Thanks William. Unfortunately, I don't live in Western Australia but it is good to know there are others with conservative beliefs here - I thought nearly all Quakers in Australia were liberal and quite secular in their beliefs.

Hi William,

thanks for the reminder of Wikipedia. They don't tell us much, but I see that Whittier wrote a book "In war time" (1864) which should be informative.  As for the place between Quakers and Mennonites, we have probably a lot in common.

Hi William, 

Thanks for the article on Wilburite Meetings for Worship, which read in snatches over time, and now need to reread before commenting.  You give plenty of food for thought and more to ponder.

Hello William!

Yes you are right, this is a place full of history. For quakers and mennonites. I move there in January. Currently I'm still living in Augsburg. Here in Augsburg I have close contacts with Mennonites. We have Mennonite and Quaker style meetings.

Currently there are no Quaker meetings (monthly meeting) in Krefeld. I hope this will change ;-)

But you know, the real Quakers in Germany always emigrate. That is the problem! :-)

William, Thanks for the idea. I'd be happy to read what you have been writing.

Marcia

Hi William,  I became interested in George Fox as a younger Christian, and William Penn also.  I was impressed by them and the early Quakers commitment and laying down of their lives in England to go all out to spread the message of Jesus. 

And I lived in a town called Horsham where George Fox was imprisoned just a hundred yards from where I was living.   But my interest in them and also the early Puritans  got awakened when the Lord led me out to commit myself to pray and repent each night in the hills where I lived.  I was led by the Holy Spirit each night.  

I would love the Quaker and Puritan movements to return to the place where they were at all of those years ago.

Is that a photo of you in the car ?

Hi there, William..You got my name wrong. It is, 'Carolyn'.

And I would be happy to help you start a group for 'Anabaptis

Friends". That about describes me in a nutshell!

Blessings,

Carolyn

Thank You, William!

I joined QQ several years ago. The thing is, I took time away. Thought I was going to be Anabaptist and started attending the Church of God in Christ, Mennonites in Livingston, CA. The only problem is, I don't drive and my husband doesn't want to go 66 miles one way to church even once a month..I would be there all the time, if I could. But cannot be and the Doctrine classes are hard to fit in when people can only come here every so often..nothing regular and so I set it aside. It hurts me very much to do so,too. I have come back to be a Quaker as that is what I was before attempting to be a Mennonite. I live "out of the world" now even more so than before. It is kind of a lonely existence on my narrow way. 

  I am 64, married to Mark for 25 yrs. We have one daughter 18 who is starting college. And four dogs. One is my Diabetic Alert Dog, Regis. The other 3 are Jack Russell Terriers.

Yes I have met some of the OGB people from Modesto. They are lovely folks.

I never met your famous horse or visited a farm here. I live in the woods in Central Stockton next to the original Stockton Country Club. Near Smith Canal and on a quiet circle where mostly  older folks are. We are in a gated community.

My father was Robert Elmer Hartley. Everett was his oldest brother. Everett's son was Harvey. Harvey died in a car accident in the Dominican Republic, March 30, 1963, while serving in the Peace Corps. His only sibling is Dorothy Pearle Hartley Burlingame (on Facebook). Harvey was about 9 years older than me.

Since he took over this year as head of Barclay Press, Eric Muhr has been sending out to a contact list a weekly email column titled "Long Story Short."

In this week's "Long Story Short," he included the following words:

"One of our ongoing projects is a study from T Vail Palmer on reading the Bible with empathy, a study whose first volume we hope to release later this year.
Copyright © 2016 Barclay Press, All rights reserved."

Hello William,

You may have been aware of this, however, just in case you were not I thought you might find it of interest. 

SITE OF FIRST QUAKER MEETING IN CAYUGA COUNTY DEMOLISHED

The New Your Yearly Meeting website is NYYM.org

Friends,

My keynote message will be posted on the Yearly Meeting website by week's end.  I can send it directly if you wish.  Just ask at don51249@aol.com.  Thanks for the interest.

Hi!  Thank you for the welcome!  I am a birthright Quaker but strayed as a young man, probably because of my age and some of the new age influences of my parents generation.  I am searching to be better, but more feel a drive to become more active, rather than passive believer.  I am seeking an outlet, perhaps through some sort of developing world "missionary" works.

Thank you

Good morning, Bill. I am happy to report that the missing Benson passage in which differing approaches of Fox and Barclay are contrasted is to be found in "What did George Fox Teach About Christ?" on pages 10 and 11. Thanks to Ellis Hein for locating it.

Bill, you did, in fact, state the gist of Benson's thought on this when you wrote: "Fox's emphasis was on the dialogical I-Thou relationship between Christ and His people, highlighting the prophetic focus of Fox and the early Friends." I don't agree with you though that "theological system rather than dialogue becomes for Barclay the key to religious knowing." It's not too fine a parsing, I think, to say that while Barclay delineated Quaker belief in a systematic way, he did not locate Truth within that intellectual formulation; he points beyond reason to revelation: "the testimony of the Spirit is that alone by which the true knowledge of God hath been, is, and can be only revealed" (The Second Proposition). I remain convinced that the difference between Fox and Barclay is one of intent (to preach or to inform) , not one of theology.

The entire passage of Benson's writing is worth sharing, but there's not enough space here to do that. Here are the last few paragraphs:

One important difference between Fox's language and the language of the Quaker apologists is that Fox frequently uses the words "speak", "voice", and "obey" in connection with the Light. He says "Hear the Light" at least 46 times. He speaks of "Hearing the Voice of the
Light",15 and he says, "This Light ... speaks to you"16.

"Hear his Voice who is risen from the dead"i 7; "Since he is risen and ascended, they must have  their spiritual ear to hear the spiritual voice of Christ."18 Fox is calling men to listen to the Voice of the risen Christ who is alive and present in the midst of his people. But this kind of language
gradually fades away and is rarely found in later Quaker writings.

The encounter with Christ, the Light, is an encounter with a personal sovereign will that is distinct from our own will. The Light reproves and condemns and calls to repentance. It is experienced as a voice of command that must be heard and obeyed. This is what gave moral certainty and moral strength to the early Quaker community. (Italics are Benson's.)

Hi Bill. Your comment showed up on my email, and so I've taken the liberty of re-producing it below. Thank you for it! It clears up some puzzlement and I want to respond further but first must attend to some other work. This posting is just to let you know that your comment made it through!

Hello, Patricia!  I wish I could give a good reference for Benson's thesis that Fox, rather than Barclay, needs to be the key to understanding early Quakerism.  I remember the details, but not the reference!

Current scholars make a clear distinction between the first and second generations of early Quaker leadership, and they locate Fox (correctly) in the first generation and Barclay (correctly) in the second generation.

Fox's emphasis was on the dialogical I-Thou relationship between Christ and His people, highlighting the prophetic focus of Fox and the early Friends.

Barclay, on the other hand, was a product of a rigorous Catholic theological/philosophical education, and recast Quaker faith and practice in a propositional framework.  Theological system rather than dialogue becomes for Barclay the key to religious knowing.

This is not to claim that Barclay misrepresented the details of Quaker faith, but rather that his emphasis on system and philosophical propositions violated the ethos of the first Friends.

To repeat myself, as I understand current scholarship, it agrees with Benson's clear distinction between first and second generations in their religious outlook.

I wish you could help me to track down Benson's writing on this topic.

I do not swallow Lewis Benson hook, line and sinker, but I continue to be moved by the profundity of his insights on early Quakerism.  The cogency of Lewis' approach is so compelling that it forces me into the Benson camp!

Good morning, Bill. Do you know off-hand where Benson's evaluation of Barclay can be found? I recall reading something about it but can't remember where. Thanks. I'm somewhat uneasy about a theological distance between Fox and Barclay that has been showing up recently in comments. Each man had a distinct aim, style, and vocabulary, but that doesn't put them at odds in their theological understanding. I don't see what the basis is for putting theological distance between them. The criticism that he doesn't tie in to other Christian doctrines thereby minimizing Quaker similarities with other Christians doesn't seem to me like a valid issue. Early Quakers saw themselves not as reformers but as revolutionaries, starting from a different root from the apostatic forms of faith they saw around them. Their purpose was to distinguish, put forth, and defend their understanding, not correlate it to others' error.

Keith, I became interested in the Wilkinson-Story controversy a while back.  The best coverage I found was in The second period of Quakerism by William C. Braithwaite.  It's also touched on in The Light in Their Consciences: The Early Quakers in Britain, 1646-1666 by Rosemary Moore.  If William finds more, that would be great.