From: The Wine Gave Out
When I look back at the time in that library in England where it appeared that maybe Quakerism was already dead, I found outside those walls a movement of the Spirit that was renewing Friends, leading Friends in faithfulness to challenge their yearly meeting structures and the exclusion of some of God’s children, new meetings arising to meet contemporary needs, and young people taking leadership roles often reserved for Quakers twice their age. There is good wine among Friends being faithful to Jesus.
It seems to me that history became a particularly favorite Quaker past time for two reasons: our avoidance of anything resembling a creed, and our post-schism desire to authenticate “our brand” of Quakerism as the “real Quakerism.”
As the Friends movement splintered into a dozen or competing sects in the nineteenth century (most notably especially Hicksite vs. Gurneyite vs. Wilburite), we could mine and interpret the history of “early Friends” to divine which branch they would have favored. And by collecting and interpreting old Quaker journals and epistles we could map out an “authentic” Quaker set of beliefs and practices.
The problem is that most early Friends didn’t go about to create a new sect: they were Christians getting back to the basics. Part of the thrill of hearing George Fox’s sermons is that he wasn’t just reciting or proof-texting scripture, but speaking it as if it were new and fresh and true. That’s hard to do. I know I often reach for the rhetorical crutch of the “early Quakers,” but the irony is that those very Friends weren’t stuck on history. I think part of this is a distinctly modern sensibility: those of us brought up in Western academic traditions think about time and change differently than mid-seventeenth century British sheepherders. But as Wess points out, it’s just as much a result of wine that’s sat out too long and gone a bit vinegary.