Seek Spirit, Savor Intellect

Quakerism: A Theology for Our Time
by Patricia A. Williams

Table of Contents

1. Background

Part I: The Stable Core: The Light Within

2. Theology: Considering the Light
3. Worship: Experiencing the Light
4. Decisions: Uniting in the Light
5. Testimonies: Living in the Light

Part II: Scripture: The Challenge of Rational Criticism

6. The Fall of Adam and Eve
7. Salvation
8. The Authority of Scripture
9. Universalism

Part III: Science: The Encounter with Empirical Knowledge

10. Science in the Light
11. Origins
12. Human Nature
13. A Theology for Our Time

From Chapter I: Background
Biblical scholars are crying out for a new paradigm for Christianity. Why? Scholarship on the book of Genesis shows the doctrine of the Fall (that human nature changes for the worse) is not in the text, and this alters the atonement. Scholarship on the Gospels distinguishes sayings and deeds of the historical Jesus from those the later church created. This influences Jesus’ meaning for today. Scholarship shows St. Paul thought the law superseded and, so, undermines Christian embrace of the laws in the Hebrew Scriptures, including the Ten Commandments. And, finally, documentary discoveries are altering scholarly understanding of late Judaism and early Christianity. The early church was not orthodox, but replete with a concatenation of beliefs.

Clearly, the scholarship demands that Christianity change. Blessedly, the altered paradigm scholars seek has existed since the seventeenth century. Quakers created it. Quakers based their defining belief, that all people have a measure of the divine Light within them, on experience, and their other beliefs follow logically from it.

Although this book concentrates on the Quakerism of the seventeenth century, the Quakerism I describe is alive and well in the twenty-first. I have emphasized early Quakerism to avoid confusion about whether I am referring to early or contemporary Quaker beliefs and practices. Those Quakers today known as unprogrammed Quakers carry on the traditions of the seventeenth century, and therefore their theology merges here with that of early Quakerism. Most of today’s Quakers are orthodox Christians and thus fall under my coverage of Christian orthodoxy.
 
When referring to orthodox Christians, I mean traditions of the Catholic and Protestant West. Protestantism and Catholicism share many beliefs, for example, the Trinity, the virgin birth, the divinity and two natures of Jesus (divine and human), the blood atonement, the resurrection, and salvation exclusively through Christianity. Conservatives among the orthodox also believe the Bible inerrant or read it literally and believe in Jesus’ bodily resurrection and ascension. Liberals among the orthodox in the West think the early chapters of the Bible metaphorical or mythological, but read much of the remainder uncritically. They believe in Jesus’ spiritual resurrection and ascension. The early Quakers emphasize spirituality—direct experience of the divine—rather than intellectual speculation. They freely criticize the Bible and find salvation through transformation of life rather than through intellectual beliefs. Therefore, they are not orthodox in either sense. They considered their movement a third way, neither Protestant nor Catholic. Quaker theologian Robert Barclay wrote their definitive work.

Robert Barclay
Robert Barclay (1648-1690) is the finest spokesperson for Quakerism’s third way, even today. He was a contemporary of George Fox (1624-1691), the founder of Quakerism. Except in minor details, his theology is Fox’s theology. Fox, however, although a prolific author, was largely self-educated and unsystematic in his thinking. In contrast, Barclay descended from Scottish aristocracy. He was educated in Scotland and France, in both Calvinism and Roman Catholicism. He read Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Thus, he shocked society when he joined the Quakers in 1667 and married after the Quaker manner in the first Quaker wedding celebrated in Aberdeen, Scotland. He wrote three books. His main work, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, published in Latin in 1676 and in English two years later, is so outstanding theologically and literarily that no one until now has felt the need to write another comprehensive Quaker theology, or even to update the Apology, except to render it in modern English. In it, Barclay defends Quaker theology intellectually against the orthodoxies of his day, especially Calvinism. In an earlier work, A Catechism and Confession of Faith (1673), he supports Quaker theology by scriptural quotation, and in Anarchy of the Ranters and Other Libertines (1676), he defends Quaker organization against anarchy and hierarchy. For reasons that become clear in this book, Barclay’s theology can thrive in the intellectual climate of the twenty-first century.

by Patricia A. Williams

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