Continuing this month’s survey of Books Read, here are a few more entries:
- David Boulton: Gerrard Winstanley and the republic of heaven. This all-too-brief overview of the legendary leader of the True Levellers (Diggers) focuses on his four years of publication, 1648-52, which are coincidentally the early years of Quaker history for which we lack original writings. Boulton makes a compelling case for Winstanley’s early impact on the emerging Quaker movement, his subsequent divergence from it, and an eventual reunion. Tantalizing in its possible reconsideration of the origins of thought and practice in the resulting Society of Friends.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The Cost of Discipleship. An unrelenting, passionate argument first published in 1937 of Christian faith rooted in the Incarnated Word, and giving up all to follow the call of Christ. Seen through the ensuing events of the Nazi regime and World War II, the martyrdom becomes all too inevitable. From our own perches, however, a still startling set of demands emerges, one that often stands in contrast to the Light/Logos faith I see emerging from the same chapter of John.
- Paul Buckley, ed.: Dear Friend: Letters & Essays of Elias Hicks. These pieces, taken from the last quarter-century of Hicks’ life and ministry, give us the clearest existing insights into his theological perspectives as they led into and through the controversies that now go by his name. To the surprise, no doubt, of many, his writings are thoroughly immersed in Scripture, citations that now demand footnotes, which Buckley provides. Perhaps the one nuance Hicks applies to the traditional Quaker understanding of the Light is his equating it with the Spirit of Truth as well as Reason. Still, he grounds both of these in personal spiritual experience, rather than outward teaching. A welcome addition to our understanding of the evolution of the Society of Friends, pro and con.
- MFK Fisher: Among Friends. The acclaimed author of food classics grew up among the non-Quaker minority in the Orthodox (Gurneyite) enclave of Whittier, California. In this memoir of a childhood before and during the First World War, she repeatedly touches on the inconspicuous prejudices of the small-town Friends, as well as her own family’s quirky social (and asocial) reactions and adaptations. An insightful counterbalance to other volumes that have examined the matter of living “behind a protective hedge” and the ensuing Quaker cultures that emerged.
Jnana's Red Barn 
I’ve been fascinated by the glimpses you’ve been giving us of a narrowness of thought or attitude among these early American Quaker communities.
In England Quakers were/are always known as liberal left leaning philanthropists and enlightened thinkers, pioneering equal education, better treatment of the insane, prison reform, model workers villages, decent wages, animal protection, and of course – abolition..and then of course all the rehabliitation overseas after the wars…
One of the Quaker publications which shaped my thinking in the sixties was The Quaker View of Sex” an enlightened look at the whole situation..and which influenced me to attend Quaker meeting..
The paradox you’re finding arises in the fact that building an alternative society like the one you describe also required a strictness in separating, to whatever degree, from the wider prevailing society.
We’re not alone in that, of course. Much of the long history of the Jews details something similar, including the philanthropists and enlightened thinkers.
Unlike their English cousins, the American Quakers soon faced some unique conditions involved with settling new places, some that were under long threat of armed attack from the north, a political revolution, and increasingly oppressive race-based slavery, which skewered both the political and economic situation across the country until it exploded in war. The fact that Friends were able to continue through all of this is, in itself, remarkable.
Thanks for your reminder.
Thank you so much for explaining what you called the paradox… I had never thought of it in that way, and find it rather fascinating.
Your analogy with the Jews is rather amazing when comparing the two communities- how much they have given both to the thinking and to the societies that they lived on the edge of…..