Nontheist Friends

What follows is a biographical essay about Henry Cadbury plus notes that are mainly excerpts from his writings. The essay, without notes, is in “Godless for God’s Sake: Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism” edited by David Boulton, published in 2006 by Dales Historical Monographs (ISBN 0-9511578-6-8). That book is available from the publisher (Hobsons Farm, Dent, Cumbria LA10 5RF, UK) or from FGC Bookstore (www.QuakerBooks.org) or The Quaker Bookshop (www.quaker.org.uk).

Henry Joel Cadbury showed us how to be Quaker and nontheist, too. In this brief biography we will look at his life and the positions he took among Friends that helped create a Religious Society of Friends in which nontheists are welcome.

He was born into a large, Quaker family in Moorestown, New Jersey, near Philadelphia, on December 1, 1883. The family had roots in England: his father was a first cousin of George Cadbury whose home became the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham, England. The Philadelphia Cadbury family went to the orthodox side in the schism of 1827 that produced two yearly meetings in Philadelphia.

Henry Cadbury went to Westtown School, Haverford College, and Harvard University where he earned degrees in 1904 and 1914. He worked as a teacher for 50 years, the last 20 as Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard. As a teacher, he gently asked probing questions, helping his pupils find their own views instead of teaching his. He always considered himself a student, too. Professional recognition came for his studies of the people and times behind events of the Bible and he was one of the editors of the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament. He wrote constantly. Over 150 books, book chapters, pamphlets and articles flowed from his hand.

Henry Cadbury married Lydia Caroline Brown in 1916 and they lived together for the next 58 years. A warm, outspoken woman, she was active in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and in the local monthly meeting. Lydia taught Bible classes but did not consider herself a mystic, preferring to do laundry, she said. Late in life she published a memoir of her life as a Quaker. Together, Lydia and Henry raised four children: Elizabeth, Christopher, Warder and Winifred.

Service was an important part of Henry Cadbury’s life. He was a founder of the American Friends Service Committee, a labor of love that continued for over 50 years. In 1947 he was chosen to be one of the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to the American Friends Service Committee and the Friends Service Council. As well as peace, many other causes moved him to action, such as loyalty oaths, academic freedom, racism and civil rights.

In 1912 Henry Cadbury and other young Friends began an effort to heal the separations that had persisted in American Quakerism for much of the preceding century. It took them 43 years to accomplish this. Cadbury was also a Quaker historian and although he claimed to be only an amateur he made important contributions in that area, too. His friendly manner meant that he could take radical positions without causing too much upset.

A calm person with a lively sense of humor, he also had periods of depression, sometimes as a result of overwork during wartime. There was a lot of turmoil in his busy life. He worked for peace during two world wars, tried to heal a Quaker schism, confronted public hysteria during the McCarthy era, helped retranslate the Bible, and managed the confusion of an exceedingly busy life. On October 7, 1974, in his 91st year, he died as a result of falling on the stairs while carrying his beloved wife’s breakfast tray.

Before going on to specific positions Henry Cadbury took that are helpful for nontheist Quakers, one other feature of this complex man’s life needs to be mentioned: he was intensely private about his personal religious experience and opinions. There were good reasons for this. He didn’t want his views to interfere with the searches of others, and he wanted to prompt questions rather than give answers. Personal publicity could also hinder his efforts as an advocate for harmony. His views were likely to be misunderstood, being subtle and changing, and describing them would suggest they were important when his primary concern was action. [NOTE #1]

Henry Cadbury pointed out repeatedly that beliefs are not necessarily the cause of actions. [NOTE #2] This also applies to faith, doctrine and creed. He saw these as expressions of religious experience and he looked to the circumstances of our lives for the causes. In his own life, faith often grew from action. He suggested we preach what we practice rather than practice what we preach. [NOTE #3]

This was a controversial position because Quakers typically described belief as the source of action and the basis for Quaker unity, identity and practice. However, Henry Cadbury saw that good lives are accompanied by many different religious beliefs and the same beliefs accompany many different actions. (For example, people of many faiths follow the Golden Rule, and people of one faith take many positions on social issues.) Knowing people’s beliefs does not allow us to predict the rest of their behavior, and changing how they believe does not mean their other behavior will change.

Why did he come back to this again and again? It was what he observed in himself and others, and what he saw in the lives of early Friends. It addressed issues that divide us and provided a basis for reconciliation, and it opened a way for skeptics to participate in the Religious Society of Friends.

In place of a religion based on shared faith, Henry Cadbury offered a religion of daily life. He said the best way to advertise an ideal is to wrap it up in a person, to incarnate it. [NOTE #4] John Woolman was a favorite example of a religious personality in action, but he found a basis for this approach at an even earlier stage in Quaker history: first generation Friends behaved as they had to behave without first deriving it from general principles. That came later. [NOTE #5]

Again, Henry Cadbury knew this was controversial. For many it would be difficult to accept the possibility of religion without theology. He called this a genuine form of religion but one not often recognized. He did not present it as the only path, but as a good path and he encouraged those who were drawn to it. [NOTE #6]

He was blunt in describing theological views as dramatizations, as stories that present a religious approach. He called this the dominion of imagination over experience and compared it with poetry. Our religious views are individual creations. If we see this and accept it, we will have a way to love those with whom we disagree. [NOTE #7]

For Henry Cadbury, our words, which are the products of our particular histories, are inadequate to the task we set them. The expression we give of our experiences will be as individual as we are individual. We should each speak as we are moved to. [NOTE #8]

In his studies of the Bible, Henry Cadbury kept coming back to the lives of the people involved, to the concrete behind the abstract. He said that what is true in the Bible is there because it is true, not true because it is there. [NOTE #9] In this he was echoing Lucretia Mott’s repeated plea that we turn to truth for authority rather than to authority for truth.

When asked to address Pacific Yearly Meeting on the question of whether Quakers must be Christians, he suggested that Quakerism and Christianity are defined by sets of traits. We each select some traits and leave others. This need not prevent unity. He called for loyalty to method rather than to doctrine or results. [NOTE #10]

Cadbury said he sought a life of spontaneous response to passing circumstance, rather than one of following a pattern. What a simple idea! If we are well formed, we need not worry about how we will react. We can concentrate on being clear to react as way opens. [NOTE #11] All of this fits well with his desire to keep his personal views private. We can relax about our differences and get on with the loving!

An emphasis on lives rather than theologies has many implications for how we govern ourselves in the Religious Society of Friends. Cadbury praised modern Disciplines that replace collective statements of faith with writings by individual Friends. This presents the faith of Quakers without requiring that any particular expression of it be accepted by any particular person. It also leaves room to grow. He saw the Society as a dynamic institution, open to change, interacting with its environment and within itself. [NOTE #12] He wished we could return to the early days when Quaker membership was a reflection of life and character and of participation in the Quaker community, rather than agreement on doctrine. [NOTE #13]

Henry Cadbury called for outreach to all, including those skeptical of traditional religious concepts. [NOTE #14] He supported the presence among Friends of those who have not had what they consider to be mystical experiences. It was a dramatic position to take, since his brother-in-law Rufus Jones, and others, were at this very time seeking to set modern Quakerism on a foundation of mystical experience. [NOTE #15]

This approach can be extended to include nontheists, although Henry Cadbury only addressed this publicly on two occasions, as far as I know. These were in talks with his divinity students in 1936 and 1940. He never published this, but he did keep in his files the text of one talk and notes for the other. On the first occasion he wrote, “I can describe myself as no ardent theist or atheist.” His notes for the other occasion contain this line: “Philosophical studies of elementary kind – left me without assurance for or against God or immortality”. [NOTE #16]

I interpret this as a call for openness toward nontheists rather than a statement of a personal view. For instance, he does not tell us what sort of concept of God he is speaking of. On other issues he sometimes took different positions at different times, perhaps because his thinking had changed or because his real views were inadequately described by the statements he was making. (He once said he accepted a particular doctrinal point on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.)

Henry Cadbury had a vision of the Society as a tapestry with many kinds of thread. Thank goodness we are not all alike! We can be obedient to our individual duty, and still behave as if we were bound by common standards of religious experience and belief. Henry Cadbury showed us a path to unity amidst diversity. [NOTE #17]

For much of his life he struggled to bring about healing within our Society. He showed that differing beliefs can be central in our lives without necessarily setting us apart. He offered this emphasis on lives rather than doctrine as a basis for reconciliation among Friends. Most of his attention went to the divisions in yearly meetings and between branches of our Society, but his approach is also useful in healing dissension in monthly meetings or families and when the conflict is within a single individual.

We will each find what we need in Henry Cadbury’s writings. For the nontheist, he is a guide to being a Quaker in the absence of God; but he serves just as well for those who place God at the heart of their Quaker lives. Henry Cadbury offers each of us what we need. He focused on religious lives and avoiding religious divisions. He provided ways to be Christian and Quaker in different combinations, to be theist Quakers and nontheist Quakers together, to be open and to respect privacy. He showed how to form communities of many kinds of Friends. What a wonderful legacy he left us!

He was not alone in standing for this sort of openness but was in a tradition that stretched back to the beginning with calls for doctrinal diversity by Isaac Penington, William Penn, John Bartram, John Woolman, the Free Quakers, Hannah Barnard, the Hicksites, Lucretia Mott, Progressive and Congregational Friends, and the Manchester Free Friends. In retrospect we see elements of Henry Cadbury in them all.

He provided an example of an accommodation that is available to Quaker nontheists today, that of holding ones views privately while working publicly to strengthen practices that result in nontheists being welcomed. Other Friends of his time who took this approach were Jesse Holmes, Arthur Morgan and Morris Mitchell.

Since Henry Cadbury’s time two other types of accommodation have been seen among Friends. One is to speak publicly of ones nontheist views on occasion, but to be known mainly for other aspects of ones Quaker life. A third option is to work in a sustained and open way for the acceptance of nontheists among Friends.

This did not happen during Henry Cadbury’s lifetime. The positions he stood for set the occasion for what came later. He had a vision of how to build a doctrinally open Society. He did not see this as losing our Quaker identity, but as joining with others in a larger Quaker identity.

Let us pause to give thanks for the life of Henry Joel Cadbury who showed the way for nontheists to be Quakers, and for Quakers to become comfortable with religious diversity.

Endnotes

(Where no author is given in a reference, below, the author is Henry Cadbury.)

Note #1: Privacy

This reticence about his personal views was sometimes frustrating to his students, friends, and family. One of his students wrote, “Now, after years of digesting Rilke’s famous saying about loving the questions themselves and living along some day into the answers, I am not so puzzled by Henry Cadbury…I have come to think of that Rilke quotation as an almost exact description of him and to realize he did a most remarkable job of living his answers to the Gospels questions that he refused to answer in words.” When asked what he would be if not a Quaker he said a Hicksite. When asked whether he was a mystic, he said he was neither a mystic nor a nonmystic.(Bacon, 1987, pp. 141, 175, & 118)

Note #2: Belief and Action

In his view the “correlation of behavior with theological views (is) small and unimportant”. (1940b, p. 1) Faith can grow out of action as well as action out of faith. For instance, he was led to a deepened sense of faith when he was told to sign a loyalty oath that infringed on academic freedom. (See 1955/2005; Bacon, 1986; Bacon, 1987, pp. xiii, 30, 48, 136, 145-146, 168-170, & 197-198)

“(S)ound religion is not limited to certain beliefs (and) ethics doesn’t rest on orthodoxy….Have been very free to leave certain questions unanswered 1) Don’t think we have or likely to have evidence 2) Don’t believe men’s actions depend nearly so much on doctrinal absolutes as is commonly thought 3) Very suspicious of those who think only one form or emphasis in religion is valid” (1944a, p. 1)

“There is an assumption abroad that religion comes first and social action after, as shown in the title of a recent conference in Philadelphia, “Beliefs into Action.” By religion is understood something inward, perhaps mystical, perhaps theological – but not very extrovert. Now historically Quakerism has both aspects: we have been social pioneers, also quietists. How did the first derive from the second? It seems an unlikely origin. My answer would be that the alleged relation, ‘basis,’ is not the whole truth. The two aspects are complementary. And I am impressed how much inner religion is fostered by social concern. If social work can be an escape from inner religion, as is sometimes suggested, is not the opposite also true? Action, often incoherent and inarticulate, leads to thought, and can also lead to spiritual growth.” (1964b, p. 4; Bacon, 1987, p. 198; Bacon, 2005, p. 15)

“I think we often tend to rationalize as tho (action) all grows out of some Christian or Quaker historical attitude that can be articulated. Our predecessors did not usually do so. Their action was much more spontaneous than inquiry as to whether it fitted a belief, e.g. as in the inner light. If what they did actually did fit, I think that was a later discovery…A concern for action arose – but it was not screened by theology or logic – either in its origin, or in its goal. In fact one feature of Quaker social action has been precisely the inner urge and, if you like, a relative unconcern about the effect of the action. Again and again in Quaker history admission of this absence of primary concern for an external goal has come into expression and recognition. A view increasingly conspicuous to me is the priority of action to belief, or at least an alternating growth of the relation between them.” (1962a, pp. 1-2)

“My experience with the relationship of the American Friends Service Committee work and its philosophy has made me change my mind about it…I think it easier to explain psychologically than logically. The sequence is expected to be analysis first and work second. Hence so often…one is to think on the ‘basis’ (for action), but (its) formulation, I now think, follows the service. This is not the expected sequence – and perhaps the real answer is that the two alternate. Certainly a great many effective and modest American Friends Service Committee workers hesitate to be vocal about the theory or philosophy. Beneficiaries say, Why don’t you preach what you practice? We in the American Friends Service Committee have been content to let others do the preaching…(O)ver the years experience creates the basis, even the philosophic and religious basis (for action). There is no reason to criticize this order if actions are impulses of a right spirit.” (1962c, pp. 1-4)

Note #3: Practicing and Preaching

Cadbury liked to make his points with humor. In 1973 Cadbury was testifying in a case concerning payment of war taxes and the questioning went like this: “‘And what is the meaning of the concept as used among Friends of “bearing witness”?’ ‘Bearing witness means primarily, I suppose, a vocal expression of your belief in certain ideals, but beyond that in the consistent expression in your actions of those ideas.’ ‘Could you say in a nutshell that it means practicing what you preach?’ the lawyer pressed. Henry Cadbury’s eyes danced and his face lit up with a delightful, mischievous twinkle….‘Yes, or only preaching what you practice,’ he quipped.” (Bacon, 1987, p. xii; Bacon, 2005, p. 3)

Note #4: A Religion of Daily Life

“And what is the real test or evidence of religion that I can offer in myself? According to my own definition it is nothing I can say now nor in the classroom. It is whether in all our contacts – when I am off guard, when personal situations arise – you can conclude that not consciously nor for display I represent the manner of reaction that befits a religious personality in action.” (1936/2000, p. 31)

“(M)y own religion, as nearly as I can tell,…is mainly neither emotional nor rational but expresses itself habitually or occasionally in action. I need not retail the reasons that have led me to this emphasis in religion. It is one part of our Quaker tradition that ‘religion is a way of life.’ We think sometimes that the best way to know religion is to see a religious personality in action. The latest and best form of the Discipline of the Society of Friends consists not of a statement of faith but merely of quotations of different individuals about their own religious experience. If you know John Woolman’s Journal you will know what I mean by a religious personality in action…(T)he amazing revelation which he gives is that of a sensitive conscience feeling its course in a series of soul-searching problems – public problems that he felt must be personally decided. Such forms of religion do not often get recorded, but they are none the less real and important. As we observe such people we see that their behavior both habitual and in conscious crises is the natural expression of a character. And perhaps what they do speaks louder than any words.” (1936/2000, pp. 27-28)

“We can no longer…separate social work from religion. It is part of religion….Child labor laws may be more edifying than all the creeds. A living wage may lead to eternal life. Some votes speak louder than prayers. A new sewer may prove a means of grace, a shower bath an efficacious sacrament. There may be more joy in heaven over one Hague convention than over ninety and nine Yearly Meetings and revivals.” (c. 1915, p. 4; see Bacon, 1987, p. 30)

“(T)he best way of advertising any ideal is to wrap it up in a person, to incarnate it. Vocal or verbal Quakerism cannot compete with incarnate Quakerism. We can use a great variety of talents, but they must be the talents of persons in whom Quakerism is incarnate, even if not articulate.” (1964b, p. 3)

“What is the real criterion of either of these religions (Quakerism and Christianity)? Some put it in a creed. Some put it in a set of religious acts, sacraments or silent worship, or something like that. Some put it in official membership….And some like to say it is a way of life.” (1966, p. 5)

Note #5: Early Friends

“Modern thinkers commonly maintain that the Friends emphasized the sacredness of personality, the value of the individual, and the equality of all men (including women) and they assume that recognition of the divine Light of the Spirit or Seed in our neighbors will lead us to the appropriate conclusions for our own action. Logically it should do, yet in so far as Friends actually did maintain these principles, the principles appear to be independent of any such deduction.” (1947a, p. 6, quoted in Bacon, 1987, p. 146; see Bacon, 2005, p. 18-19)

“One could argue backwards that many of our oldest positions are based on a kind of precocious Quaker democracy, notably our refusal to differentiate high caste and low caste, our early emphasis on the spiritual equality of women and our leadership in the feminist movement of a century ago. The real roots of Quaker concern are psychological rather than logical. This is only another way of saying they are religious rather than theological. They involve a sense of the relevance of religion to all life.” (1954, p. 5; see Bacon, 1987, p. 169)

“Ever since its earliest days Quakerism has been something appreciated by the adherent rather than deliberately advertised. For that reason it has not depended on definition and formulation. These have followed ex post facto. They are not blueprints of a course of development to be recommended. They are analysis of the deposits of experience.” (1959a, p. 7)

Note #6: Religion without Theology

“To call the set of a man’s life his religion no doubt seems a great comedown. But when a man deals religiously with issues that others settle in other ways, in fact takes seriously the religious implications of behavior both individual and collective, tries to practice fully the standards that conventional religion officially endorses, and to make his whole life consistent if not conscious, he is in my opinion practicing religion as much as the one who skillfully builds the dialectic structure of a well rounded theology or as the man who through public and private devotion lives in that mystical drama of the religious imagination.” (1936/2000, pp. 28-29) (The sexist language shows how even the most sensitive spirit can miss the obvious when the surrounding culture is immersed in the error.)

Note #7: Dramatization

“It seems to me that both theology and piety are interpretations. I recall the words of an American critic about poetry. Poetry he says is the imaginative dominion over experience. Perhaps religion is much the same – the dramatizing of life in terms of an unseen companion, or of a loving father, or of a greater creator. This dramatizing goes into all aspects of life.” (1936/2000, p. 25; see 1964a, pp. 23-25, 30-31; and Bacon, 1987, pp. 23, 117-118)

“I think both (the evangelical and Inner Light) parties would feel less anxious about their difference if they could see the nature of religious expression and their several relations to it. ‘Poetry,’ wrote a literary critic, ‘is the imaginative dominion over experience.’ Much the same might be said of the language of religion. Whatever the experience – and all kinds of Friends like to feel the supremacy of experience – the expression of experience is an imaginative dramatization, in which supernatural beings and significant transactions are involved on a stage conceived as the dramatist does with the figures and actions of a play. Psychological phenomena are described in terms of personification and action. These vivid descriptions are accepted as though they were realistic and objective events in space and time. Modern Biblical study has suggested the necessity of ‘demythologizing’ much of the religious staging of those ancient records. It has not shown substantial reasons for ending just there instead of continuing the process in the modern world which retains so much of the same kind of imaginative construction.” (1959a, p. 28; also in 1959b, p. 214)

This seems to me to be an extension of the Quaker view that scripture has to be interpreted by the reader since it is a product of the lives and times of those who wrote it.

Note #8: Religious Language

“Theology is, or should be, merely the reporting of religious experience in intelligible language. Communications – that favorite modern term – requires that we should be able to express to others what we feel and know. Hence have arisen the theologies of the past. They are attempts to set forth in words not merely spun-out theories, but the logical interpretation of what men have found in their own spiritual lives. Admittedly words are often inadequate for some of the inner mysteries, but if we are to communicate at all we must attempt to spell out articulately the facts of experience.” (1957a/1972, p. 229)

Note #9: Biblical Scholarship

“The dictionary is not the authority that dictates how words ought to be used. It is rather the record of how words are used and what they commonly mean. In like manner the Bible is not the dictator of our conduct and faith. It is rather the record of persons who exemplified faith and virtue. It does for religion that which the dictionary does for speech. Its value consists of its agreement with experience, or with truth, as Friends used to use the word. What is true in the Bible is there because it is true, not true because it is there. Its experiences ‘answer’ to ours, that is, they correspond to ours.” (1953a, p. 13; see 1940a, 1947b; see Bacon, 1987, p. 170)

In Margaret Hope Bacon’s words: “(H)e was stimulated into a lifelong quest for more information on what sort of person Jesus actually was and how he reflected the time and Jewish culture in which he arose, quite apart from how he was perceived as Savior…There was, Henry Cadbury felt in himself and others, an inevitable and perennial curiosity about the person of Jesus: “I met it when I came as a young teacher fresh from graduate school to this Haverford campus. A group of non-academic men and women in the neighborhood came to me with an informal request. They said, ‘We believe something of importance happened in Palestine in the first century. We want you to tell us what it was.’” (Bacon, 1987, p. 23)

Note #10: Quakerism and Christianity

“Well, my answer to the question in general of what we shall do in the presence of these two possible spheres of loyalty, Quakerism and Christianity, is that perhaps it is both/and rather than either/or. I don’t think it has to be either/or. I suppose that to be completely honest, the amount of Christianity that you have, and the amount of Quakerism, in the last resort is your own selection out of those two orbits of what has come to appeal to you. Nobody can put down in writing either for a Christian or a Quaker what he has to be. He can put down in writing some of the things he can honestly attribute to those two groups; and we select from them, unconsciously I’m sure, those features which are congenial to us. I guess you know that in the Society of Friends people select very different things.” (1966, p. 9)

“I would not claim for the experience which we today most truly have that it is or ought to be identical with that of the early Friends in its emphasis. The things of the spirit now most real for us may be in other areas – meditation, work, service for others, sense of community, moral conviction, and the like. Undoubtedly between these experiences and traditional dogmas, Christian or Quaker, partial or farfetched parallels may be found. But loyalty to method rather than to results calls us also to fresh formulation in appropriate terms, including psychological, sociological, and scientific terms perhaps more than theological ones. Theology is by no means the only possible or useful frame of reference.” (1957a/1972, p. 230)

Note #11: Spontaneous Response

“I have the feeling that the purest influence has often been unplanned, the by-product of conscientious spiritual living.” (1959a, p. 20)

“I have been willing that life should be spontaneous response to passing situations or problems – rather than a plan or pattern.” (1962b, p. 1)

Note #12: Changing Quakerism

“Our critics cannot understand a religion whose genius is precisely the continuity of change. There is a living Christianity which not only in the middle of the First Century but also in the middle of the Twentieth ‘turns the world upside down…’. True independence does not rest on past-won emancipation, to settle down into smooth conformity. It must be continually on the alert lest it become the good that is the enemy of the best.” (1950, quoted in Bacon, 2005, p. 26)

“There is too much tendency to regard Christianity as something unique and apart in its origin. Yet it did not grow up in vacuo. It bore close likeness to the world which surrounded it. They were typical first-century minds that gave form to its thought, as they were first-century cities which gave it geographic setting. Even much of its religion was in accord not merely with Jewish but even with pagan outlook. If we are to distinguish in historical Christianity either the primitive or the original elements, we must first recognize what is simply common in antiquity.…The setting of the New Testament in its contemporary environment should correct also the tendency to unduly modernize it.” (1953b, p. v-vi, 7; quoted in Bacon, 2005, p. 29)

“One continuing feature of good Quakerism today is suggested by its counterpart in the early days of persecution. That is the willingness to be different…Along with the willingness to be different, so difficult in a conformity-loving society, must go the judgment as to where to be different. Not all singularity serves the purposes of utility…With the duty and privilege of independence goes, however, an important responsibility. This, too is part of the Quaker heritage. It is the demand for individual faithfulness. If we are as a group and as individuals unconfined by any compulsory conformity we are nevertheless under an inner compulsion to choose for ourselves and to be as obedient to individual duty as though we were regimented and conforming to wholesale standards.” (1959a, p. 29)

Note #13: Membership

“I feel a great nostalgia for the days when there was no such thing as formal membership in the Society of Friends, (and) no terms of admission to haggle about: you either were or were not a Friend, and whether you were or were not depended on what you did.” (1966, p. 5)

“At a recent lecture on William Penn even the Friends who were present were surprised to hear it said that Penn’s name is not found on any list of Monthly Meeting members. This is strictly true, for the simple reason that membership in the Society of Friends as we know it today was not recorded until 1737. For all early friends membership consisted in something other than being on the Meeting’s books. Births, deaths, and marriages were early recorded, for the sake of the individual, not of the Meeting; but there was no listing of members. For many years most Friends were convinced Friends, not birthright; but there was no application for membership or admission of members. Of course, the reality of their Quakerism showed in their life and character.” (1957b/1972, p. 223)

“I don’t believe that many people become good Friends by reading any books that I or anybody else may write, or by hearing about them, but by being acquainted with people who are Friends and saying, ‘These are the kind of people that I want to be.’” (1966, p. 8 )

Note #14: Outreach to Skeptics

“Sometimes I think I can divide the people we meet into two classes. One consists of those who have a strong, earnest, sincere but one-sided emphasis in religion….They seem to others, often quite unjustly, to be self-righteous. They at any rate are ardent defenders of their own particular point of view. They are lacking in balance and sometimes do actual harm. The other class is made up of those who think they have no religion at all. The trouble is they identify religion with the way they imagine some people preach and practice it. They don’t like the particular brand and so they eschew religion altogether. In many ways their course is quite as lacking in balance as that of the other group. But the pitiful thing is that they are not aware of other religious possibilities within themselves. Perhaps they would really like to be religious but they cannot and will not identify themselves with religion as they see it. They fail to recognize the spirit of God in the natural element in their lives and so they lead either a disappointed or a positively anti-religious life. Religion has been defined so narrowly as to leave them out; they ought to define it so widely as to take others in.” (c. 1929, pp. 4-5; see Bacon, 1987, p. 80)

“(T)he intolerance of demanding uniformity of experience is often a detriment. Those who insist that their experience must be the normative experience turn many away – not only from their type of religion, but from other types as well.” (1944b, p. 17)

As Margaret Hope Bacon wrote, “The thirst of these students for religious belief that did not violate their intellectual integrity deepened Henry Cadbury’s interest in reaching out to those who were either having trouble with conventional religious concepts or considered themselves outside the circle of religion completely. In the talks he gave during this period he returned to this theme again and again. The conventionally religious had no authority to shut from their ranks those motivated by a deep search for meaning and value who were nevertheless made uncomfortable by rigid theological creeds, declarations of faith, or religious forms.” (Bacon 1987, pp. 79-80)

And also: “Henry Cadbury himself, with his open, probing mind and his committed heart, served as a bridge for many men and women who longed to make a religious commitment that did not challenge their intellectual honesty. In a time when many people either silenced that longing, or silenced their intellectual integrity in order to become true believers in religious or political cults, his life itself was the message that neither sacrifice need be made.” (Bacon 1987, p. 218)

Note #15: Quakerism for the Nonmystic

“There are worthy and sincere seekers who say, O that I knew when I might find him, but the emphasis is usually placed on the moment of presence…The mystic emphasizes these but what of the non-mystic…and what of the intervals of the mystic?…Religion is not only the beatific vision, it is getting on without it…Faith, in (the) “Epistle to Helvius,” is precisely the experience of not seeing the future, of not knowing, of not receiving the promises – but of cross-questioning things hoped for and trusting the unseen. He endured as though he saw the invisible.” (1932, pp. 1-2)

“(An) area of religion in which I can make little contribution is in the kind of personal religion which has played a great part in Christian history – I mean in conscious communion with God, the practice of prayer and the like. That may seem the more remarkable since the Society of Friends whose traditions I inherit is generally supposed to be a society of mystics. Now I am not denying a large mystical strain in Quaker history both early and late, but I am quite convinced that it has never been general and that a large number of non mystics have enjoyed religious life under its auspices and have contributed much that Friends have done for human good. As a Friend I have been brought up to expect occasional divine revelation or immediate consolation or fellowship. I have not found that expectation fulfilled in any demonstrably supernatural way.” (1936/2000, p. 24; see Bacon, 2005, p. 18)

“I find myself at times in moods that seem to me closely to resemble the moods of religious experience. But I do not induce them, nor quote them, nor treat them as evidential. I am inclined to think other people would do so. I would regard that as a matter of interpretation.” (1936/2000, p. 25)

Note #16: Quakerism for the Nontheist

“I may say that theological questions are not the only ones on which I find it possible to avoid decisive and enthusiastic espousal…Economically and politically I am no conservative – certainly no convinced capitalist. But I am no more an ardent communist either. And in like manner I can describe myself as no ardent theist or atheist.” (1936/2000, p. 24)

“Philosophical studies of (an) elementary kind — left me without assurance for or against God or immortality.” (1940b, p. 2) (When the quotation comes from notes for a talk, his abbreviations were changed to full words and some punctuation was added.)

“Most students that ask questions are looking for theological conviction and evidence. They wish to know whether I believe in the existence of god or in immortality and if so why. They regard it impossible to leave these matters unsettled – or at least extremely detrimental to religion not to have the basis of such conviction. Now for my part I do not find it impossible to leave them open.” (1936/2000, pp. 23-24)

“I am interested in better individual and social morality. I should be glad to promote it through my own practice first of all. How I can justify such a wish theologically does not bother me, and I am not in sympathy with those who deprecate morality that is not religiously self-conscious or not motivated by a theistic conviction. I should be willing to let my religion rest very largely in a life of honest thinking, of kindly dealing and of challenging impact upon the social uses and conventions that it comes in contact with.” (1936/2000, p. 29; see Bacon, 2005, p. 18)

“Someone ought to write a pamphlet The Appeal of Quakerism to the Non-Theological to help them with their inferiority complex….They seem to others and perhaps to themselves subject to some defect. Perhaps it is intellectual laziness, or some congenital skepticism….The repetitious recourse to any doctrinal framework, including the one most in fashion in the Society at the time, they do not find helpful to themselves, and they regard it as perhaps their duty and privilege to seek for or to exemplify other aspects of truth to supplement the limited emphasis. It is not that they wish to deny what the theologian affirms, but that they find his approach uncongenial and irrelevant to their own spiritual life, and they are indifferent or even pained or estranged when it is made central in the definition of Quakerism….It does not speak to their condition. Their search is not for a more satisfactory theology, they do not believe that for them spiritual progress depends upon such factors. The obscurity of the mysteries of God does not really bother them and they have no confidence that even the most rational of religious analyses would add a cubit to their moral stature. They have, therefore, neither the will nor the competence to deal with the situation, but they hold their peace by simply keeping their own counsels without contradiction or controversy.” (1957c, pp. 43-44)

Note #17: Quaker Variety

“Some people suppose a certain religious faith – like belief in God, in future life, in the role of Jesus is essential. Experience shows devotion, sincerity, even saintliness can go along with more than one type of theological position. This is much like what Oliver Tomkins said at Oxford in ‘52 speaking on behalf of the World Council. ‘You Friends are a standing perplexity to other Christians, you enjoy the spirit of Christian life without the forms…that we have supposed essential.’” (1962b, p.4)

“(P)resent-day Quakerism owes a special debt to those interpreters who do justice to more than one of its multiple strands, the mystical, the evangelical, the rational and the social….It would be a pity if the natural variety in Quakerism were artificially restrained. Even unconsciously we are subject to powerful tendencies to conform to a single standard in religion as well as in other ideologies and practices. If the role of Quakerism among the denominations is precisely one of enriching the variety and challenging their standards of uniformity, we ought by the same token to welcome variety within our own small body and ought to object to the impoverishing effect of attempting to get ourselves and our fellow Quakers into one mould.” (1957c, pp. 47-48; see Bacon, 1987, p. 182)

References

(The manuscripts listed here are available for study in the Quaker
Collection at Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania.)

• Bacon, Margaret Hope (1986). “The Friends and Academic Freedom: Some Experiences and Thoughts of Henry. J. Cadbury” in J. William Frost & John M. Moore, Eds. (1986) Seeking the Light: Essays in Quaker History, Wallingford and Haverford PA: Pendle Hill Publications & Friends Historical Association
• Bacon, Margaret Hope (1987). Let This Life Speak: The Legacy of Henry Joel Cadbury. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Bacon, Margaret Hope (2005). Henry J. Cadbury: Scholar, Activist, Disciple (Pamphlet #376) Wallingford PA: Pendle Hill Publications.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (c.1915). Social Servis [sic]: Spirit and Method of a Great Movement in the Christian Church. Unpublished manuscript.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (c.1929). Balance in Religion (Notes for talk at Bryn Mawr.) Unpublished manuscript.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1932). The Absence of God. (Notes for talk at Guilford College and other locations). Unpublished manuscript.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1936/2000). “My Personal Religion” (Talk at the Harvard Divinity School). Universalist Friends, No. 35 (Fall-Winter 2000): 22-31, with corrections in No. 36: 18.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1940a). The Perils of Modernizing Jesus. New York: Macmillan.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1940b). My Personal Religious Beliefs. (Notes for talk at the Harvard Divinity School). Unpublished manuscript.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1944a). My Personal Religious Convictions And Their Relation To My Work. (Notes for talk given at Harvard Divinity School). Unpublished manuscript.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1944b). Two Worlds (William Penn Lecture). Philadelphia: Book Committee of the Religious Society of Friends.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1947a). “Answering That of God.” Journal of Friends Historical Society, 39: 3-14.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1947b). Jesus: What Manner of Man? New York: Macmillan.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1950). “Independence as a Quaker Tradition.” 250th Anniversary, First Friends Meeting. Moorestown, New Jersey, Friends Meeting.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1953a). A Quaker Approach to the Bible (Ward Lecture). Greensboro, North Carolina: Guilford College; reprinted as A Quaker Approach to the Bible (Pamphlet #209) (1996). Landenberg, Pennsylvania: Quaker Universalist Fellowship.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1953b). The Book of Acts in History. NY: Harper and Brothers.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1954). The Basis of Quaker Political Concern (Notes for talk at FCNL in Washington). Unpublished manuscript. Published version (1954): The Basis of Quaker Political Concern. Washington DC: Friends Committee on National Legislation.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1955/2005). “Our Theological Illiteracy.” Friends Journal, July 2, 1 (7), 6-7; reprinted in Friends Journal, (January 2005), 51(1), 2005, pp. 10-11.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1957a/1972). “The Call to Theologize.” Friends Journal, , 3 (44), 711-712; reprinted in Quaker Heritage: Letters from the Quaker Past. Norwalk, CN: Silvermine Publishers (1972), pp.228-230.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1957b/1972). “Evidence of Membership, Then and Now.” Friends Journal, , 3 (10), 150-151; reprinted in Quaker Heritage: Letters from the Quaker Past. Norwalk, CN: Silvermine Publishers (1972), pp.223-224.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1957c). Quakerism and Early Christianity (Swarthmore Lecture). London: Allen & Unwin.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1959a). The Character of A Quaker (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #103). Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1959b). “Two Strands in Quakerism.” Friends Journal, April 4, 5 (14), 212-214.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1962a). Quaker Principles and Action. (Notes for talk at Stony Brook, Baltimore). Unpublished manuscript.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1962b). (Untitled). (Notes for talk at Doylestown Monthly Meeting). Unpublished manuscript.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1962c). (Untitled). (Notes for a talk at the Middle Atlantic Region Staff Committee Retreat, Pendle Hill, and later at Radnor Meeting Forum). Unpublished manuscript.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1964a). The Eclipse of the Historical Jesus (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #133). Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1964b). “Vital Issues for Friends Today.” Canadian Friend, 60, June-July, (3): 3-4; quoted in Friends Journal (January 2001), 47(1), back cover.
• Cadbury, Henry J. (1966). “Quakerism and/or Christianity.” Friends Bulletin, 35(4), 1-10.

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