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Friends United Meeting |
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March 2002
Valiant for Truth
By Trish Edwards-Konic
Several important anniversaries are being celebrated this year. George Fox stood on Pendle Hill and had a vision of a great people to be gathered 350 years ago. Just 100 years ago, people gathered in Richmond, Indiana, and Five Years Meeting was born (later renamed Friends United Meeting). And 100 years ago the first Friends missionaries began their work in Kenya.
As we look behind this year of 2002, there is clear evidence of people hearing God's clear voice to share the good news of the gospel with others and responding. Friends came to America, Europe and other known places in the 17th century. In England, one in every 100 people was a Quaker in this early period. There was enthusiasm, joy in persecution, supporting and encouraging one another in meetings that were more than just gathering for worship and socializing. Meeting for Sufferings was an active function of community life. Yet how many of our meetings have become like the following?
"A few times I have attended Flushing Meeting in Queens, New York, one of the oldest meetings in the U.S.," states Elizabeth Crownfield. "Its meetinghouse dates from the 1690s, and the Meeting itself is older. George Fox preached there, and the Meeting, which first met in the home of John Bowne is famous for defying Peter Stuyvesant and helping to establish the right to religious freedom in the Colonies. I have a special interest in its history because John Bowne was an ancestor of mine, though our family fell out of Quakerism in more recent generations. I didn't even know about them when I first became a Friend myself."
"Anyway, Flushing Meeting is now quite small and has seemed to me
to lack the weight it once had. The reason behind this may lie in what
I was told on my visit:
'The Meetinghouse cat is our only birthright Friend.'"
Being "birthright" or "convinced" is not the point. Making a decision to follow Jesus no matter what is, and that is what separated the early Friends from other groups in 17th century England.
In 1652, the very night George Fox received the vision of great people to be gathered, he wrote a paper. In it he said, "how Christ was come to teach people himself by his power and spirit and to bring them off all the world's ways and teachers to his own free teaching." (Journal, Nickalls, p. 104)
Relying on the grace and presence of Christ, the Inward Teacher, has always been the key to growing the family of Friends. Keeping our hearts and minds open to hearing the words of God and responding with compassion are just as valuable today as 350 years ago.
Copyright (c) 2002 Friends United Meeting
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