Will the True Quaker Please Put on His Hat?

Just when I was about to write up another article, Mark Daniel Russ, way the heaven over in Britain, penned a powerful insightful whale of a truth:

(Please give his article a 3-time listen and reflect.)

Reflections on the 2014 Swarthmore Lecture. Part 2 – Being honest about the stories we tell
Posted on March 4, 2015 by markdanielruss

Here’s part two of a series of posts reflecting on the book of Ben Pink Dandelion’s Swarthmore Lecture – ‘Open for transformation: being Quaker’. You can find part one here.

A sentiment I have often heard is that Quakers don’t do, or need, theology. It’s true that you don’t need a degree in theology to be a Quaker, and academic learning doesn't make you a better Quaker, but we are wrong if we think theology redundant. We need good theology, because there’s a lot of bad theology out there. I believe that theology in its simplest form is the story we tell as a religious community, about our beginnings, how we got here and where we’re going.

Here are three stories that all claim the name Quaker:

The apocalyptic story

Once there was a man called George Fox who believed that ‘Christ has come to teach his people himself’. For the early Friends, the light they discovered was the same as the Jesus they read about in the Scriptures. They were experiencing the parousia – the Second Coming of Christ. They found the events of the Book of Revelation (apocalypse) occurring amongst them in the here and now. Because Christ had returned, they didn't need paid priests, sermons and outward sacraments like water baptism, as these were only interim measures anyway.

The Protestant story

Once there was a man called George Fox who believed that ‘Christ has come to teach his people himself’. His Quaker descendants wondered what this meant, as the world had not been transformed in to the Kingdom of God. Had the Second Coming really happened? If not, it made sense to once again adopt interim practices such as programmed worship and paid pastors. Quakerism became one Christian denomination among many, waiting for the Second Coming.

The mystical story

Once there was a man called George Fox who believed that ‘Christ has come to teach his people himself’. George spoke as he did because of the culture he was born into. The word ‘Christ’ refers to a mystical experience that transcends the historical person of Jesus, who himself only spoke as he did because of his Jewish culture. The light that enlightens the world is human reason. Because of this, Quakerism can be a community made up of many stories, as no one story can fully capture the mystical experience George Fox spoke about.

The mystical story is associated with the American Quaker Rufus Jones and is the story that dominates British Quakerism today. The Protestant story is the dominant story amongst Quakers worldwide. The apocalyptic story is the one generally recognised by Quaker scholars as the original story told by early Friends.

So what’s the problem? The multi-story character of mystical/Liberal Quakerism is very attractive – it is why I initially started attending Quaker meetings. Isn't unity in our diversity something to be celebrated?

Loss of a shared story

Firstly, many stories create a Quakerism with an identity problem. According to Ben, we inhabit a Quakerism where ‘belief is both plural and marginal, and many Friends have been alarmed by the prospect of doctrinal and organisational fragmentation’. We have lost a sense of a shared Quaker story (hence having to ask the question ‘What does it mean to be a Quaker?’) and not everyone is happy about it. We find ourselves in a position where the only thing we can be sure about is that we’re not sure about anything, what Ben calls the ‘absolute perhaps’.

We know how we should behave within Quaker processes but can’t collectively agree on why we do what we do. With no shared story, our identity is held within our behavioural creed – to question it is to threaten the only thing that unifies us. I have experienced negative reactions at the suggestion of having singing at the beginning of meeting for worship. Ben gives an example of a Friend was asked to tone down the physical aspects of his ministry. Your theology won’t make you a Quaker heretic, but your behaviour in meeting certainly could! What would happen if someone started praying in tongues?!

We have a problem with ‘finders’

Secondly, many stories prohibit any one story from being the right one. Ben writes that ‘our Meetings are not havens of like-theology. They are not even necessarily centres of tolerance.’ What happens when a ‘seeker’ becomes a ‘finder’? What happens when someone stumbles on Truth that they’re convinced isn't just true for them, but true for everyone and everything? What happens when someone embraces the apocalyptic story of the early Friends?


In my own experience, finding leads to isolation. Ben writes that ‘for all those who feel they have been marginalised for their Christian ministry or for their non-theism, it may not be the content of the message that has proved problematic, but the certainty of it. Those who are clear and resolute on any particular doctrinal position may find themselves in tension with the wider group.’

Does our story have integrity?

Thirdly, how do we connect our contemporary Quaker story with the original one? We need George Fox – he’s a central character in our Quaker story. So we quote George Fox, but we do so selectively, and often inaccurately. Do we ‘proof-text’ Fox and early Friends, reading into their words our contemporary Quaker story when it isn't really there? The a-historical, mystical story misrepresents Fox in many ways.



Our forms, such as silent worship, are based on an early Quaker understanding of the Second Coming. We've collectively lost that understanding, so how do we make sense of the forms?

Am I worrying too much?

A reader of my previous post asked:

‘I am wondering, Mark, as someone who, unlike you, is entirely Jesus-less but apart from that agrees with every word you write above, whether you worry about the future of our religious society (or wonder about your place in it) too much? It is possible to relate to god/spirit, waiting for divine guidance, living our corporate insights, together, in the world…without necessarily subscribing (exclusively, or wholly, or at all) to the Christian narrative. It strikes me that this is the ‘renewal’ that many of us seek.

Not throwing out all the established ways of being Quaker, but honestly and imaginatively engaging with the fact that not that many among us (and very very few in wider society – potential Quakers, a lot of them) base our faith any longer on what was the accepted theological understanding when Quakerism first arose. I have no problem with your position. Do you think ‘straightforward Christians’ like you will eventually feel alienated and leave? I think that would be a great loss. Unity in diversity seems very much the way forward to me.’

I don’t worry about the future of the Religious Society. Ben sums it up nicely: ‘Our faithfulness in the end is not dependent on the security of Quakerism as a denomination. We are not here to save Quakerism, but to nurture our spiritual life as Quakers’. Neither do I believe that God can only be related to solely within the Christian church. Early friends were adamant that the spirit had been pored out on all flesh, which meant non-Christians too. I do however think that everyone is a potential Quaker – a Quakerism that isn't for everyone isn't for anyone as far as I can see.

Quakers need to understand that there are Friends on the margins of the Society who don’t subscribe to the dominant story, and that it’s a painful place to be. Saying ‘can’t we all just get along?’ isn't a solution. Let’s be honest that (behavioural) unity in (theological) diversity only appeals to those who like theological diversity. In waiting worship, I’m waiting to hear the voice of the Risen Christ. To say that Jesus rising from the dead is a relative truth – that it’s only true for me – is tantamount to saying that it doesn't matter whether he rose from the dead or not.

I’m not going to leave the Society, although I did leave a local meeting after being told that if I believed Jesus rose from the dead I shouldn't be a Quaker. Anyway, there’s too much to do! I’m not sure I’m a ‘straightforward Christian’, as my understanding of Christianity is specifically Quaker. I’m not asking everyone to agree with me, I’m just asking for honest discussion about our current predicament. We need to be honest about the stories we’re telling, that some are better than others, and that they have consequences. We need to get better at telling the story we've inherited.

I’ll leave the last words to Ben –
‘The challenge is that for too long we have presented Quakerism, not in terms of “This is who we are, you are welcome to come along”,
but rather as
“Hallo, who are you and what would you like Quakerism to be for you?”’

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Does the Society of Friends have a story to tell to the nations? To every single human being?

Or will we eat our hats?

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox