An Introduction to Quakerism

This fine book is a genuinely new kind of introduction to Quakerism. It attends to the present as well as the past, and it draws profitably on the author’s expertise as a sociologist of religion.

This sociological perspective results in a creative focus on three themes in Quaker history that he traces from the early days of the Quaker movement through the Quietist period, the schisms of the nineteenth century, and the diverse expressions of the twentieth.

The first is what to do with time, how to wait in the interim. Pink Dandelion acknowledges his debt to Douglas Gwyn’s interpretation of the early Quaker movement as a “realizing eschatology,” an “unfolding endtime.” In this scheme of understanding, early Quakers believed both that a second coming could be experienced inwardly and that the world would be visibly changed. Pink Dandelion finds this helpful to explain the current challenges that Friends face. “The history of Quakerism is best understood in terms of its changing relationship to this founding experience of endtime and the necessary internal shifts which take place as a sense of endtime is replaced by one of meantime.” Once transformation of the world seemed less imminent, when the New Jerusalem did not materialize in England’s green and pleasant land, endtime shifted to meantime, as evidenced by solid meetinghouses built to last in the 1670s.

The second theme is how spiritual intimacy, including direct divine revelation, is experienced and described. The third is how to define and relate with the world’s people, that is, non-Friends. Across time and theologies, Friends have regarded the world as a mission field, the abode of apostates, a danger to be avoided, or a society to be alternately affirmed and reformed.

The historical presentation is an excellent summary of much recent scholarship—almost to a fault, in that some readers may desire to know more of the author’s evaluation of competing scholarly interpretations, which he frequently offers without comment, humbly keeping his own opinions understated.

The second part of the book is a thoughtful portrait of the contemporary situation through the examination and comparison of extracts of representative texts from across the theological spectrum in Quakerism. A strength of the book is that Friends in the southern hemisphere are included. Issues explored include the authority of Scripture and experience, ecclesiological authority, particular beliefs (God, Christ, the Light), worship, decision making, testimony, mission, membership, diversity, and ecumenism. After conceding that the differences are great, he finds three commonalities: emphasis on inward encounter, business method, and testimony.

True to his other important studies of Quakerism, Pink Dandelion is insightful and thought-provoking. Quaker readers of many sorts will recognize themselves in his portrayal of their type of Quakers, though they may also find themselves challenged by some of his conclusions.

In short, this work makes a valuable contribution to Quaker studies, is a worthy companion and complement to Thomas Hamm’s The Quakers in America (Columbia University Press, 2006), and deserves to be read widely.