Friends and their Spiritual Message
By Howard Brinton
If we consider the spiritual message of the Society of Friends apart from its social message we must realize that "spiritual" and "social" are as intimately related as the two sides of a door; you can 't have one without the other. However, as in the case of a door, it is possible to concentrate attention on one side or the other. We can think of the "spiritual" as primarily concerned with our relation to God and the "social" as primarily concerned with our relation to our fellows. Each is dependent on the other. In Quaker writings the phrase "joined to the Lord" seldom appears without the corresponding phrase "and to one another. "To be" joined to the Lord" results in being joined to one another, and being joined to one another results in being "joined to the Lord."
The word "spiritual" has many meanings, most of them vague. This word is used here in two clearly defined senses. First, the word "spiritual" designates our relation to the Divine which is within us as well as beyond and above us; and, second, the word "spiritual" describes a religion in which the outward form is a genuine and sincere expression of the inward state.
The Inward Light
The first definition brings us to the Quaker doctrine of the "Inward Light" or "Christ Within" or "that of God in everyone." According to this belief, God reveals Life, Truth, and Love to every human being of every race and religion, directly, without the requirement of an intermediary such as church, priest, or sacred book. This doctrine is not unique, but the Quakers carried it to a logical conclusion in their worship, their church government, and their relations with others.
In the middle of the seventeenth century in England, as the availability of printed books increased, the Bible was becoming widely known, and it appeared to many who read it that the early Christian church depended very little on ecclesiastical structure, elaborate ritual, and formal creeds but that it depended greatly on the Spirit in the midst of the worshipping group and on prophetic utterances inspired by the Spirit. Puritans wished to "purify" the Church of accretions since the early days of Christianity. The Anglicans, being the most conservative, took out a few of these elements, the Presbyterians a few more, the Congregationalists a few more, the Baptists a few more, and finally the Quakers, being the most radical of the new sects, took out everything except dependence on the Divine Spirit for guidance and power. Quakerism was therefore a new revival of the old prophetic religion. The Spirit was not for them the third person of a Trinity but God revealed inwardly, as God had been revealed outwardly through Jesus of Nazareth. This is the Word, Light, Life, Truth and Love in the language of John, and "the Spirit" and "the Christ in you" of Paul. .
This is all-sufficient for salvation because salvation consists in becoming completely obedient to God or, to use the term of a different theology, "in union with God." It is interesting to note how the process of conversion occurs, as told in the most typical Quaker journals or autobiographies, though the word "conversion" is seldom used. There is no effort to save one 's soul by accepting a theological formula, though convincement of Quaker principles is generally the first step in the process. The writers describe how, gradually, after alternate victories and defeats, they become at last fully obedient to the will of God as inwardly apprehended and centered in the Light. Victory is never final and complete, but future lapses are more rare.
The Divine Spirit
This Divine Spirit, revealing itself in the depths of the soul, is thought of as a source of religious and moral knowledge, a source of power to act according also, the Quakers have not usually been seriously concerned about the smallness of their numbers, though they recognize a responsibility to convince humankind of Truth. History shows that Truth has generally appeared first among a small minority.
This method of arriving at decisions reveals the basis of the Quakers 'peace principle, for which they are most widely known, perhaps because the peace principle is at present less generally accepted. Everyone today believes in peace, but a refusal to take any part in war or the preparation for war is an extreme to which few are willing to go. Yet if we believe that the Divine Light of Truth is in every human being and that differences can be settled rightly and permanently only by an appeal to that Light -what George Fox called "answering that of God in everyone" -then war is the wrong method. An appeal to peaceable methods is not always in the world's eye successful. Therefore, anyone who uses this appeal must be prepared for loss and suffering. But this loss and suffering also accompanies recourse to violence.
Absence of Forms
We come now to the second meaning of the word "spiritual." A religion is spiritual if every outward word and act is a genuine expression of an inward state. Such a religion avoids all forms which are routine and planned in advance, for such forms tend to become hollow and empty of content. For this reason the early Quakers abandoned the outward form of the sacraments even though these visible manifestations are often genuine evidence of inward states. Among early Quakers, and still among many Friends today, the meeting for worship was as nearly without forms as possible, in order that whatever occurred might be a true and spontaneous expression of the Life within. A sermon prepared in advance might have been a true expression of the feelings of the minister at the time the sermon was prepared, but it did not necessarily arise out of the life of the meeting as a fresh and living revelation through the Spirit in the meeting. Hymns were not sung in the meeting because they put into the mouths of worshippers words which might not at the time truly express their spiritual states. The Bible was not usually read in a meeting for even this could become an empty form. The worshippers sat in silence, each endeavoring to commune with the Divine Presence in the midst and ready to express to the meeting any message which might arise in the mind as being clearly intended for the meeting as a whole.
It can be said that silence itself is a form. This is true, but it is not a form which commits anyone to any insincere act or speech. Friends are not opposed to addresses or lectures on religious subjects announced in advance, to Bible reading or to hymn singing; but such exercises are not meant to be the focus of a meeting for worship. The silence is considered to be a special kind of spiritual exercise where every effort is made to attain spontaneity, sincerity, and a fresh facing of reality.
In the past Friends sometimes leaned over backward in efforts to attain complete honesty and sincerity in speech. Many humorous anecdotes are based on the peculiarity. Such titles as Mr. and Mrs. (meaning master and mistress), your honor, your majesty, and reverend were avoided not only as being untrue, but as flattering the individual and ignoring the equality of everyone before God. For the same reasons the plural pronoun "you," formerly used to social superiors instead of the singular "thou," was for a long time avoided, as were taking off the hat, bowing, and other conventional manners. Closely allied with this effort to attain truth and sincerity was the testimony against every form of superfluity in dress, speech, and behavior. Simplicity is a form of genuineness. It means concentration upon that which is genuinely functional.
Quakerism is here described in terms of its ideals, not necessarily its attainments. In avoiding one form, Friends sometimes slipped into another. Forms and creeds are inevitable. They have important uses, especially in education, where forms are used to show what ought to be the real content, and even, sometimes, to create the content. Our Christian religion would be weak and vague without the doctrines which undergird it. Quakerism does not aim at formlessness and undiluted mysticism. It is a peculiar and unusually stubborn effort to create a kind of religion in which the outward form expresses, as nearly as possible, the inward thought and life.
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