When it comes to religious life in nineteenth-century America, it can easily be said that many Christian communities—from all denominations—experienced dramatic, often schismatic shifts in their beliefs, doctrines, praxes, and emphases. This is perhaps no more apparent than with the Quakers, whose spirit of unity and purpose seemingly mutated during the 1800s into one of insular bifurcation and dismissive factionalism, challenging (or rejecting) the original mission of the movement under the leadership of its founder, George Fox. As Hamm and Barnes note, “Schisms had rent Quakerism asunder, and labels such as Hicksite, Orthodox, Wilburite, Gurneyite, and Conservative were required to denote its branches.”[1] Yet, the etiology of these groups did not happen overnight; most were decades in their development and were fundamentally driven by a myriad of cultural and historical forces (such as Westward expansionism, the Civil War, industrialization, educational reforms, economic prosperity, and suffrage).
In his epic historical volume, The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800–1907, Thomas Hamm thoroughly discusses how a religious movement that once prided itself in its simplicity of mission and manner “had split into three mutually antagonistic factions that feuded bitterly over the direction that the society was to take.”[2] Moreover, chapter-by-chapter, readers can see how Fox’s original criticism concerning religious culture and conformity acting as impediments—not aids—for experiencing peace and joy in the Lord[3] was still relevant in the nineteenth century. The joie de vivre of primitive Quakerism slowly and surely was replaced with other, less mollifying sentiments, due mainly to Quakerism’s progression from idealization to personalization to amplification and finally to institutionalization, after Fox died in 1691.
In The Transformation, Hamm leads readers through the historical phenomena of Quietism, which “deemphasized preaching and all other external means of grace and instead focused on shutting out anything that might distract from the achievement of total spiritual communion with God,”[4] in search of embracing the Inward Light[5] heralded by Fox in the 1640s (idealization). The Quietists could be considered purists in their approach, just as the Wilburites would be decades later. Hamm remarks, “In Wilburite eyes, the early Friends had been given a greater measure of understanding than others in grasping the truths of Christianity.”[6]
Perhaps due to the individualistic nature of Quakerism (personalization) and Fox’s assessment, “Why should any man have power over any other man's faith, seeing Christ Himself is the author of it?”[7] the solidity of Quakerism began to splinter, with amateur leaders such as New Yorker Elias Hicks suggesting an alternative spiritual path to traditional Quakerism. As Knox explains, “With controversy stemming from the unorthodox, Universalist teachings of Elias Hicks who asserted that the Bible was secondary to the light of God within every human being, the conference concluded with a Quaker split called the Great Separation of 1827.”[8] Hamm further states, “Hicks’s ‘heresies’ lay not in his championship of the Inner Light but rather in conclusions about Christ and the Bible that he drew from his [own] perception of the light.”[9]
For many Quakers, this was too far of a theological jump to make, doctrinally, and they felt threatened by this newly emerging heterodoxy. Concerned about this dangerous movement, English banker and Quaker preacher Joseph John Gurney traveled “across the pond” in 1837. Hamm notes, “He believed that Friends were carrying the doctrine of the Inner Light to dangerous and unscriptural extremes.” Therefore, Gurney (somewhat ironically) set out in America to emphasize (amplification) what he considered to be proper Quakerism, in his own learned opinion.
This was a pivotal moment in nineteenth-century Quakerism, for “Friends rediscovered evangelical elements in their own tradition and came to see themselves as a portion of the evangelical army that was fighting for the preservation of revealed religion against deism and Unitarianism, as part of evangelical Protestantism.”[10] Rather than a people separate and distinct in mission and methodology from other Protestant groups, by mid-century, many Quakers embraced an ecumenical spirit with other pastors and evangelists from Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian camps—and joined in with their emphases on Bible reading, instantaneous conversions, and other general Protestant liturgies (institutionalization).[11]
Not surprisingly, these adoptions led to further challenges by Quakers concerned about the corruption of the faith and the amalgamation with other denominations. Hamm writes,
Thus, Wilburite Friends tried to defend the old faith. In their eyes, Gurneyism was dangerous because it offered a false but enticing way to salvation, one designed to appeal to a love of ease. The Wilburites would not give in to it. They would continue to uphold the old ways of bearing the cross. Nothing would sway them from it: not the popularity with the world that Gurney's evangelicalism offered, not intellectual arguments, not even causes with laudable objects but conducted according to worldly methods. They would make no compromises.[12]
Hamm goes on the detail and discuss various renewal movements,[13] revivals,[14] reorganizations,[15] and reassertions[16] that occurred during and after the Civil War—and as America pushed farther into the Western frontier. He states, “Between 1880 and 1895 Friends absorbed themselves in debates that had few parallels outside the society but that were vital to subsequent Quaker history: the existence of the Inner Light, the nature of Quaker ministry, and the spirituality of the ordinances.”[17]
Other influential and defining meetings and conferences followed throughout the nineteenth century (the First Day School Associations—1868, the Union of Philanthropic Labor—1881, the Friends Religious Conference—1893, the Friends Educational Conference—1894, etc.), leading up to the association’s debut at the Friends General Conference in Chautauqua, New York in August of 1900. There, seven eastern Hicksite meetings banded together (Baltimore, Genesee, Illinois, Indiana, New York, Ohio, and Philadelphia) to create a new, permanent, united committee to facilitate future conferences and assist in the on-going service of like-minded Friends.[18]
In 1887, with Gurneyite Holiness consensus in mind, the Friends United Meeting (formerly known as the Five Years Meeting) began at the Indiana Yearly Meeting, with prominent Quaker leaders such as J. B. Braithwaite, Esther Frame, Rufus Jones, William Nicholson, David Upedgraff, and James Wood in attendance.[19] The 1887 meeting concluded with the embrace of the Richmond Declaration of Faith (an orthodox, evangelical assertion, doctrinally) as the centralized concensus for the participating Gurneyite yearly meetings.[20] This would (hopefully) protect them from the dangers of the growing liberal milieu in the United States[21] creating disharmony and division within the Friends movement; and would provide a proposal for future legislative conferences to promote unity and doctrinal soundness within Quaker communities through the creation of a Uniform Discipline, or statement of faith and principles.[22]
In his Introduction to The Transformation, Hamm explains,
The aims of this study are to bring a new understanding of the diversity and complexity of American Quaker history; to shed new light on the background of Quaker benevolence and humanitarianism as well as to make intelligible a century of doctrinal debates that might otherwise leave the uninitiated mystified; and, above all, to show that nineteenth-century Quaker history was in large part a series of interactions between American Friends and the larger political, social, and especially religious world.[23]
To benefit of the reader and any serious student of Quakerism, in The Transformation, Hamm did just as he promised—and with great fairness and in great fullness.
Bibliography
Evans, William, and Thomas Evans, eds. “Memoir of George Fox.” In The Friends' Library: Comprising Journals, Doctrinal Treatises, and Other Writings of Members of the Religious society of Friends. Vol. XIV. Philadelphia: Joseph Rakestraw, 1837.
Fox, George. Memoir of George Fox. Philadelphia: Tract Association of Friends, 1893.
Hamm, Thomas D. The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800–1907. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992.
Hamm, Thomas D., and Isaac Barnes May. “Conflict and Transformation, 1808–1920.” In The Cambridge Companion to Quakerism. Stephen W. Angell and Pink Dandelion, eds. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Kenworthy, Leonard S. Quaker Quotations on Faith and Practice. Philadelphia: Publications Committee Friends General Conference, 1983.
Knox, John S. “Friends General Conference.” In Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
––––––. “Friends United Meeting.” InEncyclopedia of Christianity in the United States.Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
[1] Thomas D. Hamm and Isaac Barnes May, “Conflict and Transformation, 1808–1920,” in The Cambridge Companion to Quakerism (Stephen W. Angell and Pink Dandelion, eds. Cambridge University Press, 2018), 32.
[2] Thomas D. Hamm, The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800–1907 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992), 98.
[3] Memoir of George Fox (Philadelphia: Tract Association of Friends, 1893), 14–15.
[4] Hamm, The Transformation, 2.
[5] Leonard S. Kenworthy, Quaker Quotations on Faith and Practice (Philadelphia: Publications Committee Friends General Conference, 1983), 35.
[6] Hamm, The Transformation, 32.
[7] William Evans and Thomas Evans, eds., “Memoir of George Fox,” in The Friends' Library: Comprising Journals, Doctrinal Treatises, and Other Writings of Members of the Religious society of Friends. Vol. XIV (Philadelphia: Joseph Rakestraw, 1837), 76.
[8] John S. Knox, “Friends General Conference,” in Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015),920.
[9] Hamm, The Transformation, 16.
[10] Hamm, The Transformation, 25.
[11] Hamm, The Transformation, 30.
[12] Hamm, The Transformation, 34.
[13] Hamm, The Transformation, 50.
[14] Hamm, The Transformation, 73.
[15] Hamm, The Transformation, 89.
[16] Hamm, The Transformation, 42.
[17] Hamm, The Transformation, 121–22.
[18] Knox, “Friends General Conference,” 920.
[19] Hamm, The Transformation, 173.
[20] Hamm, The Transformation, 137.
[21] Hamm, The Transformation, 164–65.
[22] John S. Knox, “Friends United Meeting,” in Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 921.
[23] Hamm, The Transformation, XV.