Power, Authority, and the Origins of American Denominational Order, The English Churches in the Delaware Valley, 1680-1730, and: William Penn's Legacy, Politics and Social Structure in Provincial Pennsylvania, 1726-1755 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES Edited by Edwin B. Bronner Power, Authority, and the Origins of American Denominational Order, The English Churches in the Delaware Valley, 1680-1730. By Jon Butler. Philadelphia: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society . . . , Vol. 68, Part 2, 1978. 85 pp. ?8.00. William Penn's Legacy, Politics and Social Structure in Provincial Pennsylvania , 1726-1755. By Alan Tully. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978. 255 pp. $14.00. Each of these authors has written what might be called a revisionist study of one aspect of colonial Pennsylvania history. Jon Butler suggests that the early churches were not seedbeds of democratic ideas, as many historians have written over the years, but instead stresses the authority wielded by the ministers in the churches. Alan Tully, who has challenged the conventional wisdom which finds much conflict and discord in colonial politics, emphasizes the peaceful nature of Pennsylvania politics during die thirty years covered by his volume. Butler has examined the structure and authority of the Anglicans, Baptists , Presbyterians and Quakers during the first half century of Pennsylvania 's history, after summarizing the evolution of denominational order from the Elizabethan period up to 1720. He concludes that the English patterns were imported by the various denominations, and that they were maintained on this side of the Atlantic, at least during the period of his study. Thus he challenges the idea first proposed by Frederick Jackson Turner, that the frontier modified institutions imported from Britain, and made them more democratic. His examination of the Quakers during this period confirms his thesis. He found that Friends in the Delaware Valley established institutions and patterns very much like those found among British Friends, and having decided that power was held in the hands of a few in London, he concludes that the same was true in Philadelphia. While he recognizes the concept of the Atlantic Quaker Community, enunciated by Frederick B. Tolles and others, he does not fully comprehend that there was a conscious effort to maintain close ties between Friends in the different yearly meetings, and to learn from one another about the best way in which to carry on the work of the Society. Butler does not seem to fully understand the nature of the ministry among Friends; he does not seem to realize that persons from various walks of life were recognized as having a gift in the ministry. For example, John Woolman was recognized as a minister during this period, and one would not label him an aristocratic, power hungry person. In Britain, the elder John Fothergill, a minister who travelled in America, was very different from his two sons who were powerful figures in a later era; he was known for his humility, his lack of any desire for power. There were many other ministers, bodi men and women, who had little inclination to hold the reins of authority. 48 BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES49 Furthermore, it is difficult to measure just how much power any single body had in the Society of Friends during this period. Each local meeting had a great deal of autonomy; quarterly meetings had little authority over monthly meetings; and the yearly meeting, which met for only a few days each year, had no mechanism for exercising any authority over the so-called subordinate groups. Friends in the Delaware Valley did not have a Recording Clerk, or executive secretary, as was the case in England, nor did they have an administrative body like the Second Day Morning Meeting or Meeting for Sufferings. Having said all that, it must be added that Butler is correct in suggesting that relatively few Quakers participated in the various business meetings, and that persons in Philadelphia were more likely to make decisions than those in the rural meetings. It is also correct to say that Friends were not nearly as democratic as many scholars have supposed, nor as egalitarian as many today. Butler, who has been studying George Keith and the Keithian controversy for some time, stresses his challenge to the authority of the ministers, and places less emphasis upon his effort to create a creedal statement for Friends than some other scholars. Tully's volume goes over familiar...