Preaching the Inward Light: Early Quaker Rhetoric

Introduction

1 INTRoDUCTIoN Why This Book? ProleGoMena This book is about seventeenth-century Quaker impromptu preaching, both the development of its theory and its manifestation in practice. Quakers (also known as the Society of Friends, the Friends Church, or simply Friends) are popularly known for their leadership role in social-reform movements, advocacy of pacifism, and development of a worship pattern based on silent waiting for the Spirit’s immediate moving. However, it is still not widely understood or acknowledged —even within the Society of Friends—that the early Quakers (c. 1650–1700) were also a vocal, even “revivalistic” sect that sought to put into effect worldwide the moral, spiritual, and practical virtues of what they called “primitive Christianity.” In fact, early Quakers can be characterized as a zealous missionary sect, even to the extent of one brave Quaker woman traveling to the sultan of Turkey to witness, a very risky business in the seventeenth century.1 For a time, Quakerism was the most influential and fastest-growing religious sect in the world. Baptists and Quakers are the only contemporary religious “denominations ” to survive from the numerous sects that proliferated during the turbulent seventeenth century in England, and the evangelical fervor of both groups is a partial cause of their vitality and perseverance .2 Furthermore, it is similarly not well known or acknowledged that, since their appearance in the 1650s, many Quakers who saw and see themselves as acting consistently with the more conservative theological orientation of their earliest progenitors have also placed strong emphasis upon evangelism and the spoken word.3 This book is about these interesting, peculiar people and their notions of preaching. 2 PREACHING THE INWARD LIGHT There are three parts to this introductory chapter. In the first part, “Backgrounds,” I will (1) sketch some backgrounds about impromptu preaching, (2) present a working definition of “theory,” (3) reveal questions that guide this study, (4) comment on the obstacles to the examination of impromptu preaching, (5) discuss important myths about early Quakers that are implicitly addressed in this book, and (6) present a summary of the book’s purpose. In the second part of this chapter, “The Contexts Informing this Book,” I will deal with the contexts of rhetorical studies, Quaker studies, and previous scholarship on Quaker preaching and sermons. Finally, in the third section of this chapter, I will preview the book, commenting both on its scope and the content of ensuing chapters. BackGrounds Some Backgrounds to Impromptu Preaching Perhaps surprising to the uninitiated, early Quakers claimed to preach impromptu, that is, without prior, contextually situated, intentional preparation , as opposed to extempore, where one prepares ahead of time for a specific rhetorical situation but where most of the words themselves are chosen during the speech.4 Times have changed, of course, and the contemporary Quaker preaching style, at least among today’s pastoral Friends (the majority of contemporary Quakers, for whom preaching is still a vital practice), involves advanced planning and is not the same manifestation rhetorically as preaching among the early Friends, who developed their own impromptu practice into an effective and often dynamic rhetorical skill. This book focuses on the earlier, peculiarly Quaker, impromptu preaching tradition.5 Impromptu preaching has been a force, or at least has been present, in the life of the church since the first century, yet it has received scant attention from scholars.6 Not surprisingly, the study of impromptu preaching is potentially significant to the study of all human communication, since so much human communication is not preplanned. Impromptu preaching offers an opportunity to approach some perenial and pertinent topics in rhetorical and communication studies from an interesting and pertinent angle, allowing the investigation of topics that include the nature of oral impromptu invention; the roles of narrative, argument, metaphor, and schemes (such as rhetorical questions) in spontaneous public discourse; the nature and habits of public performance in unrehearsed settings; the operation of mem- INTRoDUCTIoN 3 ory in the impromptu preaching context; and the spiritual dimensions of communication in public discourse. All of these topics are a part of the Quaker theory of impromptu preaching and its practice. The Quaker practice of impromptu preaching is the logical extension of the post-Reformation process that moved by stages away from adherence to the church calendar, lectionary, and carefully prepared manuscript or extemporaneous sermons. In his significant recent book, Stephen H. Webb reminds us, “After missionary preaching converted and pacified the...