Boundaries. Photo: Photo: Dave_S / flickr CC.
British Quakers: Mission and message - Boundaries
Stuart Masters, in the third article of the series, considers the boundaries of Quakerism and looks at the experience of early Friends
The earliest Friends saw no need for a formal membership system. They wasted no time on establishing processes for receiving, assessing and recording membership applications. However, this does not mean that the maintenance of a clear Quaker identity was unimportant to them. Indeed, in terms of belonging, they drew the boundary lines very firmly, based on quite explicit expectations of belief, behaviour and appearance.
Mutual accountability
In practice, becoming a Quaker often involved a fundamental rejection of one’s previous life and all that went with it (including friends and family). This is not unusual in the formation of religious sects. Membership of the Quaker movement involved being willing to submit oneself to the mutual accountability and discipline of the community, based on chapter eighteen of Matthew’s gospel. George Fox wrote:
…the doctrine of Jesus Christ requireth his people to admonish a brother or sister twice, before they tell the church, let that limiteth none, so that they shall use no longer forbearance, before they tell the church, but that they shall not less than twice admonish their brother or sister before they tell the church. And it is desired of all, that before they publicly complain, they wait in the power of God to feel, if there is no more required of them to their brother or sister, before they expose him or her to the church: let this be weightily considered.
And further, when the church is told, and the party admonished by the church again and again, and he or they remain still insensible and unreconciled, let not final judgment go forth against him or her, till every one of the meeting have cleared his or her conscience; that if any thing be upon any further to visit such a transgressor, they may clear themselves, that if possible the party may be reached and saved.
An essential standard
To start with, Quaker identity implied acceptance of the way of Friends as the only true way (the re-establishment of apostolic Christianity after 1600 years of apostasy), and hence the rejection of all other ways. In particular, it demanded complete separation from the Church of England, its worship, practices and system of tithes.
The earliest Friends proclaimed that Christ had come to teach his people himself. This meant that the Spirit of Christ present within the midst of his people was regarded as their primary authority, rather than the historic teachings of the church (the Catholic/Orthodox view) or the Bible (the Protestant view). This set Quakers apart from all the other main Christian churches of their day. Although the Quaker understanding was worked out on the basis of spiritual experience, it did represent an essential standard of belief that determined who was included in the Quaker community and who was not.
The new covenant
What went along with this was the need to reject outward ceremony, a set-apart priesthood and the liturgical calendar in favour of practices that focused on individual and corporate waiting on the guidance and transformative power of the Spirit of Christ. The ‘outward’ practices of other churches were rejected because Friends believed that such practices acted as a barrier between God and his people. Through the Spirit of Christ, they believed that God was now directly available to all people, and so nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of this. Quakers argued that they were living in the new covenant while other Christians had fallen back into the outward practices of the old covenant. In her 1660 tract A True Testimony, Margaret Fell states this clearly:
We are of the true circumcision, who worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh; for he is not a Jew that is one outward, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and that is circumcision that is of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the Letter, who praise is not of men, but of God, Rom. 2. And this is the seal of the everlasting Covenant, that takes away the foreskin of the heart, and washes away the filth of the flesh; and here the knowledge of the true God is manifested in man, where God shews it unto him, according to the Apostles Doctrine (Rom. I:9).
Lived witness
In addition to these basic boundary lines of belief, the other principal way in which Quaker identity was defined in the earliest days was through the visible lived witness of Quakers as individuals and as a community. George Fox encouraged Friends to ‘let your lives preach’. By this, he meant that their conduct and actions should make visible externally how the Spirit had transformed them internally and what they had found to be true.
During this period, Quakers were easily identifiable in terms of appearance and dress and through their energetic and assertive approach to ministry and mission. This included preaching in fields and towns, disrupting Church of England services, public disputations with opponents and prophetic signs that, although based on the witness of the Hebrew prophets, shared the character of modern street theatre. Such behaviour made Friends a visible and disruptive presence within a society that was already unstable due to civil war and revolution. As a result, to those in power, Quakers seemed to represent a serious threat to social order and needed to be kept under control. This set the scene for increasing persecution.
Loyalty and allegiance
In the seventeenth century there was little point in becoming a Quaker if you were not prepared to suffer for the faith, beliefs and practices of your community and to do so without retaliation. Indeed, Quakers regarded the experience of persecution as a vindication of their claim to be the true church revived. Therefore, a willingness to maintain a public witness to Quaker worship, belief and conduct in the face of ridicule, abuse, physical attack and imprisonment acted as a crucial boundary-indicator of Quaker identity. It was the Quaker way set against the ways of the world! Therefore, this was ultimately a matter of loyalty and allegiance. Were you a follower of the Eternal King and Lord or of the kings and lords of this world?
At her trial at Lancaster in 1664, Margaret Fell stated:
I own allegiance to the King, as he is the King of England, but Christ Jesus is King of my conscience… I would rather choose prison for obeying God, than my liberty for obeying men, contrary to my conscience.
Stuart is a senior programme leader at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre.
