“Valiant for the Truth” in times like these

Near Firbank Fell, Cumbria, England

The day after the presidential election was called, I had lunch with a good friend. In pain from a recent injury, she had misjudged the distance and was very late. I was good with that because I needed time to simply calm myself and sit for a long while. A Thai restaurant in Milwaukie, Oregon, served that purpose well.

Over pad Thai, my friend pointed out that the Quakers who were conscientious objectors in World War II knew what to do when the system was against them: they networked. They knew each other well.

Quakers were also active in Germany in the rise of Nazism, in helping Jews escape and caring for those who were left. As the war progressed and France was occupied, Quakers remained to help. By then, Quakers had to tread carefully on both sides, Allies and Nazis, if they wanted to feed the hungry rather than join the military. Both systems were against them. 

My point now is that we have been here before. In the coming years, our commitment to welcome and uphold the rights and safety of LGBTQIA+ people inside and outside of our community will mean the system will be against us. 

In 2022 we as a yearly meeting approved the following statement: “We recognize the unequal burden Black, Indigenous, and People of Color have suffered historically and presently. We will make restitution to Indigenous and African American people. We will renounce white supremacy and learn to live in peaceful ways with our environment.” 

Living into that commitment will mean that the system will be against us. 

Daniel Hunter, in his excellent article on the Waging Nonviolence website, stated that one of the keys to resisting an autocrat’s goals of “fear, isolation, exhaustion, and disorientation” is nurturing community. We know how to do this. We, as the Society of Friends, have been in times like these before.

Indeed, Quakerism was forged in times like these. 

In the middle of the violence and chaos of the English Civil War, new religious ideas around egalitarianism were floated, and some took root.  In 1650, an itinerant trader who had emerged from a period of profound depression heard a voice telling him there was a “great people to be gathered.” Several years later, George Fox met up with Margaret Fell, a spiritually restless woman of the landed gentry at her estate in northwest England (see photo). 

The collaboration from that relationship, and the protection given by her husband, a judge, meant that the great people to be gathered were organized into the Society of Friends. 

We had strange ways. Women were prominent leaders in the movement. We would not swear in court, because stating the Truth should be enough. Men refused to take off their hats to honor the nobility. In those days, one was supposed to use “you” to address those with high status. We insisted on saying “thee” and “thou” to all, “without any respect to rich or poor, great nor small,” as Fox said. Pronouns were important then, too. 

In 1649, Charles I, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was beheaded and the monarchy ended. Oliver Cromwell was pronounced Lord Protector; he ruled more or less like a king, although with a parliament. Cromwell was a Puritan, but he gave some measure of protection to Quakers.

Then the political winds shifted. In 1660, Charles I’s son, Charles II, returned from exile and was crowned. By then, the people were longing for stability. Charles II wanted loyalty. Puritans and the Church of England wanted control over the religious lives of the English. The nobility wanted to keep their top spot in a “well-ordered society” that happened to have them as the chosen-by-God elite. Quakers’ strange egalitarian ways were seen as a threat to all of that. 

Public humiliation, family splits, loss of property, imprisonment, and deaths resulted. Meetings for worship were declared “unlawful assemblies.” The jails were so bad that a sentence of a month or so often became a death sentence from dysentery and other diseases. In 1660 alone, about 300 Quakers died from the persecution. 

To endure, Quakers knew to stick together. Individual Quakers volunteered to substitute themselves for other Quakers in prison, to give them respite to regain their health. They actually went to prison for each other. Now that’s community! There are reports that in some meetings, all the adults were imprisoned, so the children carried on the work of their homes and meetings.

We endured, we persevered, then we did good things for the wider society with what we learned while enduring.

In a book forthcoming from Barclay Press, Ben Richmond has versified many of Fox’s epistles. Here’s one written in 1663: 

Sing and rejoice,
ye children of the day and of the light;
for the Lord is at work
in this thick night of darkness
that may be felt.

And truth doth flourish as the rose,
and the lilies do grow among the thorns,
and the plants atop of the hills,
and upon them the lambs do skip
and play.

And never heed the tempests
nor the storms, floods nor rains,
for the seed Christ is over all,
and doth reign.

And so be of good faith and valiant for the truth:
for the truth can live in the jails.
And fear not the loss of the fleece,
for it will grow again;

and follow the lamb,
if it be under the beast's horns,
or under the beast's heels;
for the lamb shall have the victory
over them all.

Now in our own thick night of darkness, we remember that we are children of the day and of the light. 

This post first appeared in the Sierra-Cascades November 17, 2024 newsletter. To subscribe, click here