Table Of ContentThe Friends have their origins in the spiritual
insights of George Fox during the English Civil War.
Since then they have been variously identified as
unquenchable heretics, as peculiar people clinging to
their peculiarities, as prosperous (if generally high-
minded) business dynasts. But throughout, and
more particularly in recent times, they have been
distinguished by their community service.
In this Pelican Geoffrey Hubbard, a ‘Quaker by
convincement’, examines Quakerism and its history,
and discusses the religious convictions and attitudes
to contemporary moral problems of its members.
Because of the diversity of belief held within the sect,
Quaker doctrines have never been easy to define.
But, the author argues, it is this freedom, in contrast
to more formalized religions, which provides its
supporters with their inner spiritual strength.
'Every Quaker,’ Geoffrey Hubbard concludes,
‘defines his position frilly and clearly by his life.’
Clearly a society which relies on the responsibility
and inner conviction of individuals has much to offer
to the restless and materialistic twentieth century.
The cover shows a detail of a sculpture by Peter
Peri
United Kingdom 45p
PELICAN BOOKS
QUAKER BY CONVINCEMENT
Geoffrey Hubbard trained as a physicist and worked
for some years in a large industrial research labora
tory before joining the administrative Civil Service
and embarking simultaneously on his career as a
writer. He has written scripts for television series
for young children and his plays for sound radio
have been transmitted by the B.B.C. and by various
overseas broadcasting organizations. In 1965 he pub
lished a study of Cooke and Wheatstone and the
invention of the electric telegraph.
Geoffrey Hubbard is currently Director of the
National Council for Educational Technology. He
has been a member of the Religious Society of
Friends (Quakers) since the nineteen-sixties, having
been, for all his previous adult life, a fairly humanist
agnostic.
QUAKER
BY
CONVINCEMENT
GEOFFREY HUBBARD
PENGUIN BOOKS
Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
Penguin Books Inc., 7110 Ambassador Road, Baltimore, Maryland 21207, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 41 Steelcase Road West, Markham, Ontario, Canada
First published 1974
Copyright © Geoffrey Hubbard, it
Made and printed in Great Britain by
Cox & Wyman Ltd, London, Reading and Fakenham
Set in Linotype Georgian
This book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,
without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of
binding or cover other than that in which it is
published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser
Contents
Preface 7
PART I
A Brief History
1. The Beginnings of Quakerism 15
2. Great Days and Great Trials 25
3. Consolidation 40
4. The Effects of Evangelism 55
PART II
Fundamental Beliefs
1. God and Man 67
2. The Quakers as Christians 75
3. The Necessary Minimum 85
4. Problems that Remain 98
5. Quakers and Other Churches 105
6. The Spiritual Experiment 113
PART III
Belief and Behaviour
1. The Moral Law 121
2. Quakers as Peacemakers 127
3. Materialism 135
4. Towards a Quaker View of Sex 144
A Note on Race and Colour 152
5. Crime and Punishment 155
6. Religion and Social Order 164
PART IV
Organization and Practices
1. The Organization of the Religious
Society of Friends 177
2. Meeting for Worship 187
3. Other Meetings, Other Worship 203
4. Entrances and Exits 213
5. Debits and Credits 229
Suggested Additional Reading 245
Index 247
Preface
The purpose of this book is to give the non-Quaker reader
an outline of what Quakerism is today ; of the religious beliefs
that inspire and motivate Quakers, and of how they are
moved to behave. Although the book starts with a brief
history, this is only a background to the understanding of
what Quakerism is; for the history of the Society of Friends
is only important if the Society itself is still a living influence.
I have throughout been more concerned to convey the feel
ing of being a Friend than to represent all shades of belief,
all aspects of Quaker activity. For anyone who tries to be
scrupulous in attending to all varieties of Quaker experience
attempts an impossible task. The Quakers do not have a
defined creed; they are diverse in their beliefs, and in their
way of carrying them into the world. Yet something binds
them together, and makes them declare themselves Friends.
But what are they - Quakers or Friends? I have used both
terms indifferently, as Quakers do among themselves. (We
have already met our first example of Quaker peculiarity;
capital ‘F’ Friends are Quakers!) We are concerned with
200,000 inhabitants of many countries, members of the con
stituent elements which form the Religious Society of
Friends, and with an undefined number of people who are
not formal members of the Society but do associate with
Friends in their worship and other activities. I write as a
member of London Yearly Meeting, the original element in
the Quaker world family, and I write therefore primarily of
Quakerism in Britain and in countries where it has followed
the British model. I write, too, with the role in mind that it is
capable of playing in the disturbed world of my time. If
Quakerism were only a historical survival, a relic of the pro
liferating sects of seventeenth-century nonconformity, it
might be better left in the decent obscurity of academic his
torical studies. But I see it as an insight, derived from but
Preface
not constrained within the Christian tradition, about the re
lationship at the deepest level between man and his total
environment, between man and man, between man and
society, and between man and that intangible element
which he has called God. Now this matter of relationship, in
this broad sense, is at the heart of the malaise of our civi
lization. We are told that the trouble is materialism, or the
collapse of traditional moral and religious beliefs. Perhaps
so, but we cannot attain to a state of belief by an effort of
will; our creed can only be the credible. Quakerism, as it
seems to me, has the capacity to help direct modern man
towards beliefs about himself and his relationship to the
world, tangible and intangible, in which he lives. One is not
required to suspend one’s critical faculties on entering a
Meeting House.
But what is required of one on entering a Meeting House?
What typifies the Quakers; how do they differ from other
nonconformists; how far are their generally known charac
teristics (their concern with social welfare, their non
violence) distinguishing features or merely subsidiary?
Much of this book explores such questions in detail. It
may help meanwhile, to give some broad indications of what
Quakers are, even if these indications must be accompanied
by warnings, caveats and reservations to the effect that
Friends are not a homogeneous body; their beliefs, prac
tices and attitudes vary greatly.
Quakers are the inheritors of a line of development in re
ligious attitudes and practices which started in seventeenth-
century England, but had roots and parallels much earlier
within and without Christianity. The starting point of Qua
kerism was the concept that God was directly accessible to all
men, an idea which recurs continually in the history of re
ligion. In Quakerism this led to, or became associated with:
The priesthood of all believers - they recognized no
priestly caste, no individual or group set apart as the pre
ferred channel of communication between God and man.
Rejection of the concept of a defined creed or statement of
belief to which all members must subscribe.
Preface 9
Unprograramed, silent worship, interrupted only by the
ministry of anyone present who may find himself or herself
moved to speak. This deserves a word more of explanation,
since it is so very distinctive. Quakers meet for worship,
usually on Sunday mornings, sometimes on other days, and
this is one of the main activities, though not the only one,1
in their Meeting Houses. Meeting for Worship (more fully
described in Part IV, Chapter 2) is open to all; there is no
form of service. Those present sit in silence, unless some one
of their number is moved to speak. Most Meetings for Wor
ship consist of more silence than talk; perhaps three or four
people may speak, for a few minutes each, in the course of an
hour’s meeting.
Rejection of all formalized sacraments, such as baptism,
confirmation or communion, in favour of an acceptance of
the whole of life as sacramental.
This is a list of negatives - no priest, no creeds, no sacra
ments, no service - yet at the same time each negative rejects
a limitation; no one priest, for all are open to the word of
God; no defined creed, for each must find his own way of
expressing his own experience; no sacramental rites, for all
of life is sacramental; no prearranged service, so that our
Meeting is open to God’s message however it is expressed. It
is this openness, shown in these more obvious and easily
identified aspects of Quakerism, that give it a particular
significance in our time,, an ability perhaps to speak to those
whom other, more formalized religions cannot reach.
Perhaps the title I have chosen deserves a word of explana
tion. Quakers have long given up their distinguishing cos
tume, in fact the unmodified dress of an earlier generation,
1. Meeting Houses are not sanctified and set apart like churches; to
the Quaker no day, no place is more sacred than any other. All places,
all days, all actions are equally opportunities to find and follow the
will of God. A Meeting for Worship can take place in a private house,
a rented room or a consecrated church as well as in a Meeting House;
equally Meeting Houses are used for a variety of purposes including
non-Quaker meetings and conferences. I know of one which accommo
dated sessions of a juvenile court. Everyone seen going into a Meeting
House is not necessarily a Quaker, therefore.
