The Religious Society of Friends began as a proto-evangelical Christian movement in England in the mid-17th century in Ulverston. Members are informally known as Quakers, as they were said "to tremble in the way of the Lord". The Quakers, especially the Valiant Sixty, sought to convert others by travelling through Britain and overseas preaching the Gospel. They based their message on a belief that "Christ has come to teach his people himself", stressing direct relations with God through Jesus Christ and belief in the universal priesthood of all believers. This personal religious experience of Christ was acquired by direct experience and by reading and studying the Bible.
Quakerism was influenced by the English Dissenters and Legatine-Arians of the English Civil War period, as well as the Radical Reformation and, to some extent, Behmenism. Quakerism emerged as a denomination of Protestant Christianity, and at present, Quakers predominantly identify as evangelical, though not all modern Quakers identify as Christian. Despite this diversity, the core values of peace, simplicity, and social justice continue to shape the Quaker identity. The movement in its early days faced strong opposition and persecution, but it continued to expand across the British Isles, the Americas and Africa. The Quakers, though few in numbers, have been continuously influential in the history of reform. The colony of Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn in 1682, as a safe place for Quakers to live and practice their faith. Quakers have been a significant part of the movements for the abolition of slavery, to promote equal rights for women, and peace. They have also promoted education and the humane treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill, through the founding or reforming of various institutions. Quaker entrepreneurs played a central role in forging the Industrial Revolution, especially in England and Pennsylvania.
During the 19th century, Friends in the United States suffered a number of secessions, which resulted in the formation of different branches of the Religious Society of Friends.
Historical context The Kingdom of England had struggled religiously for centuries since the Norman Invasion, grappling with doctrines such as Papal supremacy. In the 1300s, the proto-Protestant movement known as Lollardy arose, calling for radical reforms of the medieval church. Parallels between the Lollards and Quakers and related groups have been drawn for a long time. During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, the priest John Ball advocated radical, egalitarian reorganization of society. Whilst the extent of overlap between John Wycliffe's disciples and subsequent movements is debated, Lollard ideas would lay inspiration in the religious culture of England; for example, Quakerism was strongest in parishes in Essex where Lollardy had previously taken root.
George Fox and the Religious Society of Friends When George Fox was eleven, he wrote that God spoke to him about "keeping pure and being faithful to God and man." 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. In his Journal, at age 23, he recorded the words:
At this time, Fox believed that he "found through faith in Jesus Christ the full assurance of salvation." Fox began to spread his evangelical Christian message and his emphasis on "the necessity of an inward transformation of heart", as well as the possibility of Christian perfection, drew opposition from English clergy and laity. 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." However, in the mid-1600s, many people became attracted to Fox's preaching and his followers became known as Friends. By 1660, the Quakers grew to 35,000. Well known early advocates of Quaker Christianity included Isaac Penington, Robert Barclay, Thomas Ellwood, William Penn and Margaret Fell.
Quakerism pulled together groups of disparate Seekers that formed the Religious Society of Friends following 1647.See Watts, M. The Dissenters Vol 1. Oxford 1978. Ch ll: section 15, and specifically p. 196. See also Hatton, J. George Fox (Oxford 2007) ch 5. 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. They found fertile ground in northern England in 1651 and 1652, building a base there from which they moved south, first to London and then beyond. 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. Before long they seemed a potential threat to the dignity of the Cromwellian state. Even arresting its leaders failed to slow the movement, instead giving them a new audience in the courts of the nation.Ingle, H. Larry (1996). First Among Friends: George Fox and the Creation of Quakerism.
Nayler's sign In 1656, a popular Quaker minister, James Nayler, went beyond the standard beliefs of Quakers when he rode into Bristol on a horse in the pouring rain, accompanied by a handful of men and women saying "Holy, holy, holy" and strewing their garments on the ground, imitating Jesus's entry into Jerusalem.Mortimer, Russell (1967). Early Bristol Quakerism: The Society of Friends in the City, 1654-1700 (Bristol Historical Association pamphlets, no. 17), p. 17. While this was apparently an attempt to emphasize that the "Light of Christ" was in every person, most observers believed that he and his followers believed Nayler to be Jesus Christ. The participants were arrested by the authorities and handed over to Parliament, where they were tried. Parliament was sufficiently incensed by Nayler's heterodox views that they punished him savagely and sent him back to Bristol to jail indefinitely.Damrosch, Leo (1996). The Sorrows of the Quaker Jesus: James Nayler and the Puritan Crackdown on the Free Spirit, pp. 66, 221 This was especially bad for the movement's respectability in the eyes of the Puritan rulers because some considered Nayler (and not Fox, who was in jail at the time) to be the actual leader of the movement. 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. This effort culminated in 1666 with the "Testimony from the Brethren", aimed at those who, in its own words, despised a rule "without which we ... cannot be kept holy and inviolable"; it continued the centralizing process that began with the Nayler affair and was aimed at isolating any separatists who still lurked in the Society. 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 the 1660s and 1670s Fox himself travelled the country setting up a more formal structure of monthly (local) and quarterly (regional) meetings, a structure that is still used today.Moore, Rosemary (2000). The Light in Their Consciences: Faith, Practices, and Personalities in Early British Quakerism, (1646–1666).
Other early controversies The Society was rent by controversy in the 1660s and 1670s because of these tendencies. First, John Perrot, previously a respected minister and missionary, raised questions about whether men should uncover their heads when another Friend prayed in meeting. He also opposed a fixed schedule for meetings for worship. Soon this minor question broadened into an attack on the power of those at the centre. Later, during the 1670s, William Rogers of Bristol and a group from Lancashire, whose spokesmen John Story and John Wilkinson were both respected leaders, led a schism. They disagreed with the heightening influence of women and centralizing authority among Friends closer to London. 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". It set rules to maintain the good order that they wanted to see among adherents and excluded separatists from holding office and prohibited them from travelling lest they sow errors. Looking to the future, they announced that authority in the Society rested with them.Moore, Rosemary The Light in Their Consciences: The Early Quakers in Britain, 1646–1666, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press (2000) pp. 224–26.
Women and equality One of their most radical innovations was a more nearly equal role for women. 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.Orlando Project site: Retrieved 20 March 2012. Early Quaker defenses of their female members were sometimes equivocal, however, and after the Restoration of 1660 the Quakers became increasingly unwilling to publicly defend women when they adopted tactics such as disrupting services. Women's meetings were organized as a means to involve women in more modest, feminine pursuits. Writers such as Dorcas Dole and Elizabeth Stirredge turned to subjects seen as more feminine in that period.Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy, eds: The Feminist Companion to Literature in English (London: Batsford, 1990), entry on Dorcas Dole, p. 302. Some Quaker men sought to exclude them from church public concerns with which they had some powers and responsibilities, such as allocating poor relief and in ensuring that Quaker marriages could not be attacked as immoral. The Quakers continued to meet openly, even in the dangerous year of 1683. Heavy fines were exacted and, as in earlier years, women were treated as severely as men by the authorities.Taylor, Kay S. (2001). "The Role of Quaker Women in the Seventeenth Century, and the Experiences of the Wiltshire Friends." Southern History 23: 10–29.
Persecution in England
In 1650, George Fox was imprisoned for the first time in Nottingham, and was repeatedly thrown in prison from the 1650s to the 1670s. Other Quakers followed him to prison as well, mostly for charges of causing a disturbance or blasphemy.George Fox's Imprisonment