Video Transcript: Diversity in Rhode Island, Quakers
This is Dr. Roger Green in his teaching on American Christianity. This is session number three on Roger Williams and Religious Diversity in Rhode Island.
On Fridays, I like to get just a little bit of reading from something we're talking about, sometimes with a devotional nature. So today, I want to read an excerpt of a letter from a man named William Lra, written to his wife. I'll let the circumstances of the letter go for just a minute and then we'll talk about what caused him to write it. If the name William Lra doesn't ring any bells, we don't talk about him much in this course, but here he is writing to his wife:
“The sweet influences of the Morning Star, like a flood distilling into my innocent habitation, hath filled me with the joy of God in the beauty of Holiness, that my spirit is as if it did not inhabit a tabernacle of clay. Oh my beloved, I have waited as a dove at the window of the Ark and I have stood still in that watch wherein my heart did rejoice that I might in love and life speak a few words to you, sealed with the spirit of promise, that the taste thereof might be a savior of life to your life and a testimony in you of my innocent death.”
William Lra was the last Quaker to be hanged on Boston Common. This is the letter he wrote to his wife on the morning they took him out to hang him. There were four Quakers hanged on the Boston Common, all willing to go for the sake of their understanding of who Christ is and what God had done in their lives. This letter was written just before he was taken out to hang at Boston Common.
Now, moving on to lecture number two on Roger Williams and Religious Diversity in Rhode Island. First, I want to mention Roger Williams. If I were asked to choose the most important person in this course, I'd have to put him on the list. He was really critical in establishing a colony in Rhode Island, in Providence, dedicated to total religious freedom—absolute religious liberty. This concept would have broader implications in American culture, but Roger Williams was really important in laying the groundwork. He went from being Anglican to Puritan to Baptist, and then to seeker, ultimately ending his spiritual journey as a Seeker.
We didn't get to Rhode Island last time, so let's go on and say a few things about Rhode Island. First of all, Roger Williams established this colony, and the first thing to take notice of is that Roger Williams himself disliked the Quakers. He did not like their theology. We will talk a lot about Quaker theology later, but he didn’t like their theology. Despite that, he welcomed them into his colony because of the principle of absolute religious freedom. While he disliked the Quakers and their teachings, he was not going to use the arm of the state to punish people for their religious beliefs. He had seen too much of that in Europe and in Boston, and he was committed to the principle of absolute separation of church and state. For him, there was absolute freedom for people to be either religious or not religious.
This was not just a matter of toleration for Roger Williams; it was about absolute freedom. Now, let's move to a broader comparison. If we move forward to the 18th century, say to 1776, we start to see the Founding Fathers. They were also concerned with religious liberty, but their principles were often based on Enlightenment thought, rather than purely biblical teachings. What we have in Rhode Island with Roger Williams, based solely on scripture, is very different from the more philosophical ideas of the 18th century. You want to think about the foundations of religious liberty and the separation of church and state as they evolved over time.
Next, let's go to George Fox. I want to mention a few things about George Fox because he is very important for understanding the Quakers. George Fox was born in England and reared in the Anglican tradition. Even early in life, George Fox was upset by the church being controlled by the state. He didn’t see this as the New Testament church, which frustrated him.
Fox faced two key frustrations in his early spiritual journey. First, when he read the Bible, particularly the Book of Acts, he read about people filled with the Holy Spirit. However, he didn’t see this in church life in England, nor did he see it in his own life. This created a sense of frustration for him. The second frustration came from seeking advice from others. He spoke to many counselors and friends, but he found that they could not understand the theological questions he was wrestling with. This led to more frustration.
Eventually, George Fox had a conversion experience that deeply moved him. He believed that God worked in his life in a unique way. He experienced a deep religious transformation and described it as receiving the “Inner Light of Christ”—a deep sense of Christ in his heart. From that moment, he felt compelled to go out and preach about this Inner Light, even though there was no denominational name or movement for it at the time.
In 1648, George Fox began his pilgrimage and started preaching about the Inner Light of Christ. He preached wherever he could—on streets, in towns, and villages, sharing his experience of the divine light.
Sometimes churches would allow him after the morning worship service to speak in their churches to people who were interested in this Inner Light of Christ. And so, what happens, of course, is that he begins to get kind of a following of this Inner Light of Christ. Now, he meets a couple who are very important in Quaker history, and their names are Judge and Margaret Fell, and this becomes important for kind of forwarding what we know as the Quaker movement. Judge Fell—that’s his title—was a barrister, I believe his name was Thomas, but he went by this name, the title of his job as a counselor, a barrister, a lawyer. So he’s referred to often in literature as Judge Fell, and Margaret Fell.
He meets Judge and Margaret Fell. He meets them in a place called Swarthmore Hall, which was way in the north of England. And these people, Judge and Margaret Fell, were wealthy people, and so they had this huge kind of mansion and lots of property, lots of servants, and so forth. Long story short is that Judge and Margaret Fell are convinced by him of this Inner Light of Christ. So he brought convincement to their hearts of the Inner Light of Christ, and that really is the beginning of kind of the organization of a movement called the Quakers. So in Swarthmore Hall, it becomes kind of the headquarters of the Quakers, and from that kind of headquarters, a number of people who are convinced of this Inner Light of Christ go out throughout England, Scotland, Wales, and start to preach about this Inner Light of Christ.
Let me give you one statistic, but let me finish off with Roger Williams and then we’ll move on to George Fox, and we’ll move on to D—the rise of the Quakers. But let me just finish his story quickly. The numbers increase rapidly, which we’ll see in just a moment. Then Judge Fell dies, and he marries Margaret Fell. So Margaret Fell becomes his wife. Any of you interested in doing one of the papers, some of you know we’ve got four papers, and you can do one of the paper topics as women in American Christianity, and Margaret Fell was a very important woman leader of the Quaker movement in American Christianity. She suffered at times a great deal. She came from this very privileged background, but because she was a Quaker, she was often imprisoned and so forth. So she knew that part of life as well. But that is how important George Fox is. He’s a pretty critical guy to know, so we take a little bit of time to talk about him. But let’s talk about D—the rise of the Quakers. Let’s see how this movement kind of progressed. If you’re following your outline on page 12, the rise of the Quakers.
If we use about the middle 1600s for the beginning of this movement, if we use that as a kind of a benchmark for the beginning of the movement, he actually brought convincement to the Fells in 1652, and because they were so important to kind of helping to set up Quakerism, if we use that as a benchmark, just go forward for just a minute to 1700. So go about 50 years forward to 1700. By 1700, throughout England, Scotland, Wales—it was very much focused in England—but by 1700 there were 100,000 Quakers. That is pretty phenomenal growth. So obviously the Quaker message is appealing to people. There’s something about the Quaker message in life that is very appealing to people, and something about people being not happy with their own kind of religious, more standard religious life in Anglicanism. So about 100,000 Quakers by 1700, this is pretty remarkable.
Another thing about this rise of the Quakers—very interesting that the Quakers appealed, the Quaker message had an appeal to all kinds of people. There were very wealthy people, like the Fells, for example, and a guy by the name of William Penn that we’ll talk about later on. But there were very wealthy, influential upper-class people who became Quakers, but Quakerism also appealed to the lowest class, to the servant class as well, and also everything in the middle. Now, class distinctions like we think of them, you know, upper class, middle class, lower class—they weren’t, there was some fluidity there in England in the 17th century, 18th century. But basically, it appealed to all classes. So someone like William Penn could become a Quaker, and someone like a lowly servant, you know, in the home, could become a Quaker as well.
Another thing to take note of, and that is the title of these people: Quakers. Well, it’s very interesting—the title was given to them because in their early services—you don’t think of the Quakers this way, I don’t think you’ll find out when I ask you—but in their early services, in the early movement of the Quakers, their religious services were pretty raucous. There was a lot of dancing and a lot of singing, and you know, they were pretty kind of raucous services. And so when some Quakers were brought up before a judge, the judge said, “You people are Quakers because you quake during your religious service, and everybody in England knows that you quake, and everybody thinks this is really scandalous.” So they got the name Quaker attached to them. It was given to them really in a dishonorable way, but they took it as a badge of honor. So they said, “Well, we don’t mind calling ourselves Quakers. We don’t mind that. That wasn’t originally why he called us Quakers, but we don’t mind calling ourselves Quakers.” But they preferred other terms, and the term they preferred the most, I mean, I’ve got lots of terms: Children of the Light, Publishers of the Truth, the People of God, and Scorn called Quakers, and so forth. But there was one term that they preferred, and that was the term Friends. So, “We are the Society of Friends,” and that comes from the saying of Jesus: “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” So they said, “That’s what we are. We are friends, and we are a society of friends.”
So when you think of a Quaker meeting, have any of you been to a Quaker meeting, by any chance? You’ve been to a Quaker meeting? Was it a pretty quiet meeting? When you think of a Quaker meeting, what do you think of? That’s what you think of. Okay, let me put it in another way: When you think of Quaker worship, what do you think of today? Silence. You think of silence. And in—I don’t know about your experience, but still in some Quaker churches, the men and the women will sit separately. But there’s no ordained person in the Quaker religion, so every lay person is a minister in a sense, and so anybody can stand up and give a word from God, you know, who’s illuminated by the Holy Spirit. Anybody can stand up and say a word. But the meeting will often be silent. I don’t know if your meeting that you went to was a pretty silent meeting until someone stood up, maybe, and spoke. An hour of silence, what they heard from the Lord. Was it both men and women who spoke? So it was both men and women. So, an hour of silence, and then you stand up and speak. I mean, so that’s what you know of the Quaker meeting today. Some Quaker groups have taken on more kind of an Evangelical look. If you walked in, you wouldn’t—there’d be singing, some hymns, some preaching, and so forth. But that kind of silent worship and then some people led by the spirit to speak up, that’s what you know of. Well, that wasn’t originally true of the Quakers. That’s the settling down part of the Quakers because they felt that those early meetings were a bit too raucous and so forth, and then they got this warning from the judge: “You’re called Quakers,” so they didn’t want to be known by that. There was this kind of settling down, and that's what you know of the Quakers today, no doubt about that.
Sometimes there is kind of fanaticism within the Quaker ranks, and that brought a bad light on the Quakers. I'm going to mention just one person, one Quaker person who was a bit fanatical, and his name was James Naylor. James Naylor had kind of a bit of a tough life. He was preaching once in Bristol. He had been the head of the Quakers in London, so this is an important name in terms of Quaker history, but James Naylor was in Bristol, in a Quaker community there. He decided that he wanted to preach about Christ entering into the hearts of people because this Inner Light of Christ is very important. So, what he did was in Bristol, he reenacted the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. He thought this would be a good thing for Bristol to see, this kind of reenactment. So, he reenacted the whole triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on a donkey and so forth, and it brought scandal to the Quakers. He was arrested.
Poor James Naylor, when he was arrested and put in prison, two things were done to him that would discourage anyone from ever doing this again. They branded a "B" on his forehead for blasphemer, which can't be a good thing. Then, they bored a hole in his tongue with a hot iron because the tongue was the part of him that spoke the Quaker message. With a hole in his tongue, he could no longer speak clearly. Afterward, they put him in prison. James Naylor really suffered for the Quaker cause, no doubt about that. There is kind of an ending to this story with James Naylor. When he got out of prison, he did feel remorse for what he had done. He thought he had brought a bad reputation to the Quaker cause, and so he was a bit remorseful for what he had done in his life. Because of events like this, Quakerism settled down. The Quakers became over-cautious in the 18th century because of these episodes.
Now, under the rise of the Quakers, I want to give some leading ideas of the Quakers, some ideas which coalesced and for which they became known. These are not in any order of importance, just some thoughts about what the Quakers believed and taught. The first one we've already talked about is proclaiming the Inner Light of Christ. The central truth of the Gospel for the Quakers is Christ, and the central experience of that is that every person can have the Inner Light of Christ. Every single believer can have that Inner Light, and for them, that becomes a central truth, a central kind of message, the central kind of proclamation.
The second idea is that the Quakers preferred the simplicity of the Gospel message. They preferred simplicity over speculative messages of judgment or the end of the world or the second coming of Christ. They thought that side of the Gospel was too much speculation. Simplicity becomes the key word for Quaker life and theology, rather than speculation. In the 17th century, there were a lot of speculations about the second coming of Jesus, and where and when this would happen, and so forth.
Number three, the Quakers, like Roger Williams, believed in absolute religious freedom. Not just religious toleration, but religious freedom. People should be free to worship as they choose or to be non-religious if they want to be. They should be free to be atheists if they want to be. There should be absolute religious freedom. The state should never impose religion on people. This was important for the Quakers.
Number four, of course, the Quakers were pacifists. They rejected any participation in the military. They were pacifists, and you might know that a bit about the Quakers even today.
Number five, the Quakers were anti-slavery, both in England and later in America. The first anti-slavery group founded in the world was founded by the Quakers. The Quakers stood against slavery wherever it could be found. A key figure in this movement was John Woolman, a New Jersey Quaker. Woolman preached the Quaker truths of the Light of Christ, but he was also the conscience of the Quakers in New Jersey. Some Quakers were starting to hold slaves, and Woolman was totally against that. He was an anti-slavery crusader, first among his own people, the Quakers, and then in America in general.
Woolman was a very gentle person, and he had to figure out how to express his strong anti-slavery beliefs. When he was invited into people's homes for dinner, he went gladly. The slaves would serve dinner, and at the end of the meal, he would call the slaves together and pay them for their service. He wanted to make the point that these people should not be slaves. They had served well, and they deserved to be paid for their labor. This was one of the techniques he used to get his anti-slavery message across.
Another thing about the Quakers is that they were involved in missionary work. Some of the Quakers who came to America came here as missionaries, and then Quakers in America were missionaries to the Native Americans, even beginning in Rhode Island. There were various Native American tribes in Rhode Island, and the Quakers began reaching out to the Native Americans.
Finally, we've already mentioned this, but the simplicity of their worship services is what the Quakers became known for. When you think of the Quakers in relation to Anglicanism of the 17th and 18th centuries, with its liturgy and all the rituals of those services, the Quakers were the exact opposite. Their services were very simple.
One thing that bothered the Puritans and the Anglicans in England, and the Puritans in America, about Quaker worship was that the Quakers did not practice the sacraments. The Quakers did not practice baptism or the Lord's Supper. These were spiritual realities, they felt, and did not need to be practiced in worship services. The Puritans were especially offended by this. These kinds of ideas give you a sense of who the Quakers were and what they believed—the simplicity of their theology, the simplicity of their lives.
We talked about Rhode Island, then George Fox, then the rise of the Quakers before we get them coming to America. Any questions on that?
That's a good question. No, there were many other reasons, and we'll get to those reasons when we get to some of the theological reasons why the Puritans were against the Quakers. But that was just one reason that kind of came to mind as I was lecturing. There were theological reasons that caused real problems for the Puritans. Yeah, and so when we get the Puritans coming to America, we'll find out why the Puritans started hanging them for these theological reasons.
Yes, right, we're going to bring them over now to America and see what happened when they started to try to import this into America. But so far, we're talking basically about England, Scotland, Wales, but primarily England, where their strength was. Anything else about the Quakers, or about Rhode Island, because we didn't stop and ask about Rhode Island? Anything about Rhode Island? Anything about George Fox himself or anything about the Quakers?
George Fox? Right. Well, he had a couple of real problems. One problem that he had, which was kind of a personal problem as well, was that he opened up the book of Acts. He opens up the early church and finds these great stories about these Spirit-filled people and how God worked through them, and so he didn't feel that he had that experience. But also, he didn’t see that in the worship experiences of Anglicanism, which he knew in England. So, he just didn’t see that. So, that is both a personal problem and a problem with the church. Another problem that he had, of course, was that he goes to these counselors, who are mostly Anglican people, and he finds out there are theological differences, but he can't seem to work through these differences. So, he comes to a place in his life where, once he himself has the work of the Holy Spirit in his life and believes in the Inner Light of Christ, he thinks he comes to a place in his life where he says, "I can't work through this in the established church. The established church doesn't understand this, and also the established church is controlled by the state. It's the state that is controlling the church. I don't want that. I want to be free." So, that's how he kind of launches out in freedom and liberty to preach the gospel as he understands it. Yeah, very important person in terms of the history of Christianity. Then, we’ll bring the Quakers over here to America and see what the influence was here.
They did not develop a hierarchy, and still, in a sense, there is no technical hierarchy within Quakerism. Each Quaker, each Quaker church, each Quaker assembly place is autonomous and self-governed. They did not have, and still do not have, ordained ministers of the gospel. They believed they took that priesthood of all believers to an extent that I think is stretching it too much, but anyways, that included preaching the gospel and teaching the gospel and so forth, having the enlightenment of Christ, and therefore I can stand up and say things. So, it's very unstructured, un-hierarchical, very different from the Anglican Church in which it grew up. Yeah, and that would still be true of Quakerism today. Do you know of any Quaker colleges that come to mind?
George Fox University. Have you heard of George Fox? Yeah, I think there are a couple more, maybe. What's that? Guilford? I’m not familiar with that. That is Quaker background? Is it? Okay. Alright, very interesting. There are others that I’m not familiar with. I know George Fox, but I want to say Swarthmore, but I’m not sure about that. I want to say Swarthmore, but I’m not absolutely sure. So, we’ll cut that out of the tape. We’ll find out. We’ll Google it.
Other questions here? Okay, let’s bring them over to America. Before I do, 10-second break because it’s Friday, and you deserve 10 seconds on a Friday. Then we’ll bring them to America. We will later, not quite yet, but we will later. Hey, Ted, I forgot to ask, do you cut this off during these breaks or you don’t? Okay, you can edit my breaks. We’ll find out. Okay, okay, bless your hearts. 10 seconds, that’s enough. You’re well rested on a Friday. I hope you have a great weekend. Just be grateful you don’t live in Washington, D.C., because they’re going to have about two feet of snow this weekend. Two, two and a half feet of snow for Washington, not so for us.
Okay, let’s bring the Quakers to America. Let’s get the Quakers over here. So, first of all, 1656. 1656, that is when the first two women Quakers land in Boston. They land in Boston on the ship. The ship doesn’t matter, it happened to be called the Swallow, and they land in Boston on the ship. They’re here, you know, I think probably as missionaries. I think they came to spread the Quaker cause. 1656. Now, there was a bit of a problem when they came, however, and that is that the Puritan leaders in Boston didn’t let them off the ship. So, when the ship went back to England, the two women were on that ship heading back home again. They were not allowed to come into Boston. We’ll see some of these theological reasons in just a minute. So, they were kept on the ship, and off they go.
Now, eventually, Quakers are able to land in Boston. Maybe, I suspect, some of them came into Boston just with other groups and a little bit under the radar screen. But they were able to land in Boston, so eventually you start to have a little Quaker community in Boston. Alright, now the problem is that the Quakers are a real challenge to the Puritan exclusivity in Boston. The Puritans had a hold on Boston, and they are a real challenge to that Puritan exclusivity in Boston. Therefore, the only thing that they could figure to do, the Boston Puritans, was to begin to hang Quakers on the Boston Common. We’ve already mentioned that. We read that little devotional today of a Quaker—the last Quaker who was hanged on the Boston Common.
Now, what is going on? What are they thinking? I think we’ve already mentioned this in the course, but we really need to probably deal with it here. What are the Puritans thinking when they hang people in the Boston Common? Well, what they’re thinking is in 17th-century terms. In 17th-century terms, nothing disrupts the social order like heresy. Heresy is a disruption of the social order, and we are responsible for maintaining the cohesiveness of the social order. So, if we have to hang people on the Boston Common in order to do that, so be it, because it’s the social order. Today, we call it the common good. That’s a phrase we’re familiar with, isn’t it? The social order, the common good. We’re responsible for maintaining that. So, they are hanged not just because they happen to believe certain things, but they’re hanged to maintain the social order. I know it’s hard for us in the 21st century to think in those terms and to think back in those terms. We don’t even talk about heresy anyway, so we live with it every day, we don’t identify it. So, I know in the 21st century it’s hard to think in those terms, but you’ve got to put your mind back in the 17th century and understand what the Puritans are thinking in terms of social order, common good kinds of things.
Now, they were hoping, of course, that this would curtail Quakers. Once people see Quakers being hanged in the Boston Common, they were hoping people would say, “Oh, that’s not for me. I’m not going to be a Quaker.” Well, that never did happen. A friend of mine used to tell the story that in the 17th century in England, they used to hang pickpockets. That’s pretty tough, I think. That’s so tough, hanging pickpockets. But they used to hang pickpockets. The joke was that, and all these crowds used to assemble, by the way. That was true in the Boston Common as well. I’m sorry to say, this was a public event, so when someone was being hanged, the public all came out, kind of like first night, you know? The public all comes out to see the hanging. So, the joke was with the hanging of the pickpockets: while the pickpockets were being hanged, there were pickpockets in the crowd picking the pockets of the people who were watching the pickpockets being hanged.
So, did it work? Did this hanging of the Quakers work in terms of maintaining the social order? The answer to that is no, because Quakerism grew even in Boston, even after four people were hanged on the Boston Common. So, things are happening there in the Boston Common with these Quakers.
Now, we want to give some theological reasons why the Puritans were so unhappy with the Quakers. We've given some general things about the Quakers, but now we want to give some theological reasons why the Puritans hanged the Quakers to maintain the social order. So, okay, again, not necessarily in any important or least important order, but here are some reasons.
First, the Quakers tended to view the Bible as kind of an open book. You're learning more and more things about God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit in the Bible, and especially learning that Christ is the inner light. The Puritans saw the Bible in a more restricted way than that. They were nervous about these Quaker experiential hermeneutics at work. They had seen that with Anne Hutchinson and were nervous about her antinomianism. So, they were nervous about the way the Quakers treated the Bible, and that caused them problems, which would be theological for the Puritans.
Second, we mentioned the other day that the Puritans believed in predestination—they believed in election, that some people are elected to be saved, and some are elected to be damned. For the Quakers, however, this was anathema - the doctrine of predestination. The Quakers felt that the Light of Christ could come into the heart of any person; anybody could experience the Inner Light of Christ, not just those predestined. They didn’t believe in predestination.
A third thing, which we kind of mentioned, has to do with church worship. Quaker worship was extremely simple. There was no liturgy to Quaker worship, no ordained ministry, and no practicing of the sacraments. That bothered the Puritans. The Puritans didn’t have a liturgy either, as they moved away from the Anglican worship, but they did have an ordained ministry, which was connected with the notion of vocation. They also practiced the sacraments because the sacraments were biblical. So, the Puritans were really upset by this kind of worship, which seemed to take simplicity to its extreme. For them, this was a theological issue.
Another thing, in terms of theological reasons, is that they felt the Quakers placed much too much emphasis on experience. The Puritans were nervous about this. If you place all this emphasis on experience, where is that going to lead you? Experience comes and goes. You need to trust in the sure word of God, which we can understand through the use of our mind. So, they were very nervous about this experiential aspect of the Quakers.
Finally, this became kind of a theological tension between the Puritans and the Quakers. The Quakers saw themselves as missionaries, and we've already mentioned that the reason people started coming to America was that Quakers had a missionary zeal. For the Puritans who didn’t like the Quakers, they didn’t like that zeal, but they also didn’t like the theology that prompted that zeal. That theology was that every person can have the Inner Light of Christ, so they need to reach every person with this message of the Inner Light. They disliked the missionary zeal, but they disliked the reason for that zeal even more. This is why the Quakers were hanged in the Boston Common, why they were suppressed, and why they eventually headed down to Rhode Island. So, Rhode Island became a refuge for the Quakers. It became the bastion for the Quakers.
The Puritans did not see this as biblical at all, which the Bible was their foundation for authority. They saw it only as experiential. They were offended that if you’re going to set yourself up as a religious denomination, where are your ministers? Why aren’t you practicing baptism? Why aren’t you giving the Lord’s Supper on Sunday? They were offended by the way the Quakers did things. Above all things, heresy was a challenge to the social order, so heresy had to be dealt with very strongly. This is why you had the hanging of the Quakers.
So, what is the Inner Light of Christ? Is it like the Holy Spirit? Yes, they used various phrases for it, but when Jesus said, "I am the light of the world," they took that to mean that He must also be the light of the believers in the world. Who ministers for the Quakers? Who ministers that knowledge that the Light of Christ is in you? It's the Holy Spirit. The Quakers were trinitarian, so they weren’t like the deists who were unitarians. They emphasized this Light of Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, which was the transforming life of the believer for the Quakers.
That would be more true today than in this time. They are measured by the simplicity of their message. This Inner Light of Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit—this simplicity of the message is what’s important for them. It would be truer today that Quakers might have more defined theological positions, and certainly, George Fox College probably reflects that kind of theology within their community.
In the time we're talking about, we're still discussing a very simple society where you form a community in the town. For instance, when the Quakers came to Rhode Island, they formed a society and built a little building where they gathered to worship. It was very simple.
They came to Rhode Island because they felt very free there. It wasn’t like the Puritans in Boston. Let me give you a couple of key things. 1672 is a very important date in Quaker history in America. In that year, George Fox came to Rhode Island after a long trip. Rhode Island was the center of Quaker activity in America at the time. George Fox came to meet with the Quakers and, as one author said, gave a new lease on life to the Quakers all over New England. His visit was meant to strengthen the Quakers in America and help them better understand who they were and what they were about.
Now, imagine if Roger Williams had still been alive at the time. He and George Fox tried to set up a meeting with each other. That would have been a very interesting meeting because Roger Williams despised the Quakers. He did not like them at all and thought they were unsound, especially theologically. Maybe he wanted to meet with George Fox to try and straighten him out. For reasons unknown, the meeting never happened. George Fox and Roger Williams were both in Rhode Island at the same time, but they never met. It would have been interesting to know what they would have said to each other if they had met.
Rhode Island became known as a strong Quaker bastion. Now, let’s fast forward about five generations from the time we’re talking about—George Fox and Roger Williams’ time. Let me fast forward to someone whose name I don’t have on my list: Stephen Hopkins. He was the governor of Rhode Island during the Revolutionary War and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. You won’t find him on your list, and he’s probably not in your syllabus either. But let me bring up Stephen Hopkins to show you how important the Quakers were in Rhode Island.
Stephen Hopkins was elected governor five times in Rhode Island, and he was a proud Quaker. This demonstrates how the Quakers had become dominant in Rhode Island after just a few generations. When you allowed religious freedom and let people worship as they pleased, the Quakers grew strong. So, Stephen Hopkins’ prominence shows how powerful the Quakers had become in Rhode Island.
So that’s the story of the Quakers coming to America. Any questions? You wouldn’t have wanted to be one of those two women on the first boat to America because they never got to step off the boat. They never got to walk down the gangplank and go to Fellowship Hall for lunch. They were just not allowed to do that.
Now, a couple of questions. Yes, what happened exactly? That’s a little detail we should remember. The name of the ship was the Swallow. But you don’t have to remember all of that. Just remember that the Quakers tried to find a place in Boston, but the first two women weren’t allowed to leave the ship. Others did eventually start arriving.
Did the Quakers support the Revolutionary War? The Quakers were pacifists, so they didn’t serve in the military. Instead, their service during the Revolutionary War was in ways such as caring for wounded soldiers. They wouldn’t bear arms, but they helped in other ways, like providing compassionate care to the soldiers.
When you go to a Quaker meeting, and someone stands up to speak a word from the Lord, it could be either a man or a woman. The Quakers believed that everyone had the Inner Light of Christ, and both men and women had the opportunity to speak in the meeting. They were egalitarian in terms of religious life, and this bothered the Puritans. They were already uneasy with Anne Hutchinson, who wasn’t a Quaker but shared some similar views, and the Puritans were disturbed that women were speaking in these Quaker meetings. Could this be possible?
George Fox had been the head of the Quakers in London before moving to Bristol. Now, that sounds a little hierarchical, doesn’t it? But when I say head, I mean he was responsible for practical matters like organizing meetings and building meeting houses. He wasn’t a hierarchical leader in the way we might think. The Quakers didn’t have a hierarchical structure, but someone needed to take care of logistics. George Fox did that, but the word “head” might not be the best term to use, as it implies more hierarchy than what was actually the case with the Quakers.
Finally, the next thing we want to discuss is the Baptists in Rhode Island and their continued history there. It wasn’t only the Quakers who came to Rhode Island; the Baptists also settled there. Should we start talking about the Baptists now, or should we wait until Monday? Let’s wait until Monday to discuss the Baptists. Have a good day, and enjoy the weekend.
This is Dr Roger Green in his teaching on American Christianity. This is session number three on Roger Williams and Religious Diversity in Rhode Island