I some­times like to high­light the com­ments that peo­ple leave here on the blog. A few days ago, Carl Abbott replied to a link to a Steven Davi­son post on com­mu­ni­ty as a tes­ti­mo­ny. He wrote:

William Pen­n’s intro­duc­tion to George Fox’s Jour­nal (1691) speaks to some­thing very like community:

“Besides these gen­er­al doc­trines, as the larg­er branch­es, there sprang forth sev­er­al par­tic­u­lar doc­trines, that did exem­pli­fy and far­ther explain the truth and effi­ca­cy of the gen­er­al doc­trine before observed, in their lives and exam­ples: as,

Com­mu­nion and lov­ing one anoth­er. This is anot­ed mark in the mouth of all sorts of peo­ple con­cern­ing them: They will meet, they will help and stick one to anoth­er. Whence it is com­mon to hear some say: Look how the Quak­ers love and take care of one anoth­er. Oth­ers, less mod­er­ate, will say: The Quak­ers live none but them­selves: and if lov­ing one anoth­er. and hav­ing an inti­mate com­mu­nion in reli­gion, and con­stant care to meet to wor­ship God, and help one anoth­er, be any mark of prim­i­tive Chris­tian­i­ty, they had it, blessed be the Lord in ample manner.” 

This cer­tain­ly sounds like com­mu­ni­ty to me.