Theology and Women's Ministry in Seventeenth-Century English Quakerism: Handmaids of the Lord (review)

62Quaker History The reader is sometimes overwhelmed with names of individuals whose significance is debatable, except to their descendants or a meeting. The recent material shows that we cannot yet discern general trends because each social concern appears crucial to the participants. NYYM now has only about 4,000 members, but there is no discussion ofwhat membership means, how many contribute, serve on committees, come to worship services. Do many attendeesplay such importanttoles that formal membership , like recording ministers, may be irrelevant? Does Universalistic Quakerism appeal mostly to Unitarian and Jewish converts? How do political activism and spiritual nurture meld? Several authors have cited elsewhere local, quarterly and yearly men's and women's meeting minutes, but such sources are rarely included in the footnotes, leaving a reader unable tojudge how much is known about local Quakerism. Weaknesses are to be expected in a pioneering book of such scope and do not detract from its overall excellence. All serious students of Quakerism should own a copy ofthis reasonably priced book which I predict they will often consult because it contains so much important information on a wide variety of historical and current topics. Swarthmore CollegeJ. William Frost Friends Historical Library Theology and Women 's Ministry in Seventeenth-Century English Quakerism : Handmaids ofthe Lord. By Catherine M. Wilcox. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1995. xi + 277 pp. Notes, bibliography, and index. $89.95 "At the centre ofearly Quakerism lay the dramatic experience ofChrist appearing in the heart." So begins Catherine Wilcox's lucid study of early Quaker theology and the theological context for women's active role in the movement. Wilcox develops her thesis with admirable clarity ofform and content. The book is divided into two closely related parts. Part One consists ofan introduction on Quaker style and chapters on "The Work of Christ in Early Quaker Theology"; "The Early Quakers andthe Bible"; and "The Fading ofthe Early Vision." These topics are re-examined from the perspective of women in the early Quaker movement in the three corresponding chapters ofPart Two, in which a general introduction on seventeenth -century women is followed by chapters on "The Work ofChrist and Early Quaker Women"; "The Bible and Women's Ministry in Early Quakerism"; and the book's concluding chapter "The Changing Role of Book Reviews63 Women in Seventeenth-Century Quakerism." Wilcox's painstaking organization reflects the structure ofher underlying thesis, which is that eschatology (beliefin the imminent fulfillment of history with the Second Coming of Christ) was central to early Quaker belief; and that the eschatological vision justified and encouraged the active participation ofearly Quaker women. Like their Puritan and sectarian contemporaries, the early Quakers were serious readers of the Bible, and were energized by a theology that focused on the history ofCreation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. Quakers were set apart, however, by their spiritualized interpretation of biblical scripture and Christian eschatology. Steeped as they were in biblical scriptures, they believed that the revealed Word was of a higher order; and that this revelation of Truth was the key to unlocking the true meaning of scripture. Their beliefin the Second Coming was not a literal expectation that Christ would personally descend from Heaven in a cloud ofglory. Rather, early Quakers considered the Second Coming ofChrist to be fulfilled in the outpouring oflightamong themselves, which they understood to be "the eschatological presence of Christ in the heart." Wilcox argues that early Quakers drew upon their theology, with its spiritualized eschatology, to overturn scriptural and cultural taboos against female participation. Yet the impediments of history were not entirely transcended. Reinterpretations ofPaul's stricture against women speaking in church, for example, make "women" a metaphor for "the flesh," or for the unredeemed among men and women. This revisionist exegesisjustified femaleprophecy, butit also encumbered womenwithnegative associations. Wilcox is sensitive to the radical vision of the early Quakers as well as to the diversity within the movement, and its transformation in the latter half of the seventeenth century. She argues against a traditional school of historiography, which tended to view Quaker theology as monolithic and unchanging over time. Her thesis does in fact support much of modern scholarship in the field of early Quaker history. Wilcox's important...