Between God and History. The Human Situation Exemplified in Quaker Thought and Practice, and: The Quakers: A New Look at their Place in Society (review)

Book Reviews Between God and History. The Human Situation Exemplified in Quaker Thought and Practice. By Richard K. Ullmann. London: George Allen & Unwin. 1959. 212 pages. $4.25. The Quakers: A New Look at their Place in Society. By John Sykes. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. 1959. 287 pages. $3.95 Between God and History uses the word "history" in a theological sense, "contingency in time and place," as well as with the more ordinary meaning, "development of human affairs in time." The author's theme is man's constant and inescapable tension between God and the world, between knowledge of eternal good and involvement in temporal evil. In this sense, he says, Friends have tended to be "historically ungrateful," for they have been too apt to assume that they are guided solely by God and thus that history cannot affect them. Unless Friends accept the tension between the eternal and the temporal they can be effective in neither realm. History has its "revenge" at times, when the Spirit fails and Friends, with few links widi history, are left with nothing but "sectarian tradition and behaviour patterns." This book is a theological treatise and not a history of Quakerism. However, numerous examples are taken from Quaker history to illustrate the author's points, especially in Chapters 3 and 4, entitled "The Quaker Attitude to History" and "The Quaker Attitude in History." A noteworthy example is the reference to the turn away from the world made by Fox and other Friends in 1659 when the temptation to engage in political —and therefore violent—action was particularly strong. Their decision to suffer evil rather than inflict it, says Ullmann, was one of the normal and inevitable alternations that Friends, and all Christians, must experience . One must leave the world in certain situations, not because of a defeat, but because it is the only way one can be his true self. Such withdrawal , of course, is only a preparation for the re-entry into the world when a new situation, or a new insight, makes such a return imperative. "Neither loyalty to principles nor calculation of effects makes the responsible agent, but being one's true self." A constant theme is the difference between "principle" and "testimony," between "doing" and "being." The Quakers, although written as a history, is in fact a tract. The narrative is a vehicle for comments and judgments on the Society, and suggestions for future action. It is history widi a point of view. Early Friends are portrayed as social revolutionaries who wanted to change the society around them but could not because of their rejection of violence. When they could not achieve their initial aims, they adjusted to a secondary kind of life, heroic, but much less radical. Then, about 1720, 51 52Bulletin of Friends Historical Association "abysmal caution" took control, to last until 1914. In the world, this meant the bourgeois life, acquisitiveness, and the use of the Quaker community to further commercial interests. In the realm of the spirit it marked the growth of orthodoxyand evangelism,which the author equateswith authoritarianism and conservatism. He includes a very unflattering account of Stephen Grellet, whereas Elias Hicks is "the great Quaker commoner." Only about the time of the First World War did Friends again come to see that their contact widi God could only be authenticated by action in society. This meant, not the acceptance of violence, but vigorous attempts to change the status quo. The author's comments are fresh and provocative, but not always convincing . For instance, Fox, whom he interprets rather than describes, married Margaret Fell not as a woman but as a "mother image." Again, the Separation of 1827-1828 in America was "well-advised," for it preserved as Friends two irreconcilable parties that later did unite, whereas in England , without a separation, the Society almost disappeared. And, says the author, the adoption of the pastoral system in America was psychologically healthy for Quakerism because it brought into overt expression what had been troubling, suppressed tendencies. Both of these books, representing quite different emphases in Quakerism , are worth reading by students of Quaker history. The Quakers should not be used as a source book but...