Quakerism in America By Ed Marsh, MAR 1999 I was interested in Linda's suggestion that someone might want to "add their two cents" on the formation and structure of the Quaker Church in America/Virginia. I am certainly no expert, but I have a goodly share of ancestral "Friends" and I have become fascinated with their faith. The essay below and much of my introductory statement is taken from the book The Friendly Virginians, by Jay Worrall, Jr., 1994, Iberian Pub. Co, Athens, GA. INTRO In 1647, George Fox, an Englishman, first began "to publish the truth" in London. Between 1647-1652 a trickle of followers began to leave the steeple- houses to join his movement. In 1652, the trickle became a torrent. In 1655, Elizabeth Harris traveled to Virginia becoming the first Quaker to "publish the Friendly persuasion" in America -- a mere 7 years after its inception. In a letter written by Gerard Roberts to George Fox in July of 1657 we read, "The Friend who went to Virginia [evidently Eliz. Harris] is returned in a pretty condition. There she was gladly received by many who met together, and the governor is convinced." The fact that this first event was worked by a woman tells volumes about the Quakers who have, from the very first, believed that "God is borne in every human being." Mary Fischer and Ann Austin, who sailed into Boston in 1656, met with no such luck. They were thrown into jail for their testimony, stripped, and searched for signs of witchcraft. Soon they were placed aboard the ship Swallow and told never to return. This treatment would become common across the English colonies except for Pennsylvania which became synonymous with Quakerism as "The Quaker State" of course due to Quaker William Penn's fortuitous inheritance in America. Soon Virginians would be treating Quakers the same way. It is fascinating to read Thomas Jefferson's appraisal of the Quaker faith in the chapter on Religion in Notes On The State Of Virginia. To paraphrase, he states that the Quakers, through their perseverance against great persecution, coupled with their honesty, industry, and high sense of fairness had won the minds of Virginians. It is relevant to note that every Virginia delegate to the Convention of 1776 was the son or grandson of a Quaker. Jefferson was taught by a Quaker (Maury), and Patrick Henry for some unknown reason wore Quaker clothes at the Convention. The delegates took a letter of introduction to the Philadelphia Friends written by prominent Curles Monthly Meeting member Robert Pleasants, and the delegates stayed in the home of a Quaker family. INSTALLMENT #1 (aren't I optimistic?) I would start by telling any interested person just how Quakers differed from other Christian Americans in the late 17th/early 18th centuries. ; is a good start. One should know that Quakerism was founded by George Fox ESSAY (from Worrall) From the remote shadows of history up to forever, in Virginia and everywhere, humankind has tried to figure out the mysterious universe. What does it mean and how does it work? Obviously there is a plan, seemingly imperfect but a plan: The stars wheel in their courses, there are exactly twenty-four hours every day, lovers fall in love and attractive babies appear on cue. What Power plans such marvels? What place have I in the plan? Most people past and present look for the answers from a priest, preacher, pastor or shaman; some wiser expert who interprets and mediates for the rest, standing on a platform or in a pulpit poised between the congregation of men and women below and heaven above. This mode can be called the outward way to worship. In various times and places, however, there have been a few people who seek the answers and find their way themselves, meeting themselves together, waiting for guidance from the still small voice within, with no professional leader. Such people trust that all have some inborn power to find the way without a middle- man, some guiding faculty along with one's five rational senses. Such people are the seekers who follow the inward way. In Virginia about the only people worshiping by the inward way were -- and are -- the Friends or Quakers. Only one person in a thousand or two or three or four thousand is attracted to the inward way as the Friendly Virginians followed and follow it. Quakers exclude ritual and pomp, stained glass and robes, prayer books and hymnals, all theater from their gatherings. Their meeting rooms are deliberately plain and simple. Nothing in them distracts the gathered worshipers from inward guidance. Most new visitors find the waiting silence-- "Be still and know that I am God" -- meaningless or even unendurable. Even if one can cope with the silence, it is unsettling to find one's way with no guru for a guide. The outward way to find God received a mighty push forward through the preaching of George Whitefield and John Wesley in America and in England. These two eloquent men gave definition and appeal to "Evangelical Christianity." Before their coming "Evangelism" usually meant preaching based on the Bible. But Whitefield and Wesley gave a new focus to the word. They made Evangelical mean a kind of Christianity founded on the historical person of Jesus Christ. Eternal life can be gained through a publicly expressed belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. To be Evangelical," they also declared, one must see oneself as depraved, a sinner. A person can be saved by acknowledging Jesus' sacrifice on The Cross. The Bible, they asserted, is the Word of God, miraculously transmitted to humanity. Supplying all truth about spiritual matters that anyone needs or ever will need. And furthermore, all that ever can be procured. Evangelicals, then, hold to the outward way, Friends to the inward. The two approaches differ in certain interesting details: * Christian theologians conceive that God has three aspects--God as the Father (in Heaven), God as the Son (Jesus Christ), and God as the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit. Evangelical Christians put emphasis on the Father and Son aspects, while Friends emphasize the Holy Spirit aspect of God's being. * Instead of seeing people as born sinners, Friends optimistically view all as children of God, each born with some thing of God within. The great object is to live by the guidance of God's Light, not turning from the Light to darkness. * Instead of seeing the Bible as the final word in spiritual matters, Friends hold that the Holy Spirit is still available, speaking to us by the still small voice, within. * The great Bible verse for Evangelicals is John 3:16, which emphasizes believing in Jesus Christ; while the "Quaker verse" is John 15:14, which puts emphasis on doing God's will. Whitefield and Wesley gave Evangelical Christianity a terrific new emotional appeal. Revival meetings and altar calls were part of their evangelical plan. Denominations that fully adopted revival methods grew to be giants after 1800. The Methodists and Baptists leaped ahead in Virginia. Presbyterians gained, too, but "old side" resistance to emotional revivals inhibited the Presbyterians and they fell behind in comparative membership. Even the Episcopalians went evangelical. The Diocese of Virginia was almost dead by 1811 when William Meade (1789-1862) was ordained. Each Episcopal church in Virginia before the Revolutionary War had a "globe," that is to say a dwelling house and 250 acres of land more or less, where the minister lived. All these globes were sold by the Commonwealth after the Act for Religious Freedom became law. The proceeds went to support the poor--some to build poorhouses, and most to establish a "Literary Fund" which supported schools for poor children. With government support gone, many of the Diocese of Virginia's churches were abandoned and others became sparsely attended. William Meade and his colleagues then revived the Diocese by introducing--in Meade's words--"methods of action...entirely different...from those by which the disgrace and downfall of the Church had been wrought." The new methods involved preaching on the theme of "Jesus Christ and Him Crucified." The depravity of human nature, the yawning pit of hell, the sacrifice of the Crucifixion, Christ as the only means of salvation, rebirth through belief in the historical Christ, the perfection of the Holy Scriptures-- all these became theological bases for rebuilding Virginia's mother church. The Episcopalian leadership stopped short of methods designed to produce hysterical excitement. Yet under the new evangelical preaching, the pews of Virginia's Episcopal churches gradually refilled. A few worshipers swam against the evangelical wave. They included the Unitarians whose movement developed in New England as an off-shoot of the Enlightenment and as a protest against the Puritan point-of-view. God's ~ greatest gift is reason, the Unitarian ministers proclaimed. Reason and I common sense will see us through. The congregation of King's Chapel in Boston was the first in America to adopt the Unitarian view in 1796. Unitarian churches appeared in Philadelphia in 1813; Baltimore and Charleston, 1817; and Washington, 1820. John Quincy Adams, the U. S. Secretary of State, and John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, were charter members of Washington's Unitarian church. In Virginia Thomas Jefferson was the great friend of Unitarianism. But in Virginia by 1820 most church-goers viewed evangelicalism as the only true form of Christianity.