‘The Cambridge Companion to Quakerism’, edited by Stephen W Angell and Pink Dandelion

Reg Naulty reviews 'The Cambridge Companion to Quakerism', edited by Stephen W Angell and Pink Dandelion

The big surprise in this book is that unprogrammed Friends number only about ten per cent of the world’s Friends. Kenya has the greatest number of Quakers, followed by the USA, and Bolivia. Kenya once had 1,500 Quaker schools, although some have been taken over by the government. Kenya, Bolivia, and the rest of the programmed world are predominately evangelical, have pastors, and hope for salvation through Christ.

The gulf within Quakerism is between evangelical and unprogrammed Friends, and the main points of disagreement are about homosexuality, abortion and the infallibility of the Scriptures. There are initiatives towards convergence, as one would expect from a Society that supports conflict resolution, but the way forward is difficult, partly because the above differences are obdurate, and because liberal Friends tend to be suspicious of ministers, cautious about Jesus, and skeptical about the value of the Bible. Nevertheless, the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) brings both sides together, community building. There is an excellent chapter: ‘Unprogrammed Quaker Spiritualities’, by Michael Birkel and Deborah L Shaw. They write: ‘The central quality of the spirituality of Conservative Friends being the immediate perceptible guidance of the Holy Spirit, the tradition therefore values the intuitive dimension of the inward life and the personal narrative of direct experience.’

Deborah Shaw remarks further that, when travelling in the ministry, ‘opportunities’ arise among Friends. That seems to be a coy way of referring to Providential meetings. If so, perhaps we should be more explicit. It is likely that deeply religious people infer from such incidents that God is exercising some control over events. In other words, the inference is from ‘providence’ to ‘power’.

The book reports that: ‘In general, we have sketched a picture of long term decline among North American Friends.’ It may well be that the settlement arrived at during the Reformation, whereby Protestantism based its religion on the Bible and Catholicism on the sacraments, has run its course. Rufus Jones envisaged Quakerism as a fresh movement aiming to realise a universal religion of the Spirit. That seems appropriate to our times, but perhaps there is something we are not doing. Could that be song? In Canberra, no one thinks we need sermons, but everyone thinks we need songs. That makes sense in our context. Song is one of the best ways of expressing and evoking religious experience. There is an inherent drama of a leading coming to birth in the soul, expressing it, and making it a reality in the world with all the setbacks and cooperation that involves. More intense religious experiences bring in an extra dimension.

The book contains numerous inspiring passages. It gives a good picture of global Quakerism and would be a valuable addition in every Quaker library.

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