Is the ‘Quaker’ Movement (Really) Christian?

In a press release, dated 21 July 2018, the Religious Society of Friends in Ireland, the ‘Quakers’ announced that they had agreed to the holding of same-sex marriages in Quaker meeting places. That made them, and the liberal Non-Subscribing Presbyterians, the only two religious denominations on the island of Ireland to approve of homosexual marriages. I’ve been having a quick look at what Quakers believe, and since quakers get a good press in the mainstream media, unlike conservative believers, and and since many of us will probably never actually meet one, let’s ask the question, “Is the Religious Society of Friends a Christian Church?”

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Let’s start in the seventeenth century. There’s a strange incident in the life of the Covenanter Alexander Peden, that happened when he was sheltering from persecution in Co.Antrim. Temporarily lodging overnight at the home of a Quaker, Peden decided to accompany him to a meeting. The Quaker agreed that he could come, so long as he remained silent.  At the meetinghouse, a number of Quakers were gathered, sitting in silence, as was their custom. A raven came down from the open loft above them and sat upon the head of one of the attendees. The man jumped to his feet, shouting so violently that foam flew from his mouth. This happened again, when the raven landed on the head of a second man. Peden said to his companion, “Do you not see? You will not deny thon afterwards.” The man pleaded with him to be silent, but the raven went to a third man, and a similar reaction occurred. On the way home Peden said to his host, “I always thought that there was devilry among you, but I never thought that he did appear visibly among you till now I have seen it. Oh for the Lord’s sake quit this way, and flee to the Lord Jesus, in whom there is redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of all your iniquities.” The poor man feel to his knees weeping, confessing that the devil had come among the Quakers that night, and yielding his heart to the Lord in repentance. He never returned to the Quaker meeting, and remained a committed Christian until he went to meet his Lord.

Peden had no time for the Quakers – and neither had many of the reformed and Calvinistic churchmen of that day.  The feeling was mutual, for the Quakers, then (and to some extent now) had declared that any man who sought or engaged in a paid ministry, even if they were educated and ordained to it were, ‘deceivers and not true ministers of the gospel.’   

George Fox was the founder of the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers. They had arrived in Ireland in 1654, when they began worshipping at the home of a Mr William Edmundson in Lurgan. They spread across the island, and held their first formal meeting in Mountmellick, Roscommon in 1659. The movement spread further and grew numerically when George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, came to Ireland in 1669, and William Penn (he of Pennsylvania) became a convinced Quaker in Cork. At that time, the Quaker presence was, and perhaps to a lessor extent still is, generally beneficial to the island. Their ethos of doing good whenever possible led them to be a positive influence on Irish society in those early days. Quaker businesses were good employers. The village of Bessbrook, near Newry, was built by the Richardsons, mill-owners and Quakers, to be a model village for their workers. Mirroring the village of Bourneville in England, built by the Cadburys, – also Quakers. Bessbrook was a “model” village designed to have no pub, no pawnshop, and no police. Other Quaker firms included the Jacobs Bakery, – home of the famous cream crackers, and did we ever find out how the fictitious and furtive Jim Figgerty got the figs into the Jacob’s fig rolls?  And of course there was Bewley’s – the famous Dublin Tea and Coffee houses, – The Quaker Victor Bewley in the 1960’s did much charity work among the Irish travelling community. Quakers built schools and hospitals and nursing homes and worked to alleviate hunger during the great Irish potato famine, and although they refused to fight during the two world wars, they formed the Friends Ambulance Unit  and their form of service was to save lives and tend the wounded. 

But good works don’t get a sinner to heaven, – so do the Quakers believe in salvation by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone, as the Bible teaches?

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Quakers do not believe in creeds, but I suppose the nearest the Quakers ever came to an objective statement of belief is the Fifteen Propositions of Robert Barclay, drawn up in 1678, containing the founding principles of the movement. Barclay is described in Henry Bettenson’s book “Documents of the Christian Faith” as ‘an educated disciple of George Fox.’ It would be too difficult for us to go through the entire work in this short podcast, but let’s just get an idea of what the document teaches…

Barclay’s first proposition deals with what he calls the true foundation of knowledge. Human happiness is knowing God, or rather, ‘the true knowledge of God.’ This is important. Salvation is by KNOWLEDGE of GOD. So, how is this knowledge attained? In proposition 2, Barclay deals with the doctrine of revelation. Only the Son has knowledge of the Father, and the Holy Spirit revels the Son in and to us, – it is only by the Holy Spirit’s testimony that God can be known. How does the Holy Spirit reveal God to us? Barclay quotes spiritual revelation in the Old Testament, and in the apostolic age, citing audible voices, appearances, dreams, or inward objective (sic) manifestations in the heart.  

You can immediately see that Barclay’s idea of revelation of God, gaining knowledge by dreams and visions, appearances and so on bears little resemblance to the protestant understanding of God having finally revealed himself to us in his written, objective word, the Canon of Scripture. It is more akin to gnosticism, with it’s revealed knowledge, or mormonism, where there is an emphasis on the personal testimony, the ‘burning in the bosom’ that convinces the Latter Day Saint that he is on the right path. Barclay’s doctrine of revelation reflects George Fox’s own ‘enlightenment’, for Fox himself testified that he had been spoken to by an audible voice, which told him, “There is one, even Jesus Christ, that can speak to thy condition.”  It became his opinion that Christ would speak directly without an intermediary to those who sought him, with like-minded seekers. Fox later reported in his Journal various personal religious experiences or direct revelations, which he called “openings,” that corrected, in his opinion, the beliefs of orthodox Christianity, another similarity with Mormonism and the alleged experiences of their prophet, Joseph Smith.

This reliance upon personal, direct revelation from God, via the Holy Spirit, is the third proposition in Barclay’s book. Regarding the Scriptures, Barclay clearly believes that the Bible is only a declaration of the true fountain of truth and knowledge, that is God himself, and therefore cannot be considered as the principle ground of truth and knowledge, nor the sole rule of faith and conduct. They are, said Barclay a SECONDARY RULE.  Fox too had placed the God-given inner light (so-called inspiration) above creeds and Scripture and regarded personal experience as the true source of authority. In his Journal he wrote, “These things I did not see by the help of man, nor by the letter, though they are written in the letter, but I saw them in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by his immediate Spirit and powers, as did the holy men of God, by whom the Holy Scriptures were written.” He places his reception of revelation squarely on a par with that of the apostles.

Barclay did believe in the fallen nature of man, due to our descent from Adam, but he believed that infants were innocent of sin until they had actually committed their first transgression of the Law of God, and to back up that doctrinal fallacy he mangles Ephesians 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others, arguing that to be children of wrath we must first FULFIL the desires of the flesh and mind! A strange contortion of the text indeed, and a denial of the important doctrine pf original sin, – the understanding that we sin because we are by nature sinners, – in Barclay’s scheme we are sinners because we sin. The very opposite of the biblical doctrine.  Barclay stated, “They are by nature the children of wrath who walk according to the power of the prince of the air.”  

And what of the all-important doctrine of justification? How is a sinner made right with God? Barclay believes in universalism, and insists that Jesus died for all men, so all are saved. To the one who has received light from God, this knowledge of Him implanted by the Holy Spirit, there is great comfort and joy in believing, but for those who are excluded from this knowledge, by some inevitable accident, – even they can be in heaven. Barclay states, “…this knowledge… (is) not absolutely needful unto such from whom God himself hath withheld it.” The modern equivalent can be found on the “Quakers in Ireland” website, where you can read, “We believe that there is ‘that of God’ or ‘the Light of Christ’ in every person which can be reached, (though sometimes not without difficulty!)” “The ‘light of Christ – “is in everyone…” That’s not a Christian belief, is it? There was a large Quaker influence around Lisburn and Lurgan, and a at one time there had been Quaker settlements around the Broomhedge area, an old discarded meeting house and graveyard stood on the road from Lisburn to Maghaberry, and that influence was heavily felt. I was once asked to chair an evangelistic meeting in that area, and during that meeting two young girls from the area were to sing. Of course, one of them felt that she had to introduce her song, and give a testimony of some sort before they sang. She told the congregation that, “Jesus is inside everybody – all you have to do is to pull him out…” I was shocked, and had to explain to the congregation that what she said was not by any means the gospel! Afterwards, I realised that she was brought up as a Quaker, and that was actually what she had been taught!

Back to Barclay, and justification. For those who do receive the light of God, that light will produce a new, spiritual birth, resulting in holiness, purity and righteousness. This new birth, the work of Jesus Christ within us, sanctifies us, and justifies us in the sight of God. Once this spiritual birth has been worked in the heart, Barclay believes that it is possible to become perfect, to achieve sinlessness in this life, “to be actually free from sinning and transgressing the law of God, and in that respect sinless.”  

Barclay has no time for a paid or professional ministry of any kind, dismissing all such as ‘deceivers and not true ministers,’ and regards any formal time of worship, appointed by man at a given place or time, to be will-worship, even if it consists of praises, prayers and preaching. Such worship is to be denied, rejected and separated from, as being abominable idolatry.  Baptism and Communion are not practised, both being forms of worship used in biblical times as symbols of the spiritual experiences of the enlightened believer, and now done away with since true knowledge of God has come with one’s spiritual birth.

Now, in that rather sparse summary of original quaker thought, (we can’t really call it a statement of faith or a creed for it would not not be regarded as such by any Quaker) – but in it we have Gnosticism, a reflection of an ancient heresy, wherein is claimed a special peculiar inner knowledge of God that others do not have; the Bible is downgraded  from being the inerrant inspired and infallible word of God to merely a secondary revelation, secondary to subjective direct revelation; universalism – the liberal belief that everyone benefits from the ‘light of God’ even if they are not Christians. And have you noticed that there is, at least in the summary in Bettenson, little reference to the objective finished work of Christ on the cross for sinners, taking their punishment, their deserved hell upon himself, thus freeing them from God’s wrath and  making them just in the sight of a holy God. There is no place for vicarious atonement in Quaker belief.

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But what of the modern Quaker movement? Is it different from the pseudo Christianity of Fox and Barclay? I think that the simple answer is that nothing much has changed, and any change has probably not been for the better.  An easy reference to modern Irish Quakerism is their own website, “quakersinireland.ie” and anyone interested in finding out what Quakers believe should read the information on that website.  

The first ‘principle’ we would find on the Irish Quakers’ beliefs page is a statement by Philip Jacob, ’In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity.’  So, for a Quaker, what is an essential, that they must be united on, and what is a non-essential, where they can agree to disagree. In reformed Christianity, we might refer to these things as ‘adiaphora’ – secondary issues. Reformed Christians will earnestly search the scriptures to discover what is essential, especially what is the gospel, teachings that are saving matters – so we will read, for example in 1^st Corinthians 15:1-4 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; 2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. 3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: and we will learn that we cannot disagree on the fact of substitutionary atonement, that Christ, God’s only begotten Son died for our sins, that he rose bodily from the dead, that all this was ‘according to the Scriptures’ the doctrine of biblical inspiration and authority – all of this is indisputable basic Christian truth upon which our fellowship depends. There are other baseline biblical doctrines upon which we cannot afford to disagree, the doctrines of God, creation, the person and work of Christ, the personhood and work of the Holy Spirit, and so on. So, while we may agree to disagree on eschatology, for example, we cannot disagree on any doctrine carrying biblical authority. 

But wait! That simply doesn’t apply to the Quakers, for remember that they think that the Bible, the Canon of Scripture, is a SECONDARY form of revelation – secondary to the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart and life of the ‘believer.’ But what does the Bible teach us about the reliability of the human heart? Genesis 6:5 “…the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? So how do the Quakers know that it is God they are listening too, and not just the thoughts of their own wicked heart? If that anchor, the foundation of our faith in the scriptures is gone, and the result is that whatever wind of change blows, whatever direction secular society takes, the Quakers, following the imaginations of their own deceitful hearts, are simply blown about with it. The same-sex marriage decision is an example. Bowing to the ever growing pressures of the modern culture wars, they state, Quakers have a diversity of views on marriage between people of the same sex taking place in a meeting for worship because of the range of their theological, spiritual and biblical approaches but we are united through love for one another. We know what Paul would have said if he were to have participated in that debate, because it is written down for us in Romans 12:2 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. And rather than simply express our love for those who believe in relationships that are abhorrent to God, and which lead to eternal loss, perhaps it would be better to heed Paul’s advice of 2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. Separation from apostasy, alienation from the world and comfort in doing God’s will, declared in his word, is the biblical motif for the Christian’s fellowship with God. 

Back to that Quaker website:- They tell us that “…belief in God, in Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit is the bedrock on which The Religious Society of Friends is founded” and they go on to claim that the Bible is important to them, but that carries the caveat, “coupled with our belief in direct communion with God.” They then go on to tell of George Fox’s ‘experience’ of hearing a voice… It speaks of their distinctive form of worship where, “Every Friend has responsibility for receiving insight, interpreting it, and passing it on to the meeting if led by the spirit to do so.” A fine example of gnosticism, receiving special knowledge of and from God, personal interpretation of scripture, total subjectivism and post-modernistic religion. It is all highly subjective, and it suits the postmodern mind very well indeed, which may be why the media is so drawn towards Quakerism – a universalistic religion that is based on good works – what liberal journalist wouldn’t want to promote that! The Quakers even state, “We … would not dream of suggesting ours is the only true path to God, simply that it is the right one for us.” So, you can have your way to God, and I can have mine, and of course, as Fox taught, they believe that, “…there is ‘that of God’ or ‘the Light of Christ’ in every person which can be reached…” In the wider Quaker movement, this statement is or can be widely interpreted to include a belief in a spiritually deadly universalism.  One Quaker website, ‘Quakers.org’ states this quite openly.  An 18th-century American Quaker John Woolman wrote, “There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names. It is, however, pure, and proceeds from God… In whomsoever this (principle) takes root and grows, of what nation so ever, they become brethren in the best sense of the expression.” The website goes on, “Fox was a Christian, despite his rejection of the Church and the priestly class, and so the nature of his initial revelation was that “there is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition.” But everybody’s relationship with Spirit is different. If you’re put off by Christian rhetoric, Spirit will likely frame its message to you in a different vocabulary…or perhaps even without words at all.”  Note too, the reference to the Holy Spirit there without the definite article, and as ‘it’ – not ‘he.’  ‘Spirit’ is simply some inanimate force. 

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Ok, so we have looked at some of the statements of historical Quakerism, and some of the statements contained on the website of modern Irish Quakers. Let’s ask the question again, “Are quakers really Christians?” 

Let’s be clear. I don’t believe for one moment that there is an ounce of genuine Gospel in the Quakers. It is on a par with Unitarianism, where Scripture is subjected to flawed human reason. Quakers, subjecting scripture to flawed human experience. There is no room for the message of the exclusive Saviour, Jesus Christ, no room for Peter’s emphatic declaration in Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. No substitutionary atonement, no Biblical authority, no proper understanding of the person and work of the holy spirit, no attempt at separation from error and no biblical underpinning of their ethics.  There is nothing in Quakerism to commend it to God or to the saving of the soul. It is a damnable heresy. 

But are there Christians within it? That’s an entirely different matter!  A number of years ago, one of tricks pulled upon gullible ecumenists by radio interviews here was to ask them, “Do you think the RC Church is a Christian Church?” The stammering ecumenical clergyman would want to reply – ‘yes’ – but surprisingly a good number of evangelicals baulked at the question too – no-one wants to be unpopular after all! But the real issue is that no church is perfect  – we are all to some degree defective in our understanding of God, and of his revealed truth, yet there may be some people within those congregations who are, despite what they are taught, simply trusting Christ as their Saviour and Lord. Some denominations, like the Quakers, are so defective as to be worthless as a conduit of the saving message, but there still may be believers within those gatherings, and we should be praying for them, that they will see the error in what they are believing, and seek fellowship with other believers of sound belief, and thus learn to grow in God and in the knowledge of His written word.   Psalm 119:105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

© Bob McEvoy 2023