How Quakerism Began

Quaker Speak: Max Carter shares the story of George Fox, a Quaker who went seeking for spiritual answers and found them not in a church, but within. Max is a professor at Guilford College.

The first QuakerSpeak video ever! In 2012 I was gearing up to launch a Quaker youtube channel and talked with my old friend and professor Max Carter in the hut at Guilford College about how this whole Quakerism thing got started. Thanks Max!

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Transcript

Quakerism started as part of the English Civil war period, 1640s. There were a variety of movements during the civil war period that were seeking address some of the disparities in English Societies: ecclesiastical, political, economic. Some of those groups were Diggers, Levellers, Muggletonians, 5th Monarchists, Seekers groups.

Some that were trying to seek reform within the church (the Puritans), some who had given up on the Church as a dead corpse and left and started their own chapels or conventicles, and Quakerism emerged out of that chaotic social, political, religious time.

George Fox was one of the leaders of that movement but he wasn’t alone in that. He has become a major figure in understanding the origins of Quakerism.
He became tired of what he saw as hypocrisy in the church of his youth and about the age of 19 he left the church and started wandering about seeking a direct spiritual experience that spoke to his condition and he didn’t find it in any of the outward forms, didn’t find it in any of the the clergy of the time, didn’t find it in other authorities.

In 1647 he had an experience in which he heard a voice telling him, “there is One, even Christ Jesus who can speak to thy condition.”

“And when I heard it my heart did leap for joy.”

Which, in contemporary expressions would probably be: what he was seeking outside of himself as authority, he found available to himself within.

He then started sharing that message: that what you’re seeking outside of yourself is available inside of yourself, and you can turn to that inward teacher, that prophet, priest, redeemer, lord within and be led into salvation and truth.

Quakerism spread from the initial insights of Fox and others who came out of this gumbo of seeking reform in the church of England in the 1640s and 50s initially by word of mouth. They would share their experience. Fox, for example, would go about the countryside sharing his understanding of the fact that Christ had come to teach the people directly, to direct them inwardly to God, to Christ their teacher and priest.

Sometimes he would speak to larger gatherings, but it wasn’t until about 1652 that there were larger numbers of people who came to hear his message. Those folk then shared the message with others. Pretty soon they started going out two by two, sharing the gospel message and people came into convincement.

By the time Fox died in 1691 there were some 50,000 Quakers so in 40 or 50 years it spread, much of that coming out of that social milieu of protest and the seeking of reform and it really was one by one by one.

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It has been an honor to serve Friends as the founder and director of QuakerSpeak. Now I am pleased to announce my next endeavor, a Quaker media project for the modern era. Find out more at TheeQuaker.org

The Faithfulness Lecture

Quaker Speak: Traci Hjelt Sullivan on Quaker faithfulness. When Traci gets a nudge to give vocal ministry, sometimes she feels resistant. That’s when it is time for “The Faithfulness Lecture”.

Quaker Speak: Traci Hjelt Sullivan on Quaker faithfulness. When Traci gets a nudge to give vocal ministry, sometimes she feels resistant. That’s when it is time for “The Faithfulness Lecture”.

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Transcript

For me faithfulness is a very key element of Quakerism, perhaps the key element of Quakerism. And the hard part about faithfulness is it actually takes courage. We wouldn’t talk about it unless it took some work.

There’s many stories in my life about encountering that struggle to be faithful. There was a big one pretty early in my religious life. I had been worshiping regularly in a Meeting for maybe 3 or 4 years and I had been married about a year before and I went to someone else’s wedding and it was a big wedding.

(In a Quaker Wedding, those present are invited to stand and speak if they feel led. This is called “spoken ministry.”)

The other thing you should know is that I had given spoken ministry before but I believe I had never given ministry in song. At this wedding I had this little nudge to sing the song that had been sung at our wedding, and I thought, “Nah, I just have an association between weddings and that song. Ok.”

And the nudge came back and I said, “I’m not going to stand up in front of all these people and sing that song!”

And then the nudge came back again and I said, “I do not know all the words to that song!”

But my husband was sitting next to me and I knew he had memorized all the words to that song.

So it came back again. And finally I had to give myself a lecture and I have since named this. It is: “The Faithfulness Lecture.” And the faithfulness lecture goes something like this:

“Do you believe in this religion or not? If you do, it does not matter whether you will be on tune, whether you get the words right, whether people will hear you, whether they approve of this message. If you are supposed to give this message, give it.”

And really, I knew I was supposed to give the message. I had all those signs: it came back and back and back, I was having this quaking feeling. I was supposed to give this message.

So I leaned over and I got the words from my husband and I stood up and I screwed my eyes tight and I grabbed the bench in front of me and I sang the song. And, as so often happens when there’s singing ministry, a few other people sang with me so there was this wonderful sense of support.

But I have had many occasions since when I have had that nudge to speak or act and especially in Meeting for Worship when I’m feeling kind of resistant but its really clear I’m supposed to give, sometimes I just say to myself, “The Faithfulness Lecture” and that’s all I need. I screw up my eyes closed and I stand up and I do what I’m supposed to do.

Tags: Traci Hjelt Sullivan, Friends General Conference, Quaker Worship, Quaker Wedding, Vocal Ministry, Singing Ministry, Jon Watts, Friends Journal, QuakerSpeak, Quaker Voluntary Service, Religious Society of Friends, Max Carter, Quakerism

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It has been an honor to serve Friends as the founder and director of QuakerSpeak. Now I am pleased to announce my next endeavor, a Quaker media project for the modern era. Find out more at TheeQuaker.org