The Friends Church was begun a little over three hundred years ago (1647 to be exact). George Fox, the founder, went to church with his devout Anglican parents until he was nineteen. Then he began to feel that there's got to be more to religion then this. George Fox spent the next four years trekking all over England going from church to church and from preacher to priest, looking for an answer to his questions.
At that time the official church of the land was the Church Of England and they carried on their worship with elaborate ritual and ceremony in stately cathedrals. Another group calles the Puritans (so-called because they wanted to "purify" the Church of England) stressed the judgement and wrath of God. Neither of these alternatives satisfied many of the common people. They had been reading the newly published King James Bible and knew that vital religion was possible.
During this time came a young George Fox. He was a weaver's son searching for inward peace and a group of people that consistently practiced the Christian faith. He knew the Scripture so well that a Dutch historian would later state that if all of the Bibles in the world came to be destroyed, it could have been reproduced from the memory of George Fox.
George Fox kept moving around the English countryside and one day he said that he heard a voice. He heard (or realized) this basic truth: "there is One, even Jesus Christ who can speak to thy condition." There it was. The answer that satisfied him. The answer that finally got to the heart of things as he saw it.
This experience led him to four basic conclusions. First, he realized that Christ is a present reality, not just a good man who lived a long time ago and said some good things. In addition to being "risen and seated at the right hand of the Father in Heaven", Christ lives here in the present moment and can communicate with and give guidance and power to those who open up their hearts to Him. After all, he told His followers, "....I am with you always, even to the end of the world." (Matthew 28:20)
Second, George Fox saw that a Christian is not necessarily someone who has his/her name on a church membership list or someone who has done something religious. The mark of a true Christian, is a changed life. A Christian is someone who has been transformed from death to life in a firsthand encounter with Christ. "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." (John 1:4)
Third, it became clear to George Fox that the Church was not a building at the corner of Eighth & Elm or at any other site. Neither could it be identified with ecclesiastical hierarchy or with an institution established by the state. The Church is the fellowship of the people who have had their lives changed by Christ and in whose hearts, Christ lives.
Fourth, George understood that a minister is one who serves Him and makes Christ real to others. All of the academic degrees and learning in the world cannot make a person a true minister of Christ. It is Christ's call to men and women which makes them ministers.
Therefore, this became the central message of Friends --- and it still is today. That is the good news for people who are turned off by the rules and rituals of religion. George Fox then began to tell everybody about his discovery. Although, this was not a new truth. The Bible had long since stated, speaking about Christ, "there is salvation in no one else." (Acts 4:12) But, George Fox began to take the Biblical teachings about the adequacy of Christ more seriously than most people did.
Within a few short years there were thousands of people throughout England, who had found Christ as a living presence in their lives, even as George Fox had. They became "finders" and worshipping groups of them took on the name "Friends". This originated from John 15:15 where Jesus told his followers, "I have called you FRIENDS, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." Those who opposed the awakening that Friends were bringing to the Church, called the "Quakers" in derision because when some of them spoke in a moving way they sometimes trembled in the power of the Lord. Friends felt that this was actually a compliment, and eventually did not hesitate to use the name themselves.
For the next fifty years, George Fox and his followers, crisscrossed Europe and America with this simple and fresh message that Jesus Christ was the answer to everybody's problem. Thousands of people who were tired of formal religion, became a part of the Friends movement.
In the early 1700's, something happened that almost brought about the undoing of the whole thing. The next generation of Quakers began to say things that should never have been said. "Let's major on the minors." You see, there were certain things that Friends did that many other Protestants did not do and those things took on way too much importance. For example, George Fox would sometimes spend an hour or more in silent prayer, and then he would preach for two or three hours. These second-generation Quakers, opted to forget the sermon and concentrated on silent prayer. This is where the whole idea of Quakers sitting in silence got started.
Once the message of Christ was diluted, a whole bunch of Quakers turned inward and the dynamic of the Friends movement died. This in turn created many of the stereotyped images that people have of the Quakers, even to this day. One historian stated that Friends "settled down into a peaceable, respectful sect proud of their past and content to preserve their distinctive." Pleasure, music, and art were taboo; dress was painfully plain and speech was Biblical... They gained few new converts, and lost many old members.
Friends made a most profound affect on the course of American history. The first Quaker missionaries arrived on America's shores in 1656. Mary Fisher and Ann Austin landed at Boston, where the Puritan authorities had them seized and kept under close guard. A hundred of their books were burned in the marketplace, and they were dispatched to Barbados on the next departing ship. Their bedding and even their Bibles were confiscated, to pay the jailer's fee. The Pilgrim Fathers wanted religious freedom for themselves, but offered it to no one else.
Rhode Island was founded as a haven from the intolerance of Puritan Massachusetts. The Friends were welcomed there. So overwhelming was the response there, that at one time half of the population were Friends and the colony elected Quaker governors for thirty-six consecutive terms. Friends were also well received in Maryland. Lord Baltimore established the colony as a refuge for persecuted English Catholics and was willing to give liberty of conscience to others in religious matters. Spokespersons for the Quaker faith made some deep inroads into Virginia as well.
In 1657, a boatload of Quaker missionaries from England, landed on Long Island. One of them, Robert Hodgson, drew large crowds to his meetings. He was arrested, imprisoned, flogged, and treated very severely. At last, some of the Dutch colonists interceded on his behalf, and secured his unconditional release. Many continued to respond to the Friends message, in spite of a firm edict that was issued against it, by Governor Peter Stuyvesant. Finally on December 27, 1657, the citizens of Flushing drew up a magnificently worded protest reminding their Governor that their charter allowed them "to have and enjoy Liberty of Conscience according to the Custom and manner of Holland, without molestation or disturbance." This became known as the Flushing Remonstrance. It was the first time that a group of settlers in the New World petitioned the government for religious freedom.
Meanwhile, the persecution of Friends in Puritan Massachusetts grew more intense. Friends were lashed behind carts and whipped from town to town. They were branded with an "H" for heretic; they had their tongues bored through with a hot iron; their ears were cut off; they were banished. Finally, Governor John Endicott succeeded in having the death penalty invoked for any Friends who returned to the colony after being banished beyond its borders. Four Quakers were hung on Boston Common --- William Robinson, Marmaduke Stephenson, William Leddra and Mary Dyer. She was the first woman to suffer death on these shores for her religious convictions. Today, a statue of her stands on Boston Common, a reminder to all that our religious freedom was bought at a precious price.
In 1671, George Fox along with twelve others, came to America and trekked up and down the Atlantic Seaboard. In 1672, he and a William Edmondson, who had already preached successfully in Ireland, became the first preachers who ever held any kind of Christian worship within the borders of the Carolinas. Later, John Archdale would become the Quaker Governor of the Carolinas and one-half of the representatives of the legislature were Friends.
The outbreak of persecution of Friends back in England, again led seventeen Quakers to purchase East Jersey to serve as a refuge where Friends could practice their faith without interference. Robert Barclay, a brilliant young Scottish Quaker Theologian, served as Governor of the colony for a time.
Then, in 1681, William Penn accepted the grant of land which became Pennsylvania, as the payment of a debt which King Charles II owed his father. The Duke of York, who later became King James II, threw in the territory of Delaware in on the deal. William Penn landed in his colony on the good ship "Welcome" in 1682. He met with the Indians under the great elm at Shackamason, the ancient meeting place of the tribes and made friends with them. He purchased land from them at a fair price and concluded a treaty with them that was agreeable to all. A century later the French philosopher, Voltaire, would observe that his was the only treaty ever made between white men and the Indians that was never sworn to and never broken.
In his carefully-worded Frame of Government for Pennsylvania, William Penn gave the citizens both liberty and responsibility. He designed a government dedicated to religious freedom, to equality and peace. He laid out Philadelphia as the first planned city in the New World. Pennsylvania was his "Holy Experiment", his attempt to apply the Christian principles held by Friends to the practical business of government. The guidelines of the Frame of Government gave the citizens the freedom to develop to the fullest of their potential and they and the colony prospered. For decades, Pennsylvania stood as a model to the world of democracy, liberty, and harmony.
When the Founding Fathers met in the latter part of the 1700's to write the Constitution that would design the government of the United States, they turned to William Penn's Frame of Government for Pennsylvania. If they had turned to Puritan New England for their model, there would have been an established state church. If they had turned to aristocratic Virginia for their model, there would have been a privileged class. Most of the rights and freedoms that we take for granted as a part of our way of life in America today, were originally set forth in William Penn's Charter of Liberties for his colony. Friends were the original architects of the free society that we all enjoy today.
