Thank God for the Quakers!

Growing up in rural northwest Missouri and then going to two small Baptist colleges in the state, I had no opportunity to know any Quakers. But long before I knew a Quaker personally, I came to have great admiration and appreciation for those known by that name. 

Quaker Origins

The beginning of the Quaker movement goes back to Englishman George Fox (1624~91) and the “openings” (revelations) he experienced 375 years ago, in 1646. A few years later, the Religious Society of Friends was the name settled on by Fox and his followers. They were also called Quakers.

In spite of considerable opposition, the number of Quakers in England grew quite rapidly, and by 1655/6 the first Friends arrived in North America, where there was also great opposition and great growth.

In 1681, 340 years ago, British King Charles II granted a land charter to William Penn, a Quaker, and that was the beginning of what became the state of Pennsylvania—and a period of significant Quaker influence in North America.

Quaker Beliefs/Practices

According to Quaker.org, “Quakers are a worldwide, global community of people who are diverse in every way, including what they believe and practice. There are Quakers who are progressive Christians, there are Quakers who are Evangelical, and Friends who are . . . even atheist.”

A foundational belief of Quakers from their beginning is that there can be direct, unmediated relationship with the Divine. Fox emphasized there is “that of God in every person,” and through the centuries since their beginning, Friends have stressed the Light Within or the Inner Light.

Because of that basic belief, Quakers originally, and many still, reject having clergy, creeds, or sacraments/rituals (including baptism and Communion).

Quaker Contributions

Even though there are many differences among contemporary Quakers, the historic contributions of the Religious Society of Friends are considerable. They include the following:

1) Their consistent emphasis on peace and opposition to violence. 

Perhaps that is the position for which they are best known, and that is one reason I developed such a good opinion of the Quakers in the 1970s, when I learned about the work of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).

AFSC’s current website gives this vision statement: “A just, peaceful, and sustainable world free of violence, inequality, and oppression.” They also state that their mission is to work “with communities and partners worldwide to challenge unjust systems and promote lasting peace.”

2) Their emphasis on equality and opposition to the subordination of women and to slavery.

Margaret Fell (1614~1702) was one of the co-founders of the Religious Society of Friends, and she was prominent in the early years of the Quakers in England. (More than ten years after the death of her first husband, she married George Fox in 1669.)

In the U.S., the Quakers were the first religious body to protest slavery publicly. In 1790 they presented a petition to Congress calling for the abolition of slavery, and the Quakers are positively mentioned in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Several of the most prominent advocates of both the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage in the U.S. were Quaker women: Sarah & Angelina Grimké, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, and others.

3) Their emphasis on simplicity and opposition to ostentation and unnecessary consumption.

Friends have traditionally believed that people should use their resources, including money and time, deliberately in ways that are most likely to make life truly better for themselves and others. 

“Live simply so that others may simply live” is a saying often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. But long before Gandhi was born in 1869, simple living was a cornerstone of Quaker practice.  

So, even though I have some misgivings about the underpinnings of Quaker theology, I say, emphatically, Thank God for the Quakers and for their 375 years of emphasis on peace, equality, and the simple life! The world now would be better off if there were more of them and more of us like them.

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** In background preparation for writing this article, I found Thomas D. Hamm's The Quakers in America (2003) to be helpful. And now I am looking forward to reading J. Brent Bill's brand new book Hope and Witness in Dangerous Times: Lessons From the Quakers on Blending Faith, Daily Life, and Activism, which is scheduled to be delivered to my Kindle tomorrow.

My Favorite Farmer

Wendell Berry, the inimitable farmer, who is also a novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, and cultural critic, is celebrating his 85^th birthday today. Please join me in wishing Mr. Berry a Happy Birthday. 

Photo of Berry by Steve Hebert of the NY Times

Favorite Farmers?

I now refer to Berry as “my favorite farmer.” Why would I do that? (And who would even have a list of favorite farmers?!)

Well, I am the son of a farmer, and I would have to say that my father (1915~2007) was my favorite farmer—even though my appreciation for him, of course, was for far more than his being a farmer.

Another of my favorite farmers was Clarence Jordan, the founder of Koinonia Farm in Georgia. I have long had great admiration for Jordan, and in commemoration of the 100^th anniversary of his birth, in July 2012 I posted a blog article titled “In Praise of Clarence Jordan.”

My appreciation for Jordan (d. 1969), though, was primarily because of his public words and actions rather than because of how he farmed.

Wendell Berry is now my favorite living farmer—but just as for my father and Clarence Jordan, it is for far more than his being a farmer that I admire him and seek to honor him today on his birthday. Still, his being a farmer is also of significance.

Becoming a Farmer

In the summer of 1964, Berry moved back to Kentucky, to a small acreage on the Kentucky River near where he was born in 1934. In the 1964-65 academic year, I lived in east Kentucky, serving as pastor of the Clay City Baptist Church and making numerous trips to Louisville where I was a graduate student.

As I regularly crossed the Kentucky River south of Frankfort on I-64, I didn’t know the man whom I would later call my favorite farmer lived downstream, not far from where that river flows into the Ohio River. In fact, it would be several years before I would even hear the name Wendell Berry.

Through the years, however, I began to hear more and more about Berry and became increasingly impressed with him as a farmer, as a writer/poet, and as an environmentalist. His is truly a prophetic voice that needs to be heard and heeded today.

Small Farmer, Large Influence

Since from back in the 1970s, many of us have used what we thought was a good slogan: “Think globally, act locally.” It was with some consternation, then, that I recently discovered that Berry did not particularly like that slogan.

Berry emphasizes the importance of thinking locally as well as acting locally. One of his essays is titled “Think Little.” In that 1970 essay he writes, “For most of the history of this country our motto, implied or spoken, has been Think Big. A better motto, and an essential one now, is Think Little.”

Thinking little, in part, means seeking to change one’s own lifestyle and consumption habits for the sake of the environment rather than trying to change the world.

Berry writes in that essay, now republished in The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry (2017),  

If you are concerned about air pollution, help push for government controls, but drive your car less, use less fuel in your home. . . . if you are fearful of the destruction of the environment, then learn to quit being an environmental parasite. . . . To have a healthy environment we will all have to give up things we like; we may even have to give up things we have come to think of as necessities (p. 55).

Through the decades Berry has lived out his ideals on his small Kentucky acreage. He has farmed with horses rather than with tractors. And one of his well-known essays is “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer” (1987).

In this modern world, there probably can’t be many people who think like and especially who live like Wendell Berry. Nevertheless, the world is certainly better off because of the way he thinks and lives—and because of the way he has been able to share his wisdom so widely, despite not using a computer.

Berry’s is not the final word on the issues he addresses. But his is, indeed, a good and important word that needs to be considered with utmost seriousness.

TTT #21 Too Little Is Almost Always Better than Too Much

For some reason, the 21st chapter of Thirty True Things . . . (TTT), which can be accessed here, seems a bit dated—but it shouldn’t. True, it refers quite a lot to ideas, books, and movements of the 1970s, but the problems being confronted then are still problems now, so I have no hesitation in linking this article to Chapter 21 of TTT.

What is the Problem?

My children probably didn’t appreciate me mentioning it so much, but from time to time I would say to them, “Too little is almost always better than too much.” That saying was not in harmony with the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, in which we were living then—or are living now.

In the United States, as in most of the “developed world,” the winds of capitalism have blown over the land so strongly that, fanned by the ubiquitous commercials on television, radio, and newspapers, the desire of most people is for more and more material things.

Generally, people don’t like to think about or use the word greed, especially in referring to themselves, but upon careful analysis it is hard not to think that that word is applicable to much of the consumerism rampant in capitalist societies.

Of course, greed means the excessive desire to acquire more and more, especially more material possessions, than what one needs. But the question is always about what is enough and what is, truly, excessive.

Compared to the vast majority of the people in the world, most of us middle-class people in North America, Europe, and Japan possess much more than we really need.

And considering the sizeable portion of the world’s population who live in poverty, the middle class, to say nothing of the upper class, definitely have excessive possessions. (Of course, many of those middle-class people, especially in this country, have excessive debts as well.)

So it was thinking about the problem of economic imbalance in the world, about matters of justice and equality, that led me to say to my children that too little is almost always better than too much.

What seems like too little is usually enough; too much is usually wasteful and/or extravagant.

Responding to the Problem

In the 1970s there was considerable talk among some people about “simple living.” John V. Taylor, a prominent British missionary and theologian, published in 1975 a thoughtful book called Enough Is Enough.

Back then, “Live simply so that others may simply live” was a popular slogan in some circles. The idea behind that statement, of course, is that those who voluntarily choose to live simply will have more resources to share with those who don’t have enough to live on. 

The simple living movement has been seen more recently: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Simple Living was published in 2000.

Caring for the poor has a long history in the Christian church. The current Catechism of the Catholic Church makes the RCC’s position clear: the Church’s love for the poor “is a part of her constant tradition.”

The same Catechism clearly declares, “Love for the poor is incompatible with immoderate love of riches or their selfish use.” It then cites the stinging words of Archbishop John Chrysostom (c.349~407): “Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life.”

Over-consumption is one of the ways in the contemporary world that the rich steal from the poor. That is the reason one of the things important for everyone to know now is that, especially when it comes to middle-class peoples’ stance toward material things, too little is almost always better than too much.

The Shakertown Pledge

Thirty True Things Every Christian Needs to Know Now is the title of the manuscript for a new book that I mailed to a publisher just yesterday. There are thirty five-page chapters proposed for the book, and #21 is “Too Little Is Almost Always Better Than Too Much.”

In that chapter I write about the “simple living movement” of the 1960s and 1970s—and also refer to Christy Edwards, my pastor’s wife,who preached at Second Baptist Church earlier this year and cited the words that were already in my manuscript, “Live simply so that others may simply live.”

In the chapter mentioned, I make reference to the Shakertown Pledge, which was finalized thirty-eight years ago today, on April 30, 1973, at the site of a restored Shaker village near Harrodsburg, Kentucky. (The Shakers, as most of you may know, were members of a religious sect similar to the Quakers; it was most active between 1750 and 1850.)

The Pledge itself was drafted as a response to the unequal distribution of global wealth and resources, and called for group action by Christians to rectify the problem. Here is the Shakertown Pledge in its entirety:

Recognizing that Earth and the fullness thereof is a gift from our gracious God, and that we are called to cherish, nurture, and provide loving stewardship for Earth's resources, and recognizing that life itself is a gift, and a call to responsibility, joy, and celebration, I make the following declarations:

1. I declare myself a world citizen.

2. I commit myself to lead an ecologically sound life.

3. I commit myself to lead a life of creative simplicity and to share my personal wealth with the world’s poor.

4. I commit myself to join with others in the reshaping of institutions in order to bring about a more just global society in which all people have full access to the needed resources for their physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual growth.

5. I commit myself to occupational accountability, and so doing I will seek to avoid the creation of products which cause harm to others.

6. I affirm the gift of my body and commit myself to its proper nourishment and physical wellbeing.

7. I commit myself to examine continually my relations with others and to attempt to relate honestly, morally, and lovingly to those around me.

8. I commit myself to personal renewal through prayer, meditation, and study.

9. I commit myself to responsible participation in a community of faith.

I encourage all of you who read this to consider carefully the content of the Shakertown Pledge. Further, I invite you to not just think about it but to go on and make the pledge. I first became aware of the Pledge when I read No More Plastic Jesus: Global Justice and Christian Lifestyle (1977) in the late ’70s, making the pledge then and renewing it a few days ago. 

Making the Shakertown Pledge now may not have a great influence upon the world in the years ahead, but it will have some influence. And it will also make a difference, a positive difference, in the lives of all of us who make, and live up to, the commitments contained in the pledge.