Quaker Nation?
ANDERSON, RYAN T.
Quaker Nation? The Society of Friends and American society. by Ryan T. Anderson Everything you think you know about them is probably wrong. They don't live in pennsylvania or ride...
...Would Justin Martyr, who wrote in the second century that Christian worship was a liturgy of readings, a sermon, and a sacrament (the Eucharist), recognize Fox's version as more authentic...
...Yount closes his book by saying that "Friends' spirituality increasingly resonates with Americans of all faiths and none...
...Rather than a sustained presentation of the way Quakers affected American life, Yount merely catalogues Quaker values and asserts they are also American values...
...Their "Meeting for Worship," held on the "First Day" (Sunday) consists of sitting silently on plain wooden benches in a plain room for an hour...
...Simple living, truthful speaking, and plain dressing became Quaker hallmarks...
...Yet the title argument is the book's least developed and least convincing...
...Yount is a theologically serious Christian...
...The "permanent agenda" of the Friends Committee on National Legislation "seeks the peaceful prevention of deadly conflicts, extension of civil rights to all Americans, protection of the environment, and redistribution of taxes to meet pressing human needs...
...They didn't compose "Simple Gifts" (the Shakers...
...Yount describes a largely nonexistent Quakerism because he mistakes his ideal image of Quakerism for reality...
...Given my experience, it seems that America has reinvented the Quakers...
...how many modern Quakers even use the word "sin," and who would Quakers say released them from it...
...Thirteen of America's original 29 senators were Episcopalians...
...In fact, he quotes more Catholics than Quakers...
...But some of Yount's examples are merely amusing...
...A "convinced" Friend (the term used for "convert") with three theology degrees and nine books to his name, Yount brings to the project the usual Ryan T. Anderson is a junior fellow at First Things...
...While it's true that Thomas paine was a birthright Quaker (but didn't practice as an adult) and that Susan B. Anthony was a Friend for life, have Quakers really contributed more than puritans, presbyterians and Episcopalians, or Locke and Rousseau, or Madison, Hamilton and Jay or, for that matter, Jefferson (who derided the Quakers as "Protestant Jesuits...
...They were called "Quakers" because when Friends encountered God they would literally quake with a "feeling of release from sin and the power of God to forgive it...
...It's understandable...
...Those moved by the Spirit to share their inspiration stand, speak, and sit back down...
...Believe and act as you wish with God's blessing, even his inspiration...
...This also leads one to wonder if the Quaker influences he claims "invented" America aren't simply part of the common heritage of traditional Christianity...
...But it's readily clear that many Quakers, unlike Yount, have been drawn to Quakerism precisely because they reject the Christian legacy...
...Fox preached that because "there is that of God in everyone" (the standard Quaker tenet) everyone has equal access to God—no ministers required...
...This becomes apparent as Yount explains Quaker spirituality and the Inner Light, for he quotes no less than 10 Roman Catholic and Anglican thinkers—from Dante and Anselm to Teresa of Avila and C.S...
...They don't all wear black suites and broad-brimmed hats (the guy on the oatmeal box...
...They don't live in pennsylvania or ride horse-and-buggies (that's the Amish...
...And Yount's exposition on Quaker spiritual practices that make eternal life present now is one of the most appealing parts of the book, especially in our fast-paced, media-driven culture...
...For all Yount's emphasis on Jesus and the Bible I couldn't help but notice that the booklet "Faith and Practice," just put out by the Quaker school I attended for 12 years, fails to use the words "Jesus" or "Bible" at all...
...The problem, as even Yount admits, is that when Quakers talk about God, "God himself may have trouble recognizing himself," for "whenever two or three Quakers" are gathered, "there may be five different opinions...
...Who are the Americans, exactly, who lack civil rights...
...Since he writes for both Quakers and non-Quakers—religious skeptics and enthusiasts—the book tends more toward apologetics than academics...
...Fox tells us it was precisely "to turn people from darkness to light that they might receive Christ Jesus...
...Sandwiched between opening and concluding chapters that attempt to show the Quaker influence on America are 10 well-crafted chapters explaining the basics of Quakerism...
...If you haven't guessed, I'm talking about the Quakers...
...He submits that "all Americans prefer casual clothing" because of the Quakers who, by the way, also invented "the idea of marriage...
...Meanwhile, Yount overlooks distinctively Quaker ideals that never quite received patents: The prohibition of alcohol and general hostility toward holidays, sports, and theater...
...in fact, he's a Catholic who became a convinced Quaker late in life and says he has "rejected none of that legacy...
...This is all too symptomatic of modern Quakers—even those Friends self-consciously trying to reassert their Quaker identity...
...And in How the Quakers Invented America, veteran journalist David Yount presents the much-overlooked and misunderstood Religious Society of Friends (as they're formally known) to an America that doesn't realize how much it owes them...
...Yount claims that Fox's genius consisted in focusing on the Spirit by ignoring the theological disputes that hindered true Christianity...
...In the end, I'm not convinced that the Quakers invented America...
...But for much of the book Yount writes about a Quakerism that doesn't actually exist...
...Early Friends were known as "Friends of Truth...
...And yes, the Liberty Bell was originally named the Great Quaker Bell...
...Even granting his (unsubstantiated) demographic point, Yount should tread lightly, for most Americans would find Quakerism attractive for reasons very different from his own...
...He describes a scriptur-ally rich, Christ-centered community of Friends whom we'll know—as Yount repeatedly reminds readers—"by their fruits...
...Isn't this exactly what Fox did...
...Yount's historical-theological arguments for Quakerism also seem shaky...
...Yet one could argue that this was Fox's great mistake...
...Quakers look to the "Inner Light" (their term for the Holy Spirit) for inspiration, which is paramount: "Scripture and creed were subordinate to the inspiration of the Spirit...
...Early Friends quaked at the experience of release from sin...
...Yount insists that Quakers "contributed more than any other group to the founding ideals that sustain our national life...
...Lewis...
...When he asserts that "George Fox restored primitive Christianity . . . to the simple faith and practice of Jesus' own companions," Yount simply repeats a long-discredited romanticized notion of "primitive" Christianity...
...The appeal of being "spiritual but not religious"—where "religious," from the Latin religare, means binding oneself to common life, morals, and beliefs-is attractive to Americans...
...For at the center of Fox's Quakerism was the truth that "one must first repent in order to live in the new era dominated by God's spirit...
...Except, of course, when it comes to politics...
...Then one can focus on the "testimonies" of simplicity, equality, integrity, community, and peace...
...Though there are always outliers, most Friends are committed liberals...
...Emphases on peace and the environment would be expected from Fox's Quakers, but one has to wonder why a "permanent agenda" with only four goals includes redistributive taxation and what can only be understood as a veiled appeal for gay marriage...
...advantages and drawbacks of being both a practitioner and a scholar of his subject...
...The emphasis on silence and expectant listening is to focus on living in the light of eternity "through immersion in the present moment...
...And though he mentions them, he pays them scant attention...
...What is the truth that Quakers proclaim today...
...only one was a Quaker...
...Yes, the Quaker-drafted Rhode Island constitution was an influence on the Bill of Rights...
...It's unclear how Yount reconciles Catholic belief in sacraments, priests, and dogma with Quaker belief that they get in the way...
...Rather than restoring "primitive Christianity," it seems George Fox isolated the contemplative strand of Christianity and set it up as the whole...
...As Yount himself notes, heresies focus on a real truth "but they stretch that truth to redefine Christian faith by oversimplifying it...
...This wasn't done to undermine Christianity...
...In 17th century England— a hundred years after the reforms of Calvin and Luther—George Fox sought a more radical reform, doing away with "steeple-houses," clergy, sacraments, hymns, creeds, sermons, and idolization of scripture...
...But what are the fruits of modern Quakerism...
Vol. 12 • July 2007 • No. 40
