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Salt and Light:
Quakers—A People with a Forward Look
By Jack Kirk
As they journeyed through the desert toward the Promised Land with
Moses, the people of Israel whined and complained a lot. On occasion
they longed for their former condition of bondage in Egypt where
there were at least three square meals a day. They actually declared
their preference for the security of slavery in Egypt rather than
risking an unknown future in a strange new place with God. They
gave Moses fits, to the point he asked God to take him off the job.
More than a thousand years later most of Israel missed the Messiah
God sent into their midst because they were too preoccupied with
looking backward. It was as though they were trying to drive into
the future peering into rearview mirrors.
Many religious people are the same way today. Fundamentalist movements—Islamic,
Jewish and Christian—strive to return to or to restore some
period in the past, usually the further back the better. But if
God is a living God, then God is with us just as much in the present
and will be with us just as much in the future as in the past. A
living, creator God is still creating and moving forward. Jesus
came to launch something new, and it is nowhere near completion.
The amazing thing is the Spirit of the Living Christ gives us glimpses
of a better future, and then invites us to be partners in creating
that future. Quakers believe in a better future because we have
seen at least a partial vision of what it could be like. When Quakers
have rightly understood themselves, their look has always been toward
the future, and their focus has been on the future.
When Quakers first came on the scene in the England of the mid-1600s,
religious freedom was only an idea in the minds of a few. At great
cost to themselves, Quakers refused to take their movement underground
and met openly. Thousands of adult Friends filled the prisons of
England, and hundreds died there. In Puritan New England four Quakers
were hanged on Boston Common—Mary Dyer, William Leddra, Marmaduke
Stephenson and William Robinson. Others like Mary Dark, Peter Pearson,
Judith Brown, Josiah Southwick, Alice Ambrose, Mary Tomkins, Ann
Coleman and Elizabeth Hooton were cruelly lashed behind carts and
whipped from town to town. In spite of the harsh persecution, Quakers
remained strong in hope and committed to their principles. With
the passing of the Toleration Act in 1689 under King William and
Queen Mary, the struggle for religious liberty was finally won.
A better future had come.
At the urging of sensitive spirits like John Woolman, Quakers first
cleaned their own house of the practice of slave holding by 1776.
Then following the lead of Friends like Levi and Katie Coffin, Thomas
Garrett, Lucretia Mott and John Greenleaf Whittier, they went after
the system of slavery itself. Sometimes taking significant risks,
they played a major role in the Underground Railroad and operated
stores that sold goods produced only by free labor. Eventually the
nation renounced slavery and entered into the better future Friends
had worked so hard to realize.
From their earliest years, Quakers recognized the equality of women.
It was only natural that they would throw themselves into the struggle
to achieve women's rights in society at large. They contributed
prominent leaders like Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony, and Quaker
schools turned out able women who were in the forefront of medicine,
education, the sciences, social reform and some of the arts (particularly
literature). We continue to move into a future that will benefit
more and more from the leadership and contributions of dedicated
and gifted women.
These are three instances in three different centuries when Quakers
made huge contributions toward the creation of God's future. Today
the Quaker look continues to be forward. We do not want to go back
to some good old days in the past—not even the good old days
of George Fox and Margaret Fell—because they never were that
good. North American society has come a long way, but it still has
a long way to go. One of the reasons it has come as far as it has
is because of the Quaker forward look. We can learn from the past,
but our movement must always be forward if we are to follow where
God is leading.
What kind of future is God calling us to help create in a culture
where materialism, consumerism and greed run rampant? What vision
is God giving us now? Quakers are a "people of the sunrise,"
not of the setting sun.
Jack Kirk is pastor at First Friends Meeting, Greensboro, North
Carolina.
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Anna tells us we need a "sense of the heroic... the quieter
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15 Why We Need More Quaker
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Whittlesey reminds us of the importance of our children being grounded
in the Quaker faith and practice.
16 Chubb
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If you've ever felt lonely or unaccepted, you can relate to this
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18 Recovering from Genocide:
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"By stressing personal responsibility, sincere confession and
the need for forgiveness," Rwanda is on its way to healing.
19 AVP Training to be Used in Gacaca
Courts
David Zarembka
Read about the exciting ways the AVP is helping to rebuild Rwanda.
20 Effective Teaching Begins on Your Knees
Elmer L. Towns
"As a teacher, you are not prepared to teach until you have
prepared yourself through prayer." Here's how and why.
24 The Testimony of a Bald Head
Randy Quate
"One of the greatest needs of a prodigal heart is to have a
place to come home to...." Edison Owens made "home"
worth coming to.
FEATURES
4 Commitments
Retha McCutchen
4 News from
Friends United Meeting
10 News
13 Salt and Light
Quakers—A People with a Forward Look
Jack Kirk
21 Bible Study
The Surprise of Pentecost: One Spirit, Many Voices
Jan Hoffman
22 Ideas That Work
25 Viewpoints
26 Peace Notes
30 Reviews
34 Passages
36 Classifieds
38 Meeting Directory
42 The Back Bench
Going Home
Tom Mullen
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