn’t. Only a decade or so later, Benjamin Lay stunned Philadelphia Yearly Meeting sessions by coming in dressed as a soldier and concluding an antislavery diatribe by thrusting a sword into a hollowed-out Bible filled with fake blood. So many of our Quaker heroes, from John Woolman to Lucretia Mott to Bayard Rustin, were to follow. For every lionized Friend, hundreds worked to minister and elder and even do unglamorous work like maintaining the meetinghouses.
It’s my pet theory that Quakerism is always dying and simultaneously always being reborn. It’s been a messy process with lots of hurt feelings. Many people have left Friends, and there are a bewildering number of institutional schisms still dividing us. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of our death have been greatly exaggerated.
Samuel Bownas himself recognized the cycle of regrowth. He’s most well-known for his short book, A Description of the Qualifications Necessary to a Gospel Minister, which has come to be widely recognized as the canonical how-to book of Quaker ministry (a beautiful well-produced volume from 1989 is still available from either of its co-publishers, Pendle Hill and the Tract Association of Friends). Bownas responded to a stultifying Quaker tradition by writing down the unwritten folkways of his predecessors. In so doing, he helped keep our ways alive.
There’s a curious debate over the intentionality of revivals. Some Friends counsel that we should wait and be true to our ways until the Spirit leads people to us. Others believe that with enough money and force of will, we can jump-start a revival among Friends.
I tend to fall in between. I wrote my first manifesto about organizing 20-something Friends back in the late 1990s. Over the years, I’ve served as a national outreach coordinator and also helped to organize various social media movements. I’ve seen many a much-hyped outreach initiative come and go.
Surprisingly, many of the forces bringing people to Friends are outside our control. The most effective outreach tool in the last 30 years has been the Beliefnet “What Religion Are You?” quiz, which must have told tens of thousands of seekers they are compatible with Friends. It’s a random quiz, made without academic rigor simply to make a few bucks on an advertising platform. We Quakers can’t match this kind of free publicity, but we can be ready when visitors seek us out. We can have good websites and social media; we can do the work to know our faith well enough to answer questions when people come in; we can practice hospitality and build meeting cultures that bring first-time visitors back the next week, and the week after that.
Anecdotally it seems like many new visitors have been checking out Friends in the last few years. There’s a growing curiosity about what we’ve found. Let’s greet these seekers, share our ways, and honor their observations and journeys. Let’s revive Quakerism yet again.
In Friendship,
The June/July issue of Friends Journal relating to Quaker Revival is excellent. I would like to add my own personal thoughts to this conversation. As a Friend for over 75 years I have seen many changes. First in NYYM serving as a servant/leader, as Yearly Meeting Clerk and now as an Elder in PYM. Through all these Quaker years I have always found us experimenting with our spiritual lives, not forgetting our past history but using it to face the present and the future. Here are some examples that have affected my life.
Following the publication of the AFSC publication “Peace In the Middle East.”when the AFSC decided to turn from only relief and reconstruction to advocacy, this pamphlet was seen by many as -Pro Palestinian. One evening at our AFSC- New York regional executive committee meeting the Jewish Defense league stormed into our meeting. This small band would not let us continue. Should we call the police? Our solution was to hear their concerns and position and also ask them to listen to our Quaker position. The conclusion, after a long night,was to hold future meetings together that were productive in understanding their concerns and their openness to our Quaker values. It was a “bleary eyed” group that went home the next morning.
As members of the National AFSC executive committee, during the Vietnam war, we held a silent vigil outside the White House in Washington, and requested a meeting with our “Quaker” President Nixon. He refused but sent out Henry Kissinger, who did take the time to listen to our concerns and the need for non-violence.
As a member of the Quaker UN committee I was asked to attend a briefing at the UN, on the establishment of a world Court. I found myself in a tense discussion with two representatives of the State Department sent to observe the meeting. In ‘speaking truth to power’ it gave me the opportunity to reaffirm our stand on peace and justice.
And lastly the Long Island, NY, Quarterly meeting approved,at it’s business session, sending a delegation to Whittier Meeting, in CA, asking them to consider ‘reading Richard Nixon out of meeting’ for his actions in Vietnam and Laos.
All of these experiences helped to renew and revitalize my Quakerism. Being a Friend of truth and the light.
Quakers have a history of responding to situations, especially when they know how important it is to uphold their testimonies. I believe there is an openness to constant renewal and revitalization. George Fox and those “valiant 60” knew it wouldn’t be easy. In every decade and in every generation Friends have had to face the world as they see it but with love and understanding, never forgetting the very foundation that our traditions and testimony rest on. I believe we still have an important message to share with all of humankind.