Who Are the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)?

Quakers or The Religious Society of Friends

Marty and I look for small adventures to take near our home. Last weekend we saw an advertisement that said the Quaker Yearly Meeting House in Mt. Pleasant, Ohio would be opened for guests. I had never been there, and since I have been working at a Friends school, I felt a connection, so we decided to visit. It was a wonderful decision and opened up a little more Quaker history, as well as local history. I am excited to share.

     Let me mirror Bilbo: Concerning Quakers …

The name Quaker originated from a story about George Fox (1624-1691), the founder of the Quaker movement, who told a judge to “quake” before God’s authority. The judge responded by calling Fox a “Quaker,” which was a derogatory term at the time. Fox and other Quakers eventually embraced the term and used it to describe themselves.

Quakers are sometimes called Friends because of a Bible verse from John 15:14, which says, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” The Religious Society of Friends, as Quakers are officially known, originally called themselves “Friends of Truth” because they believed they were friends of Jesus. 

The Religious Society of Friends was born in England in 1648, when Fox claims to have experienced a series of revelations that Jesus Christ dwelt within all people. The ensuing beliefs were based on the love of God to and for all. That love was expressed in “four themes”:

The Inner Light

“The central theological idea of Friends was the Inner Light, the indwelling of God in each person. Salvation meant coming to an awareness of this light and listening to what the Biblical writer called the “still small voice” of God within.”

Simplicity

The Quakers rejected the use of “excessive ornamentation and decoration on clothes, buildings, and furniture.” They viewed such “excess as vain.”

Equality

The doctrine of the Inner Light emphasized equality in social relations and religious practice. They also favored political and economic freedom. Women, as well as men, could speak God’s word in the worship service, although meeting houses often separated men from women. 

Peace

War and violence were not permitted. Violent acts were believed to rise from the “lusts and passions of individuals,” referred to as inner darkness. Fox believed that inner darkness could be overcome with “quiet patience.”

Because the Quakers refused to take oaths of loyalty to king and country, the English government banned their meetings and persecuted the members. George Fox, William Penn, and 10,000 others were arrested and imprisoned. As a result of harsh prison conditions, many died.

The Quakers Move to America

By 1650, Quaker missionaries began to travel to America, mainly to the areas of Maryland and Virginia. From there, they moved throughout the colonies.

“In 1681, King Charles II gave William Penn, a wealthy English Quaker, a large land grant in America to pay off a debt owed to his family. Penn, who had been jailed multiple times for his Quaker beliefs, went on to found Pennsylvania as a sanctuary for religious freedom and tolerance. Within just a few years, several thousand Friends had moved to Pennsylvania from Britain.

“Quakers were heavily involved in Pennsylvania’s new government and held positions of power in the first half of the 18th century, before deciding their political participation was forcing them to compromise some of their beliefs, including pacifism (https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/history-of-quakerism).

Quaker Meetings

Quaker gatherings for worship were called meetings. Meetings would commence in silence, seeking a direct experience with God, a manifestation of the Inner Light. Everyone sat in silence, usually for an hour, and waited to see if a message would come. Anyone could be the instrument through which God (or the Holy Spirit, if you prefer) chose to give a message. After a time, a respected leader of the group would get up and shake another’s hand. That would lead to the close of the meeting..

Business was also conducted during these meetings. Championing the Native Americans and providing them education, ending slavery and providing employment for former slaves, and women’s suffrage became part of their causes. Where slavery was concerned, it was written, that it  “must be abolished is as clear as the shining of the sun at noon-day” (Benjamin Lundy, from The Genius of Universal Emancipation, 1821). 

The Mount Pleasant Meeting House

The Mount Pleasant, Ohio meetinghouse was completed in 1815 and could accommodate over 1,000 people. A partition in the center could be lowered to separate men from women. Seating was arranged in rectangles, all facing inward. Second floor balconies allowed for more seating, since huge crowds from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana came into town for the yearly meetings.

The Quakers protested slavery through the use of the free market. The congregation at Mount Pleasant was at the forefront of that protest. African Americans were permitted to work in the area, and probably contributed to the building of many of the brick structures there. They also initiated the Free Labor Store (1848) where only items produced without slave labor were sold.

In 1828, at the Mount Pleasant Meeting House, Elias Hicks challenged the Bible as sole authority in Christianity. The normally calm meeting broke into chaos, and the result was a split into two groups. About 25 years later, another split between the Orthodox Quakers when Jeremy Gurney began teaching a more Evangelical interpretation. John Wilbur passionately countered with an argument for the traditional beliefs. The year 1854 saw the Quakers divided into three groups–the Hicksites, the Gurnyites, and the Wilburites.

Today

In 1700, there were about 55,000 Quakers in the United States. Currently, there are about 75,000. Quakerism is a way of life, rather than a set of beliefs. It has roots in Christianity and many Quakers find the life and teachings of Jesus inspirational, but they have no creed. Quakers today may not look much different from any other traditional Christians, but they still try to avoid excess in all things. 

Here are photos of the Mt. Pleasant  Yearly Meeting House, including the winch in the attic used to raise and lower the center partition: