SEEKING the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Western Yearly Meeting equips Friends meetings in the gospel of Jesus Christ by exercising mutual care and extending cooperative ministries. Through various expressions of our Christian faith, we strive to encourage ministry and the release of gifts of leadership.
THE term discipline was used by Friends to designate those arrangements which they have instituted for their civil and religious nurture and guidance as a Christian group. For almost a decade following the beginning of the ministry of George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, his followers were without organization, but, as they grew in unity and in numbers, there arose responsibilities to admonish, encourage, and help one another both in spiritual and in temporal affairs. They found it necessary to make certain provisions for the preservation of order in their fellowship and for the care of the poor and those who suffered for conscience sake.
There was also need for the supervision of the exercise of spiritual gifts and of the work of publishing truth. The rules and advices pertaining to such ministrations were finally incorporated in the discipline. The earliest Quaker advice on Christian practice was issued by the famous gathering of Friends at Balby in Yorkshire in 1656, a statement that well describes the spirit which should characterize all books of discipline:
Dearly beloved friends, these things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by, but that all with the measure of light which is pure and holy may be guided, and so in the light walking and abiding these may be fulfilled in the spirit, not from the letter; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
An important step in the development of the discipline was the drafting, by George Fox in 1668, of a body of advices and regulations-to which his opponents gave the name of Canons and Institutions. This served for a long time as the discipline of the Society, although the name was formally disclaimed by Friends in 1675. It formed the basis for the Discipline of London Yearly Meeting and for all later books of discipline. As the various yearly meetings were established in America, each prepared and adopted its own book of discipline, but there was much similarity, because of the common use of material from older editions. Western Yearly Meeting added the title Faith and Practice to the 1955 edition of the book of discipline and has used that title on each subsequent edition. These disciplines were revised from time to time as the rules and advices which they contained became inadequate and inappropriate. Thus, as the conscience of Friends became aware of the evils involved in human slavery or in the use of intoxicating drinks, these convictions were expressed in their disciplines.
QUAKERISM had its beginnings in England at a time of great religious and political ferment. The Reformation had involved crown and church alike, and the struggle with the papacy had opened the way for numerous independent movements that affected all elements of society. Over against the formalism of the established church stood Puritan attempts at reform, as well as the search for a fundamentally different expression of religious truth which, at times, led to fanaticism. But there were also deeply concerned Seekers whose spiritual ideals were so similar to those of George Fox that, to a great extent, he drew his followers and fellow workers from them. It is impossible to determine how many of his views and practices he may have adopted from that source, but since he would accept nothing until it was confirmed by his own experience, he developed that firsthand certainty which made his teachings so effective.
GEORGE Fox was born in July 1624 into a home of piety. His father, Christopher, was known in his community as a "Righteous Christer" and his mother, Mary, was "a good, honest, virtuous woman." In Fox's own account in his Journal, he writes, "When I came to eleven years of age, I knew pureness and righteousness; for while a child I was taught how to walk to be kept pure." At nineteen years of age, experiencing deep spiritual conflict, he began a four-year period of wandering over the land, studying his Bible and seeking spiritual help from churchmen and dissenters alike. He then tells of his great religious experience:
"And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do; then, oh! then I heard a voice which said, 'There is One, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition'" (Journal, 1694 ed., p. 8). In 1647, at the age of twenty-three, he began the ministry that was to bring together, before his death in 1691, some fifty or sixty thousand Friends in England, besides large groups in America and elsewhere.
THE emphasis of George Fox on the "light of Christ" led to the adoption by his followers of the name "Children of the Light." This was succeeded as early as 1652 by "Friends in the Truth," or merely "Friends." The popular name "Quakers" was said by George Fox to have been first applied by Justice Bennett in 1650, "because I bade them tremble at the word of the Lord." It was said by Robert Barclay to have been applied as a term of reproach, because "sometimes the power of God will break forth into a whole meeting…and thereby trembling and a motion of the body will be upon most if not upon all" (Mather, Barclay in Brief, p. 51).
ALTHOUGH he declared that he was forming no new sect or denominational group but bringing a universal message, Fox soon found some organization necessary for his growing fellowship. Though various local and general meetings had been held previously, the first regular monthly meeting seems to have been organized in 1653. Fox, referring to 1656, writes, "About this time I was moved to set up the men's Quarterly Meetings throughout the nation," thus carrying on a work already begun and furnishing an enduring pattern of organization. General meetings had been held in various localities prior to 1671, when London Yearly Meeting began to meet regularly. Dublin (Ireland) Yearly Meeting was organized in 1669.
DURING this early period of Quakerism, the persecution-because of the refusal to take oaths, pay tithes, and attend the established church-was extremely severe. About four hundred fifty of the most gifted young leaders among Fox's followers either were killed or died as a result of the various forms of persecution. The loss of this leadership was an important factor in the decline of the evangelical fervor of the early Quakers and, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Quakerism began to settle into a period of quietism from which it did not emerge until well into the nineteenth century.
ALTHOUGH there was no hesitation on the part of early Friends in recognizing the ministry of women, the first meetings for business were men's meetings; however, meetings for women were soon established, charged particularly with the care of members of their sex. The Meeting for Sufferings looked after the victims of persecution and other cases of need, and later had general charge of the affairs of the group between sessions of the yearly meeting. In most groups in America, the Meeting for Sufferings was later known as the Representative Meeting. In the yearly meetings of the Five Years Meeting, it is called the Permanent Board. Records of births, marriages, and deaths were carefully kept by the monthly meetings, and marriages were carefully supervised. In the course of time, the desire for good order, harmony, and religious unity in their meetings led to rigid regulations as to the conduct of members and, finally, to the disownment of large numbers of persons who were not disposed to conform to certain regulations.
THE universal aspect of Quakerism led its messengers at an early date to the continent of Europe and as far east as Turkey and Palestine. They ministered without prejudice to Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Mohammedans, and impartially to kings, nobles, and peasants. The first Friends to cross the Atlantic went to Barbados, where they had large followings. Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, who came to the island in 1655, passed on to Boston the next summer and, as far as is known, were the first Quaker visitors to the American mainland. These women were seized at once, imprisoned, and finally sent back to their place of departure, as were the other Quaker apostles who ventured to come later. But banishment, fines, whipping, imprisonment, and even the hanging of four of their number on Boston Common (1659-1661) were not sufficient to restrain their coming. "If God calls us," they declared, "woe to us if we come not." Condemned persons were accompanied by followers who were "moved of the Lord to look your bloody laws in the face."
GEORGE Fox and other early leaders visited America, evangelizing and aiding in the organization of meetings. The first yearly meeting to be organized was New England in 1661; Baltimore Yearly Meeting was established in 1672, and Virginia Yearly Meeting in 1673 "by the motion and order of George Fox," who had also attended the first and second sessions of Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Virginia Yearly Meeting united with Baltimore in 1845. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was organized in 1681; New York in 1695, by New England; North Carolina in 1698; Ohio, the first beyond the Alleghenies, in 1813 by Baltimore. Indiana Yearly Meeting was organized by Ohio in 1821 and became the fruitful mother of several other yearly meetings: Western Yearly Meeting in Western Indiana in 1858, Iowa in 1863, Kansas in 1872, and Wilmington in 1892. Canada Yearly Meeting was organized by New York in 1867, Oregon in 1893 by Iowa, California in 1895 by Iowa, and Nebraska in 1908 by the Five Years Meeting from Iowa Yearly Meeting territory. All have met regularly since organization.
UPON the recommendation of and in conjunction with the American Friends Board of Missions, the Five Years Meeting established and officially recognized the yearly meetings in Palestine-Syria in 1928, in Cuba in 1928, in Jamaica in 1941, and in East Africa in 1946. General meetings, sometimes called yearly meetings, are held in Australia, Madagascar, New Zealand, and South Africa, and are affiliated with London Yearly Meeting. Also several yearly meetings have been organized on the continent of Europe, including those of Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland. Yearly meetings have also been established in China, India, and Japan (merged with the National Christian Church in 1940).
THE yearly meetings were independent bodies united only by a common origin and by common beliefs and practices. Some degree of fellowship was maintained by annual exchange of epistles and by visits of traveling ministers, who came with minutes certifying their good standing at home; returning minutes testified to their acceptable attendance. But since there was no common disciplinary guide, no central point of reference or mode of conference, there was abundant room for the development of divergent standards and practices under the influence of local leaders and conditions. The dangers of such a situation were recognized early in the nineteenth century. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting proposed in 1805 that steps be taken for the formation of a uniform discipline, but this and later endeavors failed.
IN 1827-28, long-smoldering differences in doctrinal teaching and disciplinary practice, not unmixed with personal feelings, came to a head over the teaching and standing of Elias Hicks and resulted in separations in five yearly meetings: Philadelphia, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Baltimore, in the order named. No separation occurred in New England, North Carolina, or Virginia. Both groups in each case retained the name of the original yearly meeting and were popularly distinguished later by the terms "Orthodox" and "Hicksite." Ohio Yearly Meeting, of the "Hicksite" group, was discontinued in 1919. The "Hicksite" yearly meetings of Philadelphia, New York, Indiana, and Baltimore, with Genesee Yearly Meeting in Canada (established 1824), and Illinois Yearly Meeting (established 1887) complete the list of six yearly meetings now united in the Friends General Conference.
SEVERAL yearly meetings were involved in a second series of separations, extending over a longer period. This is known as the Wilbur-Gurney controversy (after the leaders of the two factions), or as the Conservative-Progressive separation (due to the questions at issue). The conclusive authority and the systematic study and teaching of the Scriptures, the use of new evangelistic methods, and the discontinuance of some of the ancient testimonies were the chief causes of separation. A division occurred in New England Yearly Meeting in 1845 and was followed by divisions in Ohio, Western, Iowa, Canada, and North Carolina Yearly Meetings. Friends of New England were reunited in the New England Yearly Meeting in 1945.
THE development of American Quakerism has been greatly influenced by the visits of prominent English Friends. Hannah Backhouse made extensive visits in the 1830s, encouraging Bible reading and study, and the organization of Bible classes and Bible schools. Her cousin, Joseph John Gurney, who later visited nearly all the American yearly meetings, gave the Bible a still-more-important place in Friends' consideration and placed a new emphasis on conversion and on justification through the atoning death of Jesus Christ. As the exclusiveness that had kept them from outside contacts weakened, Friends became open to the Great American Revival of the 1850s.
IN 1860, Lindley M. Hoag, of Iowa, and Sybil Jones, of New England, were present at Indiana Yearly Meeting and encouraged a special meeting for the young Friends that became a time of vocal exercise and testimony by hundreds. As a result an unusual group of young men and women was ready for the work of evangelization which followed. The revival movement, checked by the Civil War, reappeared and continued throughout the 1870s and the 1880s under the leadership of such evangelists as John Henry Douglas, Robert Douglas, Nathan and Esther Frame, Allen Jay, and many others. There was some opposition to the new methods, but the movement spread, reaching the leaders of the meetings and the general community alike.
THE development of the pastoral ministry during the latter half of the nineteenth century was a result of the growing desire for trained leadership. The change probably would have come eventually but was quickened by the impetus given to it by the evangelical movement. Many who were unfamiliar with the practices and methods of the Society of Friends and had no knowledge of their doctrines or traditions were brought into membership by the revival meetings. "In places there were whole meetings with only a few birthright members. Often converts in a series of revival meetings would join Friends merely because the preacher was a Quaker and they had no other denominational preferences" (Russell, The History of Quakerism, p.483). This called for ministries of teaching and pastoral care that had not been a part of the traditional Quaker meeting, with its pattern of distributed responsibilities.
IT was common for the evangelist to be asked to remain in the community and devote his or her entire time to the ministry and the shepherding of the flock. Feelings against the paid ministry diminished, and references to it were omitted in revisions of the Discipline. Definite employment and financial assistance were provided for those who were called to serve as pastors. The Meeting on Ministry and Oversight undertook the responsibility of selecting the pastor and supervising his or her work. These developments were obvious departures from the early practices of Friends. The change to a pastoral type of meeting took place gradually, but not without regret and even opposition on the part of many. In some areas, the earlier forms continue, but the pastoral ministry is the prevailing pattern in the meetings affiliated with Friends United Meeting (formerly the Five Years Meeting). Western Yearly Meeting respects both the pastoral and non-pastoral traditions; however, currently, there is a preponderance of pastoral meetings in its care.
THE vital principle of the Christian faith is the truth that [one's] salvation and higher life are personal matters between the individual soul and God.
Salvation is deliverance from sin and possession of spiritual life. This comes through a personal faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior, who, through his love and sacrifice, draws us to Him.
Conviction for sin is awakened by the operation of the Holy Spirit causing the soul to feel its need of reconciliation with God. When Christ is seen as the only hope of salvation, and a [person] yields to Him, he [or she] is brought into newness of life, and realizes he [or she] has indeed become a child of God. This transformation is wrought without the necessary agency of any human priest, or ordinance, or ceremony whatsoever. A changed nature and life bear witness to this new relation to Him.
The whole spiritual life grows out of the soul's relation to God and its cooperation with Him, not from any outward or traditional observances.
Christ Himself baptizes the surrendered soul with the Holy Spirit, enduing it with power, bestowing gifts for service. This is an efficient baptism, a direct incoming of divine power for the transformation and control of the whole man. Christ Himself is the Spiritual bread which nourishes the soul, and He thus enters into and becomes a part of the being of those who partake of Him. This participation with Christ and apprehension of Him become the goal of life for the Christian. Those who thus enter into oneness with Him become also joined in living union with each other as members of one body.
Both worship and Christian fellowship spring out of this immediate relation of believing souls with their Lord.
The Holy Scriptures were given by inspiration of God and are the divinely authorized record of the doctrines which Christians are bound to accept, and of the moral principles which are to regulate their lives and actions. In them, as interpreted and unfolded by the Holy Spirit, is an ever fresh and unfailing source of spiritual truth for the proper guidance of life and practice.
The doctrines of the apostolic days are held by the Friends as essentials of Christianity. The Fatherhood of God; the Deity and humanity of the Son; the gift of the Holy Spirit; the atonement through Jesus Christ by which [persons] are reconciled to God; the Resurrection; the High-priesthood of Christ; and the individual priesthood of believers, are most precious truths, to be held, not as traditional dogmas, but as vital, life-giving realities.
The sinful condition of [a person] and his [or her] proneness to yield to temptation, the world's absolute need of a Saviour, and the cleansing from sin in forgiveness and sanctification through the blood of Jesus Christ, are unceasing incentives to all who believe to become laborers together with God in extending His kingdom. By this high calling the Friends are pledged to the proclamation of the truth wherever the Spirit leads, both in home and in foreign fields.
The indwelling Spirit guides and controls the surrendered life, and the Christian's constant and supreme business is obedience to Him. But while the importance of individual guidance and obedience is thus emphasized, this fact gives no ground for license; the sanctified conclusions of the Church are above the judgment of a single individual.
The Friends find no scriptural evidence or authority for any form or degree of sacerdotalism in the Christian Church, or for the establishment of any ordinance or ceremonial rite for perpetual observance. The teachings of Jesus Christ concerning the spiritual nature of religion, the impossibility of promoting the spiritual life by the ceremonial application of material things, the fact that faith in Jesus Christ Himself is all-sufficient, the purpose of His life, death, resurrection and ascension, and His presence in the believer's heart, virtually destroy every ceremonial system and point the soul to the only satisfying Source of spiritual life and power.
With faith in the wisdom of Almighty God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and believing that it is His purpose to make His Church on earth a power for righteousness and truth, the Friends labor for the alleviation of human suffering; for the intellectual, moral, and spiritual elevation of mankind; and for purified and exalted citizenship. The Friends believe war to be incompatible with Christianity, and seek to promote peaceful methods for the settlement of all the differences between nations and between [persons].
It is an essential part of the faith that [one] should be in truth what he [or she] professes in word, and the underlying principle of life and action for individuals, and also for society, is transformation through the power of God and implicit obedience to His revealed will. (Essential Truths, Rufus Jones and James Wood, Fifth month 23rd 1900)
(For more explicit and extended statements of belief, reference is made to those officially put forth at various times, especially to the Letter of George Fox to the Governor of Barbados in 1671 [p. 73], and to the Declaration of Faith issued by the Richmond Conference in 1887
HUMAN understanding of truth is always subject to growth. This basic principle also underlies the development of the organizations and institutions through which the spirit of Christianity is made operative in life. While fundamental principles are eternal, expressions of truth and methods of Christian activity should develop in harmony with the needs of the times. God, who spoke through the prophets, and supremely in Jesus Christ, still speaks through men and women who have become new creatures in Christ (2 Cor. 5 : 17), being transformed by the renewing of their minds (Rom. 12 : 2) and, therefore, able and willing to receive fresh revelations of truth.
Frequently, however, persons see "through a glass darkly" (1 Cor. 13 : 12), and may misinterpret or make incorrect applications. Therefore, as the stream of life flows on, bringing new conceptions, insights, and situations, it is necessary to strive constantly for a clearer comprehension of divine truth that will enter vitally into personal experience and become a creative factor for the redemption of human character and the remolding of society on the Christian pattern. "A religion based on truth must be progressive. Truth being so much greater than our conception of it, we should ever be making fresh discoveries" (London Yearly Meeting, 1920).
MANY of the ideals and testimonies of present day Quakerism may be traced back to the earliest period in its history. These first testimonies have been confirmed by many Quaker historians, journalists, and by numerous minutes, advices, and epistles that are found in the records of Friends of the last three centuries. Therefore, it is felt that some consideration of the statements and activities of Friends of earlier times is necessary for a proper understanding of the Quaker message and the way of life which it inspires. It is hoped that the historical approach may be of definite spiritual value to Friends in enacting the testimonies.