Open to New Light: Quakers and Other Faiths

By Eleanor Nesbitt. Christian Alternative Books (Quaker Quicks), 2023. 104 pages. $12.95/paperback; $6.99/eBook.

Eleanor Nesbitt’s Open to New Light is an erudite yet accessible account of Quakers and their encounters with members of other religions from the earliest years of the Quaker faith to the present day. Nesbitt, a professor emeritus of religion and education studies at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, is a Quaker by convincement and an acclaimed expert on the Sikh and Hindu faiths. She has read widely and deeply, and, in less than 100 pages (the book is part of the Quaker Quicks series), she offers a concise but nuanced overview of a very complex topic.

In the first chapter, Nesbitt states her focus will be on the interactions that Liberal (as opposed to Evangelical) Friends have had with members of non-Christian religions. She describes Liberal Friends as those who have unprogrammed, silent meetings and who prioritize the importance of the Inner Light and that of God in everyone over biblical authority. She also urges readers to consider the role that Quaker testimonies (peace, simplicity, integrity, equality) have played in Quakers’ contacts with other faiths.

She then explores some early interfaith encounters from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She notes that George Fox, Margaret Fell, and a few other first-generation Quakers were notable for their willingness to engage (often via epistles) with Muslims and Jews. Nesbitt also quotes extensively from William Penn’s and John Woolman’s writings about Native Americans. Nevertheless, early Quakers, in spite of their belief in the Inner Light or their respect for other religions, often approached interfaith encounters from a purely Christian point of view. Nesbitt refers, for example, to Scottish Quaker Robert Barclay’s (1648–1690) affirmation that the “light of Christ” might allow anyone (even non-Christians) to find truth. But she adds that Barclay’s apparent inclusivity “in no way departs from or challenges an unquestioningly Christian worldview.”

Similarly, as she moves on in separate chapters to consider Quakers’ relationships with followers of specific religious traditions (including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Jains, Sikhs, Baha’is, Indigenous religions, and humanists), Nesbitt never oversimplifies the complexities of these relations. In the chapter on Buddhism, she observes that both Buddhists and Quakers value silence as part of their religious practice, and she adds that some Friends have sought to incorporate Buddhist meditation into their Quaker faith. However, while some Quakers practice meditation during meeting for worship, Nesbitt notes, “for others this is a far cry from the corporate, worshipful waiting that is intrinsic to Quaker worship and their own more traditionally Christian style of praying.”

In the chapter on Quakers and Jews, she traces changes in the relationship since the seventeenth century: an early belief in supersessionism; refugee work during and after the Holocaust; and finally, the fraught responses of both Quakers and Jews to the suffering of Palestinians. “Out of all Quakers’ relationships with other communities of faith,” Nesbitt writes, “the closest, most complex and at times most painful has been with Jews.”

Nesbitt also considers the inclusion of interfaith material in (British) Quakers’ books of discipline and the interfaith approaches and initiatives of influential Quaker thinkers and writers such as Rufus Jones and Douglas Steere. She refers as well to the interactions that local and yearly meetings have had with members of other faiths and the creation of groups and committees with a focus on interfaith relations. In the final chapter of the book, “Looking back, looking forward,” she concludes Liberal Friends have generally been open to new spiritual insights, and she expresses a hope that a spirit of conviviality will continue between Quakers and non-Quakers.

Open to New Light is a marvel of concision: it is clearly written and meticulously researched. Readers who want to delve more deeply into a particular topic can consult the references list at the end of the book. For other readers, both Friends and non-Friends, this book offers much food for thought and discussion, as well as serving as a useful introduction to the history of Quakers and their encounters and engagement with other faiths.

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Diana Sacerio is a longtime attender of Haverford (Pa.) Meeting who lives in Rosemont, Pa. She teaches upper school Spanish at the Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, Pa., and is an avid reader and lover of literature.