History of the Quakers
[5] Whilst the extent of overlap between John Wycliffe's disciples and subsequent movements is debated, Lollard ideas would lay inspiration in the religious soil of England; for example, Quakerism was strongest in parishes in Essex where Lollardy had previously taken root.
"[2] After being troubled when his friends asked him to drink alcohol with them at the age of nineteen, Fox spent the night in prayer and soon afterwards, he left his home to search for spiritual satisfaction, which lasted four years.
[2] Fox wrote that "The professors [professing Christians] were in a rage, all pleading for sin and imperfection, and could not endure to hear talk of perfection, or of a holy and sinless life.
[citation needed] This time of upheaval and social and political unrest called all institutions into question, so George Fox and his leading disciples—James Nayler, Richard Hubberthorne, Margaret Fell, as well as numerous others—targeted "scattered Baptists", disillusioned soldiers, and restless common folk as potential Quakers.
Confrontations with the established churches and its leaders and those who held power at the local level assured those who spoke for the new sect a ready hearing as they insisted that God could speak to average people, through his risen son, without the need to heed churchmen, pay tithes, or engage in deceitful practices.
In the early days the groups remained scattered, but gradually they consolidated in the north—the first meeting being created in Durham in 1653—to provide financial support to the missionaries who had gone south and presently abroad.
Many historians see this event as a turning point in early Quaker history because many other leaders, especially Fox, made efforts to increase the authority of the group, so as to prevent similar behaviour.
Fox also established women's meetings for discipline and gave them an important role in overseeing marriages, which served both to isolate the opposition and fuel discontent with the new departures.
In 1666, a group of about a dozen leaders, led by Richard Farnworth (Fox was absent, being in prison in Scarborough), gathered in London and issued a document that they styled "A Testimony of the Brethren".
Despite the survival of strong patriarchal elements, Friends believed in the spiritual equality of women, who were allowed to take a far more active role than had ordinarily existed before the emergence of radical civil war sects.
Among many female Quaker writers and preachers of the 1650s to 1670s were Margaret Fell, Dorothy White, Hester Biddle, Sarah Blackborow, Rebecca Travers and Alice Curwen.
[21] He returned in 1677 with George Fox and Robert Barclay and at Walta Castle, their religious community at Wieuwerd in Friesland, he unsuccessfully tried to convert the similarly minded Labadists to Quakerism.
Around 1667, the English Quaker preachers Alice and Thomas Curwen, who had been busy in Rhode Island and New Jersey, were imprisoned in Boston under Massachusetts law and publicly flogged.
[32] William Penn, a colonist to whom the king owed money, received ownership of Pennsylvania in 1681, which he tried to make a "holy experiment" by a union of temporal and spiritual matters.
They passed a bill that gave themselves the authority to appoint commissioners to oversee provincial Indian agents, interpreters, traders, and the legal means to build their own trade posts.
The Quakers' commitment to pacifism came under attack during the American Revolution, as many of those living in the Thirteen Colonies struggled with conflicting ideals of patriotism for the new United States and their rejection of violence.
John Blunston, Quaker pioneer founder of Darby Borough, Pennsylvania; and 12th Speaker of the PA Colonial Assembly; took part in an early action against slavery in 1715.
[42][verification needed] From the efforts of the Quakers, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were able to convince the Continental Congress to ban the importation of slaves into America as of December 1, 1775.
Quaker women such as Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony joined the movement to abolish slavery, moving them to cooperate politically with non-Quakers in working against the institution.
Their work raised concerns about the prison system as a whole, so that they were a factor behind Parliament eventually passing legislation to improve conditions further and decrease the number of capital crimes.
Wilburites not only held to the writings of Fox (1624–91) and other early Friends, they actively sought to bring not only Gurneyites, but Hicksites, who had split off during the 1820s over antislavery and theological issues, back to orthodox Quaker belief.
[51] Starting in the late 19th century, many American Gurneyite Quakers, led by Dougan Clark Jr., adopted the use of paid pastors, planned sermons, revivals, hymns and other elements of Protestant worship services.
By the time of the First World War, almost all Quakers in Britain and many in the United States found themselves committed to what came to be called "liberalism", which meant primarily a religion that de-emphasized corporate statements of theology and was characterized by its emphasis on social action and pacifism.
[citation needed] A more successful effort at unity was the Friends Committee on National Legislation, originating during World War II in Washington, D.C., as a pioneering Quaker lobbying unit.
FGC, founded in 1900[56] and centered primarily in the East, along the West coast, and in Canada, tended to be oriented toward the liberal end of the political spectrum, was mostly unprogrammed, and aligned itself closely with the American Friends Service Committee.
In Britain and Europe, where institutional unity and almost universal unprogrammed worship style were maintained, these distinctions did not apply, nor did they in Latin America and Africa, where evangelical missionary activity predominated.
In 1966, Benson published Catholic Quakerism, a small book that sought to move the Society of Friends to what he insisted was a strongly pro-Fox position of authentic Christianity, entirely separate from theological liberalism, churchly denominationalism, or rural isolation.
[citation needed] Quakers in Britain and the Eastern United States embarked on efforts in the field of adult education, creating three schools with term-long courses, week-end activities, and summer programs.
Earlier, beginning in 1915 and continuing for about a decade, the Woolman School had been created by Philadelphia Hicksites near Swarthmore College; its head, Elbert Russell, a midwestern recorded minister, tried unsuccessfully to maintain it, but it ended in the late 1920s.
[citation needed] During the 20th century, two Quakers, Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon, both from the Western evangelical wing, were elected to serve as presidents of the United States, thus achieving more secular political power than any Friend had enjoyed since William Penn.
