Nontheist Friends

June 16, 2005

INTRODUCTION

This is a look at the roots of Quaker nontheism today. Most of the Quakers mentioned here were not nontheists but they stood up in ways that led to the nontheism of Friends today, or that led to characteristics of today’s Religious Society of Friends that nontheists find helpful. Some of these earlier Friends were severely chastised for their views by other Friends.

Views held today are not more authentic if they were present in earlier years. The Religious Society of Friends has changed over the years. That said, it is encouraging to Quaker nontheists today to find their views and their struggle prefigured among Friends of an earlier day.

Were there Quaker skeptics in the past? What were the issues they stood for? Were these in some sense steps along the way to Quaker nontheism? When did nontheism arise as an issue, or at least when was it first discussed openly?

These are some of the questions we will keep before us as we walk through Quaker history looking for roots of the nontheism that is present among Friends today.

ROOTS OF QUAKER NONTHEISM

DEISTS: These were people who asserted that God was not involved in the universe, at least not since its creation. In the 18th century deism was a form of heresy. It was supported by scholars of the Enlightenment and politicians of the French Revolution. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were probably deists.

A Quaker who asserted deistic views was John Bartram of Philadelphia (1699-1777). He was a farmer and possibly the best known botanist in the American colonies. He expressed a mystical feeling for the presence of God in nature and supported a rational approach. In 1758 he was disowned by Darby Meeting for his opinion that Jesus was not divine, but he continued to worship at that meeting and was buried there. In 1761 he carved above the door of his greenhouse a quote from Alexander Pope: “Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, but looks through Nature up to Nature’s God.” He wrote in a letter, “It is through the telescope I see God in his glory.” He carved into a stone in the wall of his study: “It is God alone, Almyty Lord, the Holy One by Me ador’d. John Bartram 1770” He wrote to Benjamin Rush, “I hope a more diligent search will lead you into the knowledge of more certain truths than all the pretended revelations of our mystery mongers and their inspirations.” Bartram was frequently accused of being a deist. His sons Moses, John, and James were founding members of the Free Quakers.

FREE QUAKERS: These Friends were disowned for abandoning the peace testimony during the Revolutionary War, but they cast the issue in more general terms. There several Free Quaker meetings, the longest lasting one being that in Philadelphia (1781-1834). The Free Quakers supported freedom of conscience and saw themselves as upholding the original Friends’ traditions. They wrote: “We have no new doctrine to teach, nor any design of promoting schisms in religion. We wish only to be freed from every species of ecclesiastical tyranny, and mean to pay a due regard to the principles of our forefathers…and hope, thereby, to preserve decency and to secure equal liberty to all. We have no designs to form creeds or confessions of faith, but [hope] to leave every man to think and judge for himself…and to answer for his faith and opinions to…the sole Judge and sovereign Lord of conscience.” Their Discipline forbade all forms of disownment: “Neither shall a member be deprived of his right among us, on account of his differing in sentiment from any or all of his brethren.”

PROTO-HICKSITES: Some the views that emerged during the schism of 1827 had been expressed much earlier. In Rhode Island there was a group called the New Lights. For instance, Job Scott (1751-1793) saw all outward signs, such as the Bible, creeds, reason, and learning, as hindrance to the experience of the inward Christ. His Journal, published in 1797, aroused opposition from evangelical Christians.

There were also New Lights in Ireland. Abraham Shackleton (1752-1818) emphasized the experience of the Inner Light and objected to legalistic Disciplines and scriptural doctrine. He was disowned in 1801.

Hannah Barnard (1724-1825) of New York emphasized the indwelling Christ, questioned the interpretation of events in the Bible, and put reason above orthodoxy and ethics over theology. She supported the French Revolution and insisted that masters and servants sit together during her visits. In 1802 she was silenced as a minister and later disowned by Friends. She said, “Nothing is revealed truth to me, as doctrine until it is sealed as such in my mind, through the illumination of…the word of God, the divine light, and intelligence, to which the Scriptures…bear plentiful testimony.” She wrote, “under the present state of the Society I can with humble reverent thankfulness rejoice in the consideration that I was made the Instrument of bringing their Darkness to light.” On hearing Elias Hicks in 1819, she is said to have commented that these were the ideas for which she had been disowned. He visited her in 1824, a year before she died.

HICKSITES: The schism that started in 1827 involved many people but it is instructive to focus on one man at the center of the conflict. Elias Hicks (1748-1830) traveled widely, urging Friends to follow a God known inwardly and to resist the domination of others in the Society. He wrote, “There is scarcely anything so baneful to the present and future happiness and welfare of mankind, as a submission to traditional and popular opinion, I have therefore been led to see the necessity of investigating for myself all customs and doctrines…either verbally or historically communicated…and not to sit down satisfied with any thing but the plain, clear, demonstrative testimony of the spirit and word of life and light in my heart and conscience.” Hicks emphasized the inward action of the Spirit rather than human effort or learning, but he saw a place for reason. He turned to “the light in our own consciences,…the reason of things,…the precepts and example of our Lord Jesus Christ, (and) the golden rule.”

Another proponent of Hicks’ views was Benjamin Ferris (1780-1867), editor of The Berean. He rejected creedal doctrine and claimed Inner Light sufficient for salvation of any person. He emphasized historical relativism and grounded his religion on facts and evidence rather than mystery and emotion. In 1821-1823 he published a debate with an evangelical minister, Letters of Paul and Amicus, which contributed to the schism in 1827. He was the first Clerk of the Hicksite yearly meeting in Philadelphia.

THE MANCHESTER HERETICS: David Duncan (c.1825-1871) was a merchant and manufacturer in Manchester, England, and a former Presbyterian who had trained for the ministry. He married Sarah Ann Duncan and became a Friend in 1852. He was a republican, a social radical, a free thinker, and an aggressive writer and debater. Duncan began to doubt Quakers views about God and the Bible and associated the Light Within with intellectual freedom. He developed a following at the Friends Institute in Manchester and the publication of his Essays and Reviews in 1861 brought the attention of the Elders. In it he wrote, “If the principle were more generally admitted that Christianity is a life rather than a formula, theology would give place to religion…and that peculiarly bitter spirit which actuates religionists would no longer be associated with the profession of religion.” He was disowned and died suddenly of smallpox in 1871. Sarah Ann Duncan and about 14 others resigned from their meeting. “They believed that formal agreement upon dogma was not necessary in a church, and urged an ideal of complete intellectual freedom among church members united only by good will and amity….The forgotten Friends of Manchester, who welcomed liberal views in the 1860s, instead of the 1890s, deserve to be rescued from oblivion – they followed what they believed to the truth in the face of what amounted to persecution, with remarkable courage, tenacity, and openness of mind.” (Isichei, 1970, pp. 30-32)

Another Manchester heretic was Joseph B. Forster (1831-1883), editor of the Manchester Friend and leader of the dissidents after the death of David Duncan. He wrote, “…every law which fixes a limit to free thought, exists in violation of the very first of all doctrines held by the Early Quakers, - the doctrine of the ‘Inner Light’. In 1873 the dissident Friends described themselves thus: “There is no organization of any kind; there are neither officers, nor any of the religious ‘orders’ to be found in other Christian societies; hence no name has been adopted.”

George S. Brady (1833-1913) was a scientist, a member of the Royal Society in London, and a supporter of Charles Darwin. Brady published opinion pieces in the Manchester Friend. In 1873 he wrote, “(U)nless this Society shows in coming years more capacity to discern the signs of the times than it has recently shown, unless it can be brought to see that religious belief…must advance with…advancing knowledge, it will inevitably fall back, even further than it has already fallen, from its old position in the advanced guard of religious freedom.” Thomas Kennedy wrote: “Brady’s Essay on the Exercise of the Intellect in Matters of Religious Belief (1868) was a plea for free thought, for the legitimacy of biblical criticism and for the need to reconcile modern scientific principles with traditional religious beliefs.” (2001, p. 92)

PROGRESSIVE AND CONGREGATIONAL FRIENDS: The Progressive Friends at Longwood (near Philadelphia) were committed to peace and the rights of women and blacks but they were also concerned about church governance and doctrine. Between 1844 and 1874 they separated from other Hicksite Quakers and formed a monthly meeting and a yearly meeting. They asked, “What right had one Friend, or one group of Friends, to judge the leadings of others?” They objected to partitions between men’s and women’s meetings and the authority of meeting elders and ministers over the individual conscience and actions of other members. There had been similar separations in Indiana Yearly Meeting (Orthodox) in the 1840s, Green Plain Quarterly Meeting in Ohio in 1843 and in Genesee Yearly Meeting (Hicksite) in up state New York and Michigan and in New York Yearly Meeting in 1846 and 1848. These groups called themselves Progressive or Congregational Friends. The “Exposition of Sentiments” of the Friends at Longwood in 1853 was addressed “to Friends of Pure and Undefiled Religion, and all Seekers after Truth, of whatever name or denomination…who acknowledge the duty of defining and illustrating their faith in God, not by assent to a creed, but lives of personal purity, and works of beneficence and charity to mankind.” They wrote, “We seek not to diminish, but to intensify in ourselves the sense of individual responsibility…We have set forth no forms or ceremonies; nor have we sought to impose upon ourselves or others a system of doctrinal belief. Such matters we have left where Jesus left them, with the conscience and common sense of the individual. It has been our cherished purpose to restore the union between religion and life, and to place works of goodness and mercy far above theological speculations and scholastic subtleties of doctrine. Creed-making is not among the objects of our association. Christianity, as it presents itself to our minds, is too deep, too broad, and too high to be brought within the cold propositions of the theologian. We should as soon think of bottling up the sunshine for the use of posterity, as of attempting to adjust the free and universal principles taught and exemplified by Jesus of Nazareth to the angles of a manmade creed.” Between 1863 and 1874 the Friends at Longwood were taken back into membership by their meetings. By the time of the birth of modern liberal Quakerism at the turn of the century, Friends in unprogrammed meetings had become progressives.

NEARLY UNITARIANS: Unitarianism was considered heresy among Friends. The term referred to the whole range of views of religious dissenters. Many liberal Quakers became Unitarians. A leading Friend who was accused of Unitarian tendencies for many years was Lucretia Mott (1793-1880). She worked for abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and temperance. She liked to quote William Penn: “Men are to be judged by their likeness to Christ, rather than their notions of Christ.” She refused to be controlled by her meeting but also refused to leave it. Her meeting refused permission for her to travel in the ministry after 1843 but did so anyway. She was a founding member of the Free Religious Association in 1867, when she told them, “I believe that such proving all things, such trying all things, and holding fast only to that which is good, is the great religious duty of our age. . . . Our own conscience and the Divine Spirits’s teaching are always harmonious and this Divine illumination is as freely given to man as his reason, or as are many of his natural powers.” She also said, “Truth speaks the same language in every age of the world and is equally valuable to us.” In 1840 Elizabeth Fry refused to shake her hand because of her Hicksite and Unitarian views. In 1849 Mott said, “I confess to you, my friends, that I am a worshipper after the way called heresy, a believer after the manner many deem infidel. While at the same time my faith is firm in the blessed, the eternal doctrine preached by Jesus and by every child of God since the creation of the world, especially the great truth that God is the teacher of his people himself; the doctrine that Jesus most emphatically taught, that the kingdom is with man, that there is his sacred and divine temple.”

A Friend who became a Unitarian was Maria Mitchell (1818-1889), an astronomer, professor of astronomy at Vasser College, founder of the American Association for the Advancement of Women, and first woman elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Philosophical Society, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She wrote in her diary (and all the following quotes are from the privacy of her diary), “It seems to me that if anything would make me an infidel, it would be the threats lavished against unbelief.” Later, she wrote, “Why cannot a man act himself, be himself, and think for himself? It seems to me that naturalness alone is power; that a borrowed word is weaker than our own weakness, however small we may be. If I reach a girl’s heart or head, I know I must reach it through my own, and not from bigger hearts and heads than mine.” She also wrote, “(Resolved)…If possible, connect myself with liberal Christian institutions, believing as I do that happiness and growth in this life are best promoted by them and that what is good in this life is good in any life.” She saw no conflict between religion and science and defended Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution: “Can the study of truth do harm? Does not every true scientist seek only to know the truth? And in our deep ignorance of what is truth, shall we dread the searching after it? I hold the simple student of nature in holy reverence and…I cannot bear to have these sincere workers held up in the least degree to reproach. And let us have truth even if the truth be the awful denial of the good God. We must face the light and not bury our heads in the Earth.”

Another nearly Unitarian Friend was Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906). She was an active supporter of rights for women, abolition of slavery, and temperance. Raised a Quaker, she considered herself one even when she joined with the Unitarians after her failed to support abolition. Her friend, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, called her an agnostic. She refused to express her opinion on religious subjects, saying she could only work on one reform project at a time. She said “every religion or none should have an equal right on the platform” of the National Women’s Rights Convention in 1854. In 1886 she pleaded with a women’s organization, “These are the principles I want to maintain – that our platform may be kept as broad as the universe, that upon it may stand the representatives of all creeds and of no creeds – Jew and Christian, Protestant and Catholic, Gentile and Mormon, believer and atheist.” On another occasion she said, “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires….What you should say to outsiders is that a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our association than an atheist. When our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no creeds, I myself can not stand upon it.” Anthony said to a group of Quakers in 1885, “I don’t know what religion is. I only know what work is, and that is all I can speak on, this side of Jordan.” When asked in an interview in 1896 “Do you pray?”, she answered, “I pray every single second of my life; not on my knees, but with my work. My prayer is to lift women to equality with men. Work and worship are one with me. I know there is no God of the universe made happy by my getting down on my knees and calling him ‘great’.” In 1897 she wrote, “(I)t does not matter whether it is Calvinism, Unitarianism, Spiritualism, Christian Science, or Theosophy, they are all speculations. So I think you and I had better hang on to this mundane sphere and keep tugging away to make conditions better for the next generation of women.”

MODERN LIBERAL FRIENDS: Edward T. Bennett (1831-1908) was the last Quaker disowned for heresy by the Yearly Meeting in Britain (in 1873). A new liberal consensus began to form with the publication in London in 1884 of A Reasonable Faith: Short Essays for the Times by Three ‘Friends’, written by anonymous authors who later turned out to be Francis Frith (1822-1898), William Pollard (1828-1893), and William E. Turner (1836-1911).

Joseph Rowntree (1836-1925) was a chocolate manufacturer and reformer of the Religious Society of Friends and of society in general. He helped craft the London Yearly Meeting response to the Richmond Declaration of 1887, when he wrote, “(T)he general welfare of the Society of Friends the world over will not be advanced by one Yearly Meeting following exactly in the footsteps of another, but by each being faithful to its own convictions and experience. This may not result in a rigid uniformity of either thought or action, but it is likely to lead to something far better – to a true and living unity.”

The conference of Friends in Manchester in 1895 was a clear declaration of their views, as was the first Summer School (on the British model) at Haverford College in 1900, the founding of Friends General Conference in 1900 and American Friends Service Committee in 1917.

William Littleboy (c.1852-1936), with wife Margaret Littleboy, were among the first staff at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Center. William Littleboy was a strong advocate for Quakers who do not have mystical experiences, ethical living as basis for religion, and extension of Religious Society of Friends to a multitude of skeptics. In 1902 he wrote to Rufus Jones urging consideration be given to Quakers who do not have mystical experiences, and in 1916 he published a pamphlet, The Appeal of Quakerism to the Non-Mystic. In it he wrote, “We know that to some choice souls god’s messages come in ways which are super-normal, and it is natural that we should look with longing eyes on these; yet such cases are the exception, not the rule….Let us then take ourselves at our best. (Non-mystics) are capable of thought and care for others. We do at times abase ourselves that others may be exalted. On occasion we succeed in loving our enemies and doing good to those who despitefully use us. For those who are nearest to us we would suffer – perhaps even give our life, because we love them so….To the great non-mystic majority (the Quaker’s) appeal should come with special power, for he can speak to them, as none other can whose gospel is less universal”. This influenced the young Henry Cadbury who said in 1957, “I am sure that over the years (William Littleboy’s) perceptive presentation of the matter has brought real relief to many of us.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1934), an astronomer who felt that scientists and Quakers had something important in common. In 1930 he wrote, “I think that the spirit of seeking is still the prevailing one in our faith, which for that reason is not embodied in any creed or formula….The finding of one generation will not serve the next. It tarnishes rapidly except it be preserved with an ever-renewed spirit of seeking….I think it may be said that Quakerism in dispensing with creeds holds out a hand to the scientist….The spirit of seeking which animates us refuses to regard any kind of creed as its goal….Rejection of a creed is not inconsistent with being possessed by a living belief. We have no creed in science, but we are not lukewarm in our beliefs….If our so-called facts are changing shadows, they are shadows cast by the light of constant truth.”

Joel Bean (1825-1914) and Hannah Shipley Bean (1830-1909) were attracted to older forms of Quaker worship instead of to pastors and revivals. In 1887 they founded the College Park Association in California, prototype for new unprogrammed meetings, with an openness to new thought and less emphasis on the Discipline. They were disowned by Iowa Yearly Meeting in 1892.

REUNIFIERS: Some Friends worked their entire lives to bring together branches of the Religious Society of Friends that had broken away from each other. Examples are Rufus Jones and Henry Cadbury. They based their call for reunification on the same grounds nontheist Friends rely on today, such as the emphasis on practice instead of beliefs; the idea Quakerism is a set of beliefs from which we each take some and leave others; the writing of the belief sections of Disciplines in the form of quotations from the writings of individuals; the idea that religiously inspired action can be associated with many different faiths; the love of diversity within the Religious Society of Friends; viewing religion as a matter of how we live our daily lives; a tender concern for religious skeptics; emphasis on Jesus as a person rather than doctrine about Jesus; and so on. These bases for reunification among Friends also serve to include nonmystics, nonChristians and people of other faiths including nontheistic faiths.

NONCHRISTIAN QUAKERS: At regular intervals among Friends there is discussion about whether you have to be a Christian to be a Quaker. This is often in the form of an exchange of letters in a Quaker journal. One such flurry was prompted by two letters from Watchman in The Friend in 1943 and 1944 (reprinted in 1994). In 1953 Arthur Morgan proposed inviting people of other faiths to join Friends. Henry Cadbury was invited to address the question in a talk given at the annual sessions of Pacific Yearly Meeting in 1966. In his view Quakerism and Christianity represent sets of beliefs from which individuals make selections, with no one belief required of all. Quaker universalists have raised the issue many times (for instance, John Linton in 1979 and Dan Seeger in 1984). The basis for including nonChristians often serves to include nontheists as well.

UNIVERSALISTS: The Quaker Universalist Group was formed in Britain in 1979 and the Quaker Universalist Fellowship in the United States in 1983. There are several senses in which a Quaker may be a universalist. For the early Friends it meant that any person could be saved by Christ. For some it is a quiet acceptance of diversity in the world. For others it is an active searching for common aspects of different faiths, for a way to combine them. Universalism can also mean an effort to learn from each other and live together well and love each other, differences and all. In Quaker universalist literature there is some ambiguity over whether nontheists can be Quakers and universalists, and how to include them if this is possible. Doctrinally open membership is still a new idea among Friends.

COMMENTS

Over the years, many Quakers stood against the doctrinal views of their times. Listed in somewhat chronological order, I have called them deists, Free Quakers, proto-Hicksites, Hicksites, Manchester heretics, Progressive Friends, nearly Unitarians, modern liberal Quakers, reunifiers, nonChristians, and universalists.

They represent a continual stream of doctrinal dissent and a struggle for openness throughout the history of the Religious Society of Friends. What was rejected at one point was accepted later. Much of what many Friends believe today would have been heresy a few years ago. Worse, there have been repeated schisms. We have not found innovative alternatives to conflict within our own religious communities.

Through the years, certain characteristics of the Religious Society of Friends have supported the presence of doctrinal skeptics such as being noncreedal, tolerant and universalistic; emphasizing that Quakers are concerned with experience rather than beliefs; emphasizing the authority of the individual and the need to interpret what we read; and the conviction a sense of the meeting and clearness on membership do not require agreement on religious doctrine.

Quaker traditions that require some translation or interpretation by nontheists include a Divine Light within each person; theistic definitions for key terms such as religion, worship, message, leading, discernment, sense of the meeting, continual revelation, and interpretation of scriptures; and the description of Quaker identity, meeting unity, and faith based action in theistic terms.

Quaker behavior is changing and has always been changing, not only in doctrine but in other areas such as music, art and drama. We have changed the way we dress and talk, and we have changed how we treat people’s race, gender and sexual orientation. Our social testimonies have evolved, too.

All of this encourages those who are working for a Religious Society of Friends that is a home for all seekers who join in the communal effort to live as well as we can in the manner of Friends.

REFERENCES

 

• Anthony, Susan B.
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• Barnard, Hannah. Quoted by Chuck Fager at http://www.quaker.org/liberal-history/barnard.html
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• Littleboy, William (1916/1938/1945). The Appeal of Quakerism to the Non-Mystic. Harrowgate, England: 1905 Committee of Yorkshire Quarterly Meeting of the Society of Friends; reprinted in 1938 by the Friends Literature Committee, Yorkshire, and in 1945 by Friends’ Book Centre, London
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