A Friendly Letter

Women’s History: Angelina Grimké, Breaking Taboos, & Gaining Religious Liberty

Maintaining religious liberty within the Religious Society of Friends has not always been easy. For instance, contrary to popular Quaker legend, work in the abolitionist movement was very unpopular among Friends, and especially repugnant to the entrenched power structure of recorded ministers and elder. They thought it was “creaturely,” needlessly dangerous — and many highly-placed Friends, while not own slaves, yet had extensive business interests connected to the slave economy. These were threatened by connections with abolition “agitation.
The result was what I have called “The Great Purge”; many Friends were forced out of the Society, and others resigned, to uphold their antislavery principles. Even some meetings were laid down by “executive action” for being tainted by the reforming virus.

Some Friends did not wait for the Overseers and elders to show up to apply this “discipline.”

Religious Liberty Day: for Friends & Others

If I was the Quaker Pope, Fifth Month (May) 24 would be one of the biggest Quaker holidays/festivals on our [non]liturgical calendar. That’s because it is (or should be), “Religious Liberty Day.”

It was on the 24th of Fifth Month, in 1689, that the Toleration Act, in official jargon, “received the Royal Assent,” and thus became law in England and its dominions.

Why is this important to Quakers?

Because that’s the day when Quakers & Quakerism became legal. It marked the successful conclusion to almost thirty years of suffering, organizing and lobbying.

Some Quaker FAQs — Part 8

Remember the earlier question about Quakers as a gathered or called people? Robert Barclay presents one of the early expressions of that idea.

Barclay then makes a subtle pun on a hoary Catholic Latin dictum; “extra ecclesiam, nullas salus,” which meant, “outside the [Roman Catholic] church, there is no salvation”:

“Aside from this Church there can be no salvation, because this Church and its denomination comprehend all, regardless of what nation, kindred, tongue or people they may be, who have become obedient to the holy light and testimony of God in their hearts.”

The extent to which Barclay is turning this exclusivist notion on its head quickly becomes clear, in the truly radical passage which follows:

“Although they may be outwardly unknown to and distant from those who profess Christ and Christianity in words and have the benefit of the scriptures, yet they have become sanctified by their obedience and cleansed from the evil of their ways. For this is the universal or catholic spirit….”

In a sense, all Barclay has done is change the first letter of the term “catholic church”, from a capital “C”, designating a specific church (such as the Roman Catholic) to lower case, referring to something generic, something beyond or before specific denominational churches; but in this simple typographical change there is a world of difference.

To get a sense of the magnitude of this shift, simply compare Barclay’s conclusion with more exclusive views of the church.