PACIFISM, prison reform and yummy chocolate. If that’s the total of what you know about the Quakers then don’t worry, it’s the same for most people.
Possibly even some Quakers themselves, according to John Dodwell.
He is a member of the Bournemouth congregation of the Religious Society of Friends, as the Quakers are also known.
But that’s my description, not his.
Quakers are not great ones for blowing their own trumpet.
As John points out: “It was only three years ago we started having Quaker Week, to promote greater understanding.”
Quakers have always wanted to share their Christian philosophies of equality and tolerance.
These encompass everything from pacifism, the welcoming of gay people to worship in their Meeting Houses and the “truth, unity and love” their curiously-named Advices and Queries handbook compels them to seek.
The traditional view of Quakers has been of plainly-dressed, modest, thoughtful folk.
John is certainly softly-spoken and thoughtful.
But, as he points out: “My wife, Euranis Neile is a very bouncy, joyous person!”
Euranis, a midwife, was one of five Quakers who appeared in a national newspaper and poster campaign last month.
And despite his devotion the original Quaker, George Fox, couldn’t have been too retiring either, as he managed to found a radical branch of Christianity at a time when the established Church was burning witches at the stake.
Fox, says John, was “a young religious seeker who didn’t find what he was looking for in any of the churches he visited”.
He is understood to have undergone a mystical experience which caused him to start speaking to others about his views.
He believed people could have a personal relationship with God and that all humans were created equally.
His ideas of cutting out the priestly middle-man – Quakers have no paid clergy – and refusing to go along with the class system were abhorrent to a society that relied on everyone knowing their place.
So he was sent to prison.
This, says John Dodwell, is where the Quakers’ interest in prison reform springs from.
And it also explains how Quakers came to be known by that name.
“A magistrate is understood to have said to Fox that he should be quaking in the court and take his hat off, but Fox told the magistrate: ‘It is you who should be quaking before Almighty God’,” says John.
Fox helped formulate the Quaker Testimonies, the set of beliefs they practise. The best-known of these is probably the Peace Testimony, which has lead to many Quakers refusing to fight although, as John points out, “many Quakers worked in jobs such as stretcher-bearing during the Second World War”.
And the chocolate? “I think this comes from the testimony to Truth and Integrity, because in business Quakers tried to be truthful and fair to their customers,” says John.
Quakers were barred from attending university until 1870 which, says John, “meant that some very able Quakers simply became businesspeople”.
Most of the well-known Quaker chocolatiers such as Frys, Terry’s, Rowntree and Cadbury had their roots in baking and probably fell into chocolate after spotting the trend for adding it to breads and cakes.
So if George Fox came back today, what would he think of his Quakers now?
He’d be interested in their possible new testimony about caring for the environment, says John.
And he would be excited to learn that the number of Quakers abroad are growing.
He would probably recognise the Quaker worship, too. They still gather in Meeting Houses; Bournemouth’s is in Wharncliffe Road and was built for the congregation by Mr Marks of Marks & Spencer. “In Bournemouth we have around 40 people who are either members or attenders,” says John.
There may or may not be singing and festivals like Easter may or may not be celebrated, as the congregation wishes.
“The Quaker view is that all days are given to us by God and every day is a holy day.”
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