Friends Testimonies

 “Let your life speak” is a well-used Quaker phrase.  It is our actions not our professed beliefs which demonstrate our understanding of God and of God’s will.  The testimonies are the way we live God’s guidance in our lives. 

“(Our) testimonies are the fruits of (our) spiritual foundation, not the foundation itself… We are Quakers because we have encountered something within that convinces us we can be and should be at peace, live simply, be loving toward all, or live any other witness that may rise from this experience”

Robert Griswold

“Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come; that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them.  Then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one.

George Fox: Journal, ed. John L Nickalls, 1952 (entry for 1656)

 

There is no definitive list of Quaker testimonies but they fall basically into the following categories: 

Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality

SPICE

Simplicity calls us to examine both our lifestyles and our hearts.  Do our possessions complicate or demand too much of our time and resources?  While not sacrificing beauty and dignity, do we draw a distinction between luxuries and necessities? Are we direct and straightforward in our communication with others? 

"Simplicity does not mean that all conform to uniform standards. Each must determine in the light that is given him what promotes and what hinders his compelling search for the Kingdom. The call to each is to abandon those things that clutter his life and to press toward the goal unhampered. This is true simplicity."

Faith and Practice of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (1955)

Peace  The Religious Society of Friends is one of the historic Peace churches.  From the beginning Friends have found that our experience of the divine Spirit within has led us to oppose war and to promote peacebuilding.  While believing that violent conflict is not the way to resolve differences between people or nations, rather than leading us to condemn men and women who make the choice to serve in the military, it increases our concern for their wellbeing.   We urge one another to examine our own lives to see how we may be sowing the seeds of war through our personal interactions, harboring of grudges, covetousness, desire for power, how we invest our money and what we choose to buy.  Friends have been active in promoting positive alternatives to war, and have active Peace Teams in areas of conflict in the world.  We can direct people toward counseling on conscientious objection.

“Most, if not all, people admit the transcendent excellency of peace.  All who adopt the petition, ‘Thy kingdom come’, pray for its universal establishment.   Some people then must begin to fulfil the evangelical promise, and cease to learn war any more.”

London Yearly meeting’s statement 1804,1805 issued during the Napoleonic Wars

 

‘We must set before us the highest ideal, that which ought to be, rather than that which is, believing that God is not alone the God of things as they are

but the God of things as they are meant to be”

All Friends Conference 1920

 

“To the world in its confusion Christ came.  Through him we know that God dwells with men and that by turning from evil and living in his spirit we may be led into his way of peace.  That way of peace is not to be found in any policy of ‘unconditional surrender’ by whomsoever demanded.  It requires that men and nations should recognise their common brotherhood, using the weapons of integrity, reason, patience and love, never acquiescing in the ways of the oppressor, always ready to suffer with the oppressed.  In every country there is a longing for freedom from domination and war which men are striving to express.  Now is the time to issue an open invitation to co-operate in creative peacemaking, to declare our willingness to make sacrifices of national prestige, wealth and standards of living for the common good of men.”

A statement issued by London Yearly Meeting during the Second World War

“We are called to root out the causes of war from our own lives and from the political and social structures about us.  We must seek out and remove the seeds of hatred and greed.  Instead of self-seeking, we must put sacrifice; instead of domination, cooperation.  Fear and suspicion must give place to trust and the spirit of understanding.  The barriers of race and class, of exaggerated notions of national sovereignty, must give way to a fellowship that makes all humanity a society of friends.  Our peace testimony must be inclusive of the whole of life.”

From New England Yearly Meeting’s book of Faith and Practice 1985 edition

Integrity involves making all our speech, thoughts and actions in harmony with the values revealed to us by the Spirit of Truth.  When we make a practice of being in communion with the Spirit and discerning divine guidance we feel compelled  to act in accordance with what is revealed to us.  Otherwise we are not acting with integrity and we feel that disconnect, that contradiction.  Integrity is a harmonious working together of heart, mind, spirit and body.  Being people of integrity is something we work on throughout our lives and it is a quality we bring to all our dealings with others and to our relationship with this planet which is our home. 

Integrity is a demanding discipline.We are challenged by cultural values and pressures to conform. Integrity requires that we be fully responsible for our actions. Living with integrity requires living a life of reflection, living in consistency with our beliefs and testimonies, and doing so regardless of personal consequences. Not least, it calls for a single standard of truth. From the beginning, Friends have held to this standard, and have often witnessed against the mainstream. When they suffered in consequence of their witness against secular order, their integration of belief and practice upheld them in adversity.                                                

Robert Griswold 

From time to time…. Adherence to factual truth can give rise to profound dilemmas for Quaker Peace and Service workers if they are in possession of information which could be used to endanger people’s lives or give rise to the abuse of fundamental human rights….Some of us are clear that in certain difficult circumstances we may still uphold our testimony to truthfulness while at the same time declining to disclose confidences which we have properly accepted.  Such withholding of the whole truth is not an option to be undertaken lightly as a convenient way out of a dilemma.  We all accept that ultimately it is up to an individual’s own conscience, held in the Light, to decide how to respond.

Quaker Peace and Service 1992

“A neighbor received a bad bruise to his body, and sent for me to bleed him; which being done, he desired me to write his will: I took notes, and, among other things, he told me to which of his children he gave his young negro:  I considered the pain and distress he was in, and knew not how it would end, so I wrote his Will, save only that part concerning his slave, and carrying it to his bedside, read it to him, and then told him in a friendly way, that I could not write any instruments by which my fellow-creatures were made slaves, without bringing trouble on my own mind.  I let him know that I charged nothing for what I had done and desired to be excused from doing the other part in the way he proposed.  Then we had a serious conference on the subject, and at length, he agreeing to set her free, I finished his will.”

An entry in the Journal of John Woolman 1756

We urge Friends everywhere to examine their lives in the Light of the needs of the whole Earth community, to change our lifestyles in small and in large ways, to help educate others in how to make as small an ecological footprint as possible, and also to lobby for the rights of the whole Earth community.  Reverence for human life cannot be separated from  maintaining the integrity and health of the ecology of our planet.  Many wars are based on  unjust and unsustainable use of  nonrenewable  resources.  We also see many social and ecological problems, which stem from overconsumption of resources and the pressure of overpopulation.

The Earth is our home and we are a part of its complex web of life.  We believe that the whole of God’s Creation is to be respected, protected and held in reverence in its own right not only because of the impact its exploitation and degradation has on human life.

We believe it is time for us to rise to a new understanding of who we are and what our place is in the community of life  - to take the matter of earthcare into our hearts with full awareness of its importance in our spiritual life  - to pray about it and discern together what each of us as individuals can do and what we as a community are called to do.

From a report to Friends World Committee for Consultation in Ireland, August 2007

Community

It is our experience as Friends that the Spirit guides us not only as individuals but also as members of a community. We are each born into community and will need to learn how interact with others.  We try to include in our sense of community not just our families and our faith community but all people, near and far, and the whole Earth community of non-human creatures.  A Friends meeting is a kind of nursery where concerns can be explored and nurtured and plans made for addressing them.  Sometimes the leading of one Friend becomes a leading for the whole community. 

When our communities are at their best they support us in our individuality as well as our commonality.  Each age group brings its particular gifts and insights as well as its challenges to the community. 

 “Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations against another; but praying one for another and helping one another up with a tender hand.”

Isaac Penington 1667

“There is a reciprocal nature to our relationships in community, but the love of God takes us beyond exchange and contract to covenant and commitment.  We care for those who need us, whether they are able to return the care or not.  We care for the prisoners who have harmed us, for they also are beloved of God.  We have compassion for those in power, even when we disagree with their actions, for we know they are human and carry within themselves the seed of love.  We care for migrants who have left home and family to seek a new life in a strange place.  We care for all we love and all we might come to love”

“Community is shelter, a safe place to grow, an arena for action, caring and love – and powered by and united in the Light”

From Intermountain Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice

Equality

Quakers have long affirmed what the laws of our country have explicitly ruled – that none of the categories that make us distinctive as individuals shall stand in the way of our realizing our lives fully and freely.  Women and men are equal.  All races are equal.  All people are free to choose whatever religion speaks to their need.  We value and respect youth and age equally with other stages of life.  One of the current challenges facing Friends as a worldwide body is our testimony of equality in the context of same gender marriage.  Almost all the Friends meetings in New England are supportive of and will perform same gender marriages.  The following is our own church’s policy:

Minute on Same-Gender Marriage or Committed Relationships approved in January 2005

Winthrop Center Friends Church is committed to the testimony of equality of all people in the eyes of the law and of God. We feel called to practice a single standard of treatment for all committed relationships. We will deal with requests for same-gender unions in the same way as we deal with those between heterosexual couples.  We believe such a practice to be in accordance with the Spirit which speaks through the scriptures and which continues to guide us today. We affirm the spiritual nature of a life-long commitment between partners whatever the combination of genders, and it is our intention to support such commitments.  The couple involved may refer to their union by whatever name they choose.  Maine law does not at this time provide a legal foundation for the marriage of a same gender couple.  We will encourage such couples to put into place the legal documents that approximate as much as possible the legal responsibilities and privileges of a civil marriage.

Friends have become well-known for their work in the areas of gender and racial equality. The spiritual leadership of women was recognized from the beginning of the Religious Society of Friends. The first two Quakers who came to what is now the United States to travel in the ministry were women – Mary Fisher and Ann Austin.  Many of the leaders in the women’s suffrage movement in the U.S. in the 19th. century were Quakers, including Susan B. Anthony and Lucrecia Mott. 

Friends eventually became leaders in the anti-slavery movement.  In the 1700s John Woolman began to stir the conscience of Friends concerning the owning of slaves.  In 1776 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (the most influential in the USA at the time) prohibited members from owning slaves, and on Feb 11 1790 Friends petitioned the U.S.Congress for the abolition of slavery.  American Friends were prominent participants in the Underground Railroad. 

In the 19th Century Elizabeth Fry and her brother, Joseph John Gurney campaigned for the humane treatment of prisoners. Fry went into prisons herself to provide food, blankets, education, and other assistance to the prisoners. They were able to persuade members of Parliament to pass reform legislation to improve prison conditions. They also were able to influence legislation that reduced the number of crimes that were punishable by death.

In the 1960s a Friend named Eric Baker took part in the founding of Amnesty International, a human rights group primarily focused on the treatment of those in prison and those accused of crimes. It is not directly connected with the Religious Society of Friends but has similar ideals as those on which the Testimony of Equality is based.