A SHORT COURSE ON QUAKERISM
Walla Walla Friends Meeting
Syllabus, 3-6-10
Session One—Quaker
History
Origins. Quakerism
began in England England
After a period of intense seeking, including wandering the
country in search of anyone who could satisfy his thirst for the Spirit, Fox
found that Spirit within himself. He
began to speak passionately to others about his discovery, which he described
as the Christ Within, the Inner Light, and “that of God within each person”,
urging people to reject established churches and other external religious
authority, and to gather in silent meetings “to wait upon God.”
Because God was within each person, Fox and early Friends
didn’t recognize the traditional separations of class, rank and sex. They refused to remove their hats or to bow
to aristocrats or judges, and addressed everyone with the familiar “thee” and
“thou” forms rather than the plural “you” supposed to be used when addressing
people of higher rank. They also permitted women to speak in their meetings as
well as men. It was illegal at the time for people to gather for worship except
in the Church of England, and early Friends were regularly arrested and
imprisoned for their meetings, as well as for their challenges to the accepted
order, including their refusal to take oaths because of their commitment to a
single standard of truth.
Quakers in America England America were also persecuted in some colonies
there, and in Massachusetts America America Pennsylvania
Testimonies. Although Friends have no formal creed, several
fundamental Testimonies have emerged from Friends’ experience. These are principally Peace, Equality,
Simplicity, Community and Integrity.
The first test of the Peace testimony was in England when
Fox and other Friends refused to take up arms during the various political
conflicts, saying, “Our principle is… seek peace and ensue it…All bloody
principles and practices…we utterly deny…under any pretense whatsoever; this is
our testimony to the whole world.” In America , Friends in Pennsylvania
Friends’ testimony on Equality led them to initiate and lead
the movement to abolish slavery, and to seek improved conditions for prisoners
and mental patients. Friends’ testimonies
on Simplicity in external things have freed them from unnecessary material
demands, and have allowed them to devote time to both their own internal lives
and the materials needs of others. The related testimony of Integrity has given
us all new standards of honesty and a single price system in commerce. The testimony of Community is exemplified by
Friends’ structures.
The Quaker manner of organization is to gather in local
meetings for weekly worship which also meet once a month to conduct “meetings
for worship for business” and are called Monthly Meetings. Monthly meetings and worship groups in an
area usually come together several times a year in what are called Quarterly
Meetings. The broadest groupings of
Friends in a region are annual sessions known as Yearly Meetings. At each of these levels, all Friends are invited
to participate and are equal. In
traditional Friends meetings, no clergy is employed, and business is
facilitated by individuals called clerks, who are not given any special
authority other than to help Friends’ seek unity, or what is known as a “sense
of the meeting” on whatever issues are to be dealt with.
These traditional structures, as well as the traditional
Friends practice of holding their meetings for worship in silent waiting upon
the Spirit as the primary religious authority, have undergone changes in some
branches of Friends. These branches, generally known as programmed Friends
Churches, rather than unprogrammed Friends Meetings, have adopted a pastoral
approach, with reliance on paid clergy and greater emphasis on external
scriptural authority rather than the leadings of the inward Spirit. Also, within Friends Meetings, there are
variances with respect to the appreciation of Christocentric or Universalist
approaches to the Spirit. These variances are reflected in wider Friends
organizations bringing together both individual Friends and Yearly Meetings.
Session Two—Quakers
& Mysticism
The original awakening of George Fox and other early Friends
to the Presence of the Divine within them was revolutionary to those who
experienced it. But it was also the
continuation of a long history throughout human experience.
As Howard Brinton states in his classic work on Quakerism, Friends
for 300 Years,
Mysticism is a religion based on
the spiritual search for an inward, immediate experience of the Divine. Whenever and wherever religion becomes too
formal and institutional, too dependent on external expression, the mystic
rises up in protest and points the way to a religion which is internal,
independent of outward forms or organization, and centered in the direct
apprehension of God.,,,Every great world religion has its mystical sect or groups.
What the Quakers, as mystics, are to Christianity, the Zen (or Chan) sect is to
Buddhism, the Yogis are to Hinduism, the Sufis to Mohammedanism, and the
Taoists to the religion of China.
Springing from a Christian culture, Friends variously
described the divine Presence they found within themselves as the Inward Light,
the Truth, “that of God within every person,” the Spirit, and the Inner Christ.
Quaker worship was designed to assure that forms such as rituals, books,
symbols, and words not coming out of the present experience of the Spirit were
not substituted for that experience by the worshiper. To those who quoted scriptures without being
in the same Spirit as those who wrote them, Fox said, “Christ saith this, and
the apostles say this; but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light, and
hast thou walked in the Light, and what thou speakest, is it inwardly from God?”
In addition to
individual time spent in cultivating the Inner Presence, Friends gather
regularly in their meetings for worship in what they call silent “waiting”, to
which they bring nothing but an open heart and mind, and a trust that in that
silence, beyond the din of words, thoughts, and external clamor, a deeper
reality awaits them which has the power to unite them both internally and with
their fellows. It is that reality which
Fox referred to when he said that he lived in the virtue of that life and power
that takes away the occasion of all wars. This unity, within themselves, with
their fellows, and with the Divine, is the essence of the Quaker pursuit, and
is the power and heart of Friends’ Peace Testimony.
How Friends go about the approach to and the practice of the
Presence, or the Inner Light, has as many answers as there are Friends.
However, a distinguishing feature of Quakers is their sharing of this pursuit
in the intimacy and community of the Quaker meeting. A key characteristic of Friends is the
importance of the meeting for worship and the shared community in both
increasing the power of the Presence as well as interpreting its leadings.
Beyond the power of individual meditation, when Friends experience a highly
centered or “gathered” meeting, its power is palpable to many attenders. In addition, the sharing of responsibility
for the wisdom and appropriateness of individual actions through the
availability of “clearness committees” appointed at the request of an
individual, and through the practice of “eldering” when the need is apparent is
an important aid to our individual power of discernment.
The meaning of the word “worship” (OE for “worth” + “ship”)
is to focus one’s attention on what is worthy.
In Quaker meeting for worship, we seek to bring our focus to that unifying
reality which is within us, within our fellows, and which brings us to Oneness
with the divine.
How we come to that unifying focus differs widely. As William Taber tells us in Four Doors to
Meeting for Worship,
Some people “find it” almost
instantly when they attend their first Friends meeting for worship; as they
settle into the silence they feel themselves gathered into a living Presence
and they know they have come home at last.
Others may experience their first Quaker worship as difficult and
strange, but something keeps drawing them back until they gradually grow into a
richer and richer experience of worship.
And some people—including life-long Quakers—never seem to find it at
all….
When we have once entered into that
experience…we realize that we did not create it through our action of worship;
all we did was to enter a reality which has always been there from the
beginning of time, waiting for us to join it…It is always here within us and
beside us, available to use as an invisible stream into which we can step at
any time. The heart of worship is
communion with this invisible but eternal stream…One way to enter the stream is
to imagine passing through a series of four stages or doors which lead into and
through the meeting for worship.”
Taber goes on to describe the four doors he speaks of, which
we won’t detail here.
Session Three—Quakers
& Social Action
From the earliest days, Friends have taken their spiritual
understandings and testimonies out into the world, where their testimonies of
Peace, Equality, Community and Integrity have been applied to a variety of
needs. These have included their own peaceful and respectful relations with the
American Indians, and later efforts to secure just treatment for the Indians by
the United States, their pioneering work
for the abolition of slavery as well as educational and other assistance to
freed slaves and their descendants, their pioneering work on prison reform,
humane treatment of the mentally ill, abolition of imprisonment for debt, equal
participation and rights of women including women’s suffrage, equal education
of boys and girls including the establishment of coeducational schools and
colleges, the teaching of science, the development of democratic government,
and the establishment of religious liberty, freedom of thought, and freedom of conscience.
As Howard Brinton says in Friends for 300 Years,
Thousands of Quakers who were
imprisoned…during the forty years of persecution learned by experience of the
horrible conditions of seventeenth-century prisons, dungeons, and underground
rooms…In England the Quakers could at first do nothing except issue memorials
to Parliament and to various officials…but in Pennsylvania there was full
opportunity for radically changing the whole system. The Pennsylvania prisons became models, highly
praised by foreign visitors as the best in the world….Friends (have) continued
to make efforts to improve prisons and to prepare discharged prisoners to
re-enter society….
In the eighteen century and earlier
the treatment of the insane was more inhuman than the treatment of criminals.
They were imprisoned, chained, beaten, deprived of the ordinary necessities of
life, and made objects of ridicule by visitors who were free to torment
them….The first general hospital in America…was founded in 1756 largely by
Friends who appealed to Benjamin Franklin to lead the effort. ‘ It was the
first institution where cure rather than custody and repression was the
underlying principle in the treatment of the insane.’
Regarding their peace testimony, Friends have gone far
beyond mere opposition to or refusal to participate in war. They have vigorously worked to remove its
causes and to repair its damage, particularly the hatred, prejudice, and
misunderstanding that both engender and result from most wars. From the Irish War of 1690 to the current
Middle East wars, Quakers have organized international mediation and arbitration
efforts, peace-building conferences and actions, and post-war relief efforts
around the world.
The American Friends Service Committee, formed in 1917
during the first World War, exemplifies the Quaker commitment to social justice
and respect for people of all races, classes, and circumstances, regardless of
their unpopularity. Like many Friends’ efforts
which enlist support and participation far beyond Quakers, AFSC serves as a
catalyst for change in the broader society. The Service Committee’s current
efforts are focused on criminal justice, economic justice, humanitarian
assistance, immigrant rights, and peacebuilding and conflict prevention, as
well as working directly with various cultural and community groups including
Native Americans and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
In addition, Friends have been active in legislative issues,
through such groups as the Friends Committee on National Legislation, and the
Friends Committee on Washington State Public Policy. In recent years, realizing that of God not
only in their fellows but in all of nature,
Quakers have also established a number of organizations
related to the environment, such as Quaker Earthcare Witness.
Session Four—Friendly
Structure
Friends’ testimonies of Peace, Equality, Community and
Integrity, flowing experientially from their attention to the Inward Light, are
reflected in Friendly decision-making processes and structures.
Valuing community, and needing some sort of organization to
deal with practical matters, early Friends formed Monthly Meetings for the
purpose of conducting business, and also to meet weekly or more frequently for
worship. The Monthly Meeting, where
membership in the Society of Friends is held, may encompass one or more smaller
Worship Groups and also one or more Preparative Meetings. Monthly meetings in
an area usually come together periodically in what are called Quarterly
Meetings. The broadest groupings of
Friends in a region bring together several Quarterly meetings in a Yearly
Meeting. Nationally or internationally, various Yearly Meetings have also
formed broader associations. Up to and
including the Yearly Meeting, all Friends are invited to participate on an
equal basis, though certain responsibilities are given to specific individuals
for specified periods.
Decision-making among Friends is facilitated by individuals called
clerks, who are not given any special authority other than to help Friends’
seek unity or what is known as a “sense of the meeting” on whatever issues are
to be dealt with, and to see that decisions are implemented.
In Friends for 300 Years, Howard Brinton describes
the decision-making process this way:
Among Friends, the meeting for the
transaction of …business is as distinctly a religious exercise as is the
meeting for worship, but it has a different objective….The meeting for worship
concerns being, while the meeting for
business concerns doing. What is
implicit in worship becomes explicit in action. The meeting for business
should, therefore, be preceded by a period of worship in which the hard shell
of egocentricity is dissolved and the group united in a living whole… “The
Light itself,” says Thomas Story, “is not divided, but one and the same entire
undivided Being continually.” The nearer the members of a group come to this
one Light, the nearer they will be to one another, just as the spokes of a
wheel approach one another as they near the center.
….If serious differences of opinion
appear, it may come about that by recourse to a period of silence a basis for
unity can be discovered. If a high
degree of unity is not reached, action is postponed, provided an immediate
decision is not necessary.
In Beyond Consensus, Barry Morley emphasizes the
differences between the unity and “sense of the meeting” Quakers seek and mere
voting or consensus.
The sense of the meeting is not
reached through competition of ideas.
Outcomes should be determined neither by rhetorical skill, nor logical
brilliance…Though compromise and moving toward consensus are tools which can
assist early in the process, they must be laid aside as we reach for the Inward
Presence…Ideas should be offered and explained, rather than argued. They should be heard thoughtfully and
respectfully, just as messages in meeting for worship are heard thoughtfully
and respectfully. Sense of the meeting
requires listening rather than contending, weighing rather than reacting.
Again, from Howard Brinton,
….(W)e must go below the surface of
self-centered desires to the deeper level where the real Self resides. The
deepest Self of all is that Self which we share with all others.
While Yearly Meetings adopt books of discipline as to both
process and actions, these are given not as a rule but as a guide to both
meetings and individuals. As expressed
in a well-known statement from 1565.
Dearly Beloved Friends, these
things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by; but that all, with
a measure of the light, which is pure and holy, may be guided; and so in the
light walking and abiding, these things may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not in
the letter, for the letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life.
Using these non-traditional, non-hierarchical, and radically
democratic decision making processes and structures, Friends arrange for and
manage meetinghouses and other spaces, marry and bury members, conduct
energetic projects within their communities and throughout the world, and
successfully carry on a wide variety of other useful and necessary activities.
The reading lists on the Friends Meeting website include
many sources with additional details to expand on these introductory
statements.
Daniel Clark, Clerk
