Quaker
LibraryPAGE FOUR: PRACTICES
Index of pages: 1: Introduction, 2:Worship,
3:History, 4:Practices
The Quakers, or Our Neighbors, The Friends
By William J. Whalen
About the Author:
Since 1950 William J. Whalen has directed the publications program at Purdue University where he is also an associate professor of communication. He attended the University of Notre Dame and received degrees from Marquette and Northwestern. During World War II he served as a Navy public information officer on Saipan and Guam. Professor Whalen is the author or co-author of 13 books and more than 200 articles, pamphlets, and encyclopedia entries. He is a Roman Catholic.
The present pamphlet was originally published in 1966 by Claretian Publications. It is now republished by Friends General Conference with permission from the author, who has also approved certain up-datings and minor changes in wording.
Dedication to Worldwide Service
Although the Quaker movement is fragmented, most Quakers support the work of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). This is the cooperative agency which provides continuity and supervision for the worldwide Friends efforts to achieve peace and eliminate poverty, ignorance, and disease. It was founded in 1917 and first concentrated on war relief and aid to refugees. Now the AFSC works in the fields of community relations, international service and affairs, and peace education. Its executive secretary and board of directors are all Friends, but only about one-third of its 500 staff workers are Friends. All must subscribe in general to the attitudes and peace concerns which characterize the Society of Friends.
About half the staff works at the national office in Philadelphia, while others work in regional offices in the United States and seventeen other nations.
Money to support the work of the AFSC comes from Quakers and non-Quakers, foundations, corporations, and sometimes from governments in areas where the committee labors. English Quakers support a similar cooperative agency.
Other Friends organizations include Friends Committee on National Legislation, Friends World Committee for Consultation, Quaker Universalist Fellowship, Quaker Home Service, Friends Council on Education, Friends Committee on Unity with Nature and Quakers Uniting in Publications.
Education and Pacifism
 The Peaceable Kingdom, by Edward Hicks. The center-left of the picture depicts the signing of the treaty between William Penn and the Indians which established the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. |
From their beginnings Quakers have been involved in education for persons of all ages and both sexes in subjects which are, as Fox called them, "useful in creation." On the American frontier the Quaker Meeting often housed the community's first school, which in time became an academy and then the nucleus of the public school. As earlier schools in the care of Friends died out, new ones sprang up. Today many Quaker elementary and secondary schools enroll both Quaker and non-Quaker students.
All but two of the Quaker colleges in the United States were founded since the Civil War. Best known of these colleges are Swarthmore, Earlham, Haverford, Guilford, Wilmington, William Penn, Friends, and Whittier. A Quaker financier, Ezra Cornell, gave his name and substantial endowments to establish one of the nation's leading private universities, but Cornell University has never been affiliated with the Quaker movement. Neither has the university founded by another Quaker, Johns Hopkins.Those Friends churches which offer a programmed rather than the unprogrammed silent meeting also usually employ a salaried minister. A Quaker school of theology to train ministers has been established at Earlham College. Pendle Hill, near Philadelphia, serves as a study center of Quaker thought.
Consistent with its philosophy of the Inner Light and the imperatives of conscience, the Society of Friends does not insist that every Friend be a pacifist. During World War II about 8,000 American Quakers served in the armed forces, 1,000 served in noncombatant posts, 1,000 received deferments, and 100 were sent to prison. The Quaker who enlists in the army or navy does not suffer ostracism, although in earlier days such action might have led to being read out of meeting. The basic Quaker position of pacifism is subject to the individual's own conscience, which may lead one Quaker to prison for refusing to register, and another to the armed forces.
A Quaker will avoid liquor and gambling as well as refuse to swear an oath in court; but nowadays an affirmation is all that is required from those who have religious objections to oaths. The Quakers will not join secret societies, such as Freemasonry, which specialize in oaths.
A Quaker is likely to show a concern for peace, racial equality, prison reform, abolition of capital punishment, slum clearance, support of the United Nations, coexistence with Communist states, and mental health programs. Yet any individual Quaker could conscientiously oppose or ignore any of these concerns.
American Quakers have produced scientists, writers, and public figures far out of proportion to their numbers. John Greenleaf Whittier was known as the Quaker poet. Susan B. Anthony led the fight for votes for women and equality of the sexes. Dorothea Dix pioneered in the movement to get better treatment of the mentally ill.
Rufus Jones and Henry Cadbury were prolific Quaker writers. Both served in administrative positions as chairmen of the American Friends Service Committee, as well as in academic settings. Henry Cadbury was perhaps best known for his work on a committee that produced the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Using a computer to develop the concordance at a time when computers were scarce, he surprised his colleagues by completing the project in a few months rather than the expected two years. Current noted theologians and Quaker writers include D. Elton Trueblood, Douglas Steere, Richard J. Foster, Margaret Bacon and Elfrida Vipont to name a few.
Kenneth Boulding, prominent international economist is a Quaker and a researcher of conflict resolution. Elise Boulding is known for her work in peace featuring or imaging a world without wars. Dr. Mary Calderone heads SIECUS (Sex Information and Education Council of the United States) and has been medical director of the Planned Parenthood Federation.
A number of Quaker novelists who have achieved considerable success include: James A. Michener, Chesapeake, Centennial; Jessamyn West, Friendly Persuasion; Jan de Hartog, The Peaceable Kingdom, The Lamb's War; Daisy Newman, A Procession of Friends, I Take Thee Serenity; and Elizabeth Gray Vining, Being Seventy, Quiet Pilgrimage.
Toward True Godliness
If Quakerism has anything to say it may be that personal commitment is central and essential to the Christian faith. The Quakers are mystics but they do not ignore humankind in cultivating their own spiritual lives. As William Penn wrote: "True godliness does not turn men out of the world but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavors to mend it."
With few members and few converts, the Friends demonstrate what even such a small band of men and women can do to serve humanity throughout the world.Index of Pages:
1: Introduction, 2: Worship, 3: History, 4:Practices (this page).
