Thought for the Week: Matt Rosen remembers James Parnell
‘We’re not called to weigh the benefits and harms of striking back.’
Iknow I’m not alone in feeling a sense of inner conflict and helplessness over the war in Ukraine. My commitment to peace has been tested, and I’ve felt the seeds of war – outrage, frustration, impatience – bubbling up in me.
I’ve found some help in turning to a story from the past. It brings out the radical fidelity of Friends to the call of the peaceful life. These Friends were not, I think, pacifists narrowly construed. They didn’t disavow war because the Society of Friends has a principle to which its members must answer. They were living lives in which war didn’t show up as an option; living in the virtue of that life and power which takes away the occasion of all wars.
James Parnell was just a teenager when, in 1653, he visited George Fox in Carlisle jail. Parnell came away from that meeting fully committed to the truth of the Quaker message. A year later, he was already engaged in public ministry in Essex, preaching in the streets and fields. In Colchester, he convinced many who were seeking an authentic expression of faith. One day there – Parnell was just nineteen – he was attacked by a mob in the street who were offended by Friends’ message. A butcher struck Parnell forcefully with a barrel stave – basically a large plank of wood – saying: ‘Take that for Jesus Christ’s sake!’ The butcher’s point, I assume, was that Quakers don’t strike back, so they’re condemned to suffering. Parnell’s response was to look up at the butcher and say, ‘Friend, I do receive it for Jesus Christ’s sake’.
The butcher thought he could defend Christianity by force – not an uncommon view at the time. But Parnell saw that Christ didn’t defend himself that way; that the truth takes care of itself, and that our work is to let Christ speak through us. We’re not to fight for Christ’s doctrine; we’re to walk in his Light.
That same year, Parnell himself was in prison, from which he advised Friends to ‘be willing that self shall suffer for the Truth’, for peace, ‘and not the Truth for the self’. Shortly thereafter he died from mistreatment, the first martyr of Friends. In the thirty years after, nearly 500 Friends died in English and Welsh jails.
This could make it look as if Parnell’s radical faith, his nonviolence, failed – not everyone who heard him became a Quaker. But remember that Jesus was crucified. As a Friend of mine says, ‘We’re called to be faithful, not necessarily successful’. Our job is to let the spirit of Truth guide us, and our witness over the past 380 years is that we’re led into the peaceful life. We’re called to be joyful even though we have all the facts. We’re not called to weigh the benefits and harms of striking back. We’re called to say, ‘Friend, I do receive it for Christ’s sake’, and to love truth more than self.
What hard work we have to do. But what joy there is in it. I pray for those who suffer in Ukraine, and I pray that peace may be the work of our hands.
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