Quakers on Evil

Quakers on Evil

(Some Quakers are uncomfortable talking about evil (and maybe even less comfortable talking about sin) and some prefer to use the metaphor “darkness.” Still Quakers historically have spoken out against injustice in the world and offered both compassion and material support to the victims of man’s inhumanity to man.). mtk

Image from Friends Journal, November 1, 2013.

Biblical and Classic Quaker Writing

Psalm 23 (King James Version)

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Matthew 6:9-13

(King James Version)

9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

I was under great temptations sometimes, and my inward sufferings were heavy; but I could find none to open my condition to but the Lord alone, unto whom I cried night and day. And I went back into Nottinghamshire, and there the Lord shewed me that the natures of those things which were hurtful without, were within in the hearts and minds of wicked men… And I cried to the Lord, saying, ‘Why should I be thus, seeing I was never addicted to commit those evils?’ And the Lord answered that it was needful I should have a sense of all conditions, how else should I speak to all conditions; and in this I saw the infinite love of God. I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. And in that also I saw the infinite love of God; and I had great openings.

George Fox Journal, 1647. Quoted in Quaker Faith and Practice Yearly Meeting in Britain

Selected Quaker Video: "Quakers and the Light"

MUSIC

There’s an ocean of darkness & I drown in the night

Til I came thru the darkness to the ocean of light

You can lock me in prison but the Light will be free

And I’ll walk in the glory of the Light,” said he

Excerpt From George Fox Song. For complete song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTlSGmowL68

Poetry

In The Evil Days

The evil days have come, the poor

Are made a prey;

Bar up the hospitable door,

Put out the fire-lights, point no more

The wanderer's way.

For Pity now is crime; the chain

Which binds our States

Is melted at her hearth in twain,

Is rusted by her tears' soft rain:

Close up her gates.

Our Union, like a glacier stirred

By voice below,

Or bell of kine, or wing of bird,

A beggar's crust, a kindly word

May overthrow!

Poor, whispering tremblers! yet we boast

Our blood and name;

Bursting its century-bolted frost,

Each gray cairn on the Northman's coast

Cries out for shame!

Oh for the open firmament,

The prairie free,

The desert hillside, cavern-rent,

The Pawnee's lodge, the Arab's tent,

The Bushman's tree!

Than web of Persian loom most rare,

Or soft divan,

Better the rough rock, bleak and bare,

Or hollow tree, which man may share

With suffering man.

I hear a voice: "Thus saith the Law,

Let Love be dumb;

Clasping her liberal hands in awe,

Let sweet-lipped Charity withdraw

From hearth and home."'

I hear another voice: "The poor

Are thine to feed;

Turn not the outcast from thy door,

Nor give to bonds and wrong once more

Whom God hath freed."

Dear Lord! between that law and Thee

No choice remains;

Yet not untrue to man's decree,

Though spurning its rewards, is he

Who bears its pains.

Not mine Sedition's trumpet-blast

And threatening word;

I read the lesson of the Past,

That firm endurance wins at last

More than the sword.

O clear-eyed Faith, and Patience thou

So calm and strong!

Lend strength to weakness, teach us how

The sleepless eyes of God look through

This night of wrong

John Greenleaf Whittier

Selected Quaker Writings

WILLIAM PENN: A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil, that good may come of it… It is as great presumption to send our passions upon God’s errands, as it is to palliate them with God’s name… We are too ready to retaliate, rather than forgive, or gain by love and information. And yet we could hurt no man that we believe loves us. Let us then try what Love will do: for if men did once see we love them, we should soon find they would not harm us. Force may subdue, but Love gains: and he that forgives first, wins the laurel. William Penn, 1693

ROBERT BARCLAY: For when I came into the silent assemblies. of God’s people, I felt a secret power among them which touched my heart; and as I gave way unto it, I found the evil weakening in me and the good raised up.” —Robert Barclay (1648–1690) Collapsible text is great for longer section titles and descriptions. It gives people access to all the info they need, while keeping your layout clean. Link your text to anything, or set your text box to expand on click. Write your text here...

SMITH AND HELWYS: Christians have long prayed, "Deliver us from evil." I am not sure what most American Christians think as they utter these words; probably, like me, they don't put much thought into it at all. But for most ancient people (Christian or not), entreating a higher power to ward off evil would have been a common, daily concern. Nijay K. Gupta. George Fox University. 2017. There is a question about whether Matthew 6:13 should be treated as two separate petitions or as one petition ("lead us not to temptation") with a reinforcement ("but deliver us from evil"). It is most likely the latter, serving as a comprehensive prayer that God would protect and not expose to danger. Originally published as a chapter in The Lord's Prayer. Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary. Macon: Smyth & Helwys 2017. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/gfes/106/

JAMES NAYLOR: Art thou in the darkness? Mind it not, for if thou dost thee will feed it more. Stand still, act not, and wait in patience till light arises out of darkness and leads thee. James Naylor

EDGAR B. CASTLE: Since the 18th century, attempts to solve the ‘problem of evil’ have been known as ‘theodicies’, a term coined by the German philosopher Leibniz in 1710. Since then, evil has been explained variously as necessary for free will, or the existence of good – how can we choose good if we can’t also choose evil? – or as a way of making us better people, but any attempt at an explanation is problematic. If evil is explicable, if it has a reason to exist, if evil is a necessary part of our world, then God as creator must be implicated in evil’s existence. How can we worship a God who requires the possibility of Auschwitz? There is no easy optimism in the Quaker view of life. Fox had no illusions about sin; but he asks us to deal with it in a new way. When early Friends likened God’s gift to a ‘Seed’ they did not think of it as growing inevitably into a noble tree. They were fully aware of the influences that might arrest its growth. Fox never regarded the conquest of sin as a casual undertaking. But with astonishing psychological insight he laid the whole emphasis of his method not on the sin but on the light that revealed it. By implication he was criticizing those who were so obsessed with the fallen state of man that they stayed their eyes on man’s wickedness rather than on the means of his redemption. To contemplate evil is a poor way of becoming good… Fox assures his friends that light will come on conditions. These conditions were well laid down by Isaac Penington in the darkness of Reading gaol: ‘We were directed to search for the least of all seeds and to mind the lowest appearance thereof, which was its turning against sin and darkness; we came by degrees to find we had met with the pure living eternal Spirit.’ The practice of minding ‘the lowest appearance’ of the Seed involves a steady discipline. We must face the austerity as well as accept the joy of life if we are to grow. The method of this discipline is beautifully and most practically suggested in George Fox’s oft-repeated instruction, ‘Mind that which is pure in you to guide you to God.’ Here Fox displays a deep psychological insight, born of his own personal struggle. We are to use the little that we have to make it more. We are to tend the small Seed and help it to grow. Edgar B Castle, 1961

MARK RUSS: The ‘problem of evil’, simply put, is how to square the belief in a good, powerful God with the existence of evil. The Jolly Quaker : Useful Theology from a Quaker-shaped Christian by Mark Russ

WILLIAM CHARLES BRAITHWAITE: Evils which have struck their roots deep in the fabric of human society are often accepted, even by the best minds, as part of the providential ordering of life. They lurk unsuspected in the system of things until men of keen vision and heroic heart drag them into the light, or until their insolent power visibly threatens human welfare. William Charles Braithwaite, 1919Collapsible text is great for longer section titles and descriptions. It gives people access to all the info they need, while keeping your layout clean. Link your text to anything, or set your text box to expand on click. Write your text here...

FRIENDS WORLD COMMITTE FOR CONSULTATION: Both tortured and torturer are victims of the evil from which no human being is immune. Friends, however, believe that the life and power of God are greater than evil, and in that life and power declare their opposition to all torture. The Society calls on all its members, as well as those of all religious and other organizations, to create a force of public opinion which will oblige those responsible to dismantle everywhere the administrative apparatus which permits or encourages torture, and to observe effectively those international agreements under which its use is strictly forbidden. Friends World Committee for Consultation, 1976

"TWELVE QUAKERS AND EVIL" The following are quotations come from anonymous Quakers in the pamphlet “Twelve Quakers and Evil” - [ ] Evil happens, it seems to me, when we hold in contempt the divine within us. We become able to eliminate the need for pity. We create a world for ourselves in which we are misfits. - [ ] Why, I wonder, are some people attracted to those with power to exercise ‘evil’ whilst others stand heroically against them? What should our response be to evil? I believe it is not to fight it with armed force, but to fight to resist it, to be prepared to suffer and trust in the overwhelming power and freedom of love, to know that evil will pass; it has not life. - [ ] My experience has been that it is in the personal encounter with God that the darkness is transformed. - [ ] I think ‘evil’ is always a quality and not an entity, even when we use the word collectively to describe all the wicked and bad things that happen —‘the evil in the world’ —we are still describing a quality, and one of human origin.” - [ ] The ‘root of all evil’ — the gradual drift towards denying the brotherhood of our common humanity, the distancing one from another leading imperceptibly to treating other humans not as we would wish to be treated, but as different from us, as objects, as numbness, as sub-human. - [ ] [. . .those who do evil] need to be stopped. But I must continue to treat them as human beings, unique and precious to God, and who still have the capacity to turn freely and willingly to Light and Life. Not to do so is to deny that same capacity both for evil and for good within myself. Twelve Quakers and Evil by Quaker Quest.

EVA I. PENTHUS: Let us not be beguiled into thinking that political action is all that is asked of us, nor that our personal relationship with God excuses us from actively confronting the evil in this world. The political and social struggles must be waged, but a person is more and needs more than politics, else we are in danger of gaining the whole world but losing our souls. Eva I Pinthus, 1987...

SIX QUAKERS 1979. We believe in overcoming evil with good. We must speak and act from our own inner light to the inner light in all others as Jesus did. He showed and taught love, respect and concern for all, particularly those rejected by others, reaching out to the good in them. Six Quakers 1979

CYNTHIA BOURGEAULT: definition -- a toxically disturbed and contagious energy field (locating in the field) activated (not created anew but joining a stream) in an individual or individuals an enactment of a habitually imprinted (laying down of neurological tracts deny and blame which damage others; time sculpts evil). willful (maybe not conscious but not accidental) urge, to destroy or harm others, in order to preserve one's own's ego or self structure. a sense of sucking to oneself -- in order to take the power of others unto oneself. (Cynthia is not currently a Quaker but was raised in Quaker schools and is "Quaker friendly" in her theology like Howard Thurman.

OTHER SOURCES: What does ‘Quaker Faith and Practice ‘ say about sin and evil? A summary of voices collected by Quaker blogger Mark Russ. https://jollyquaker.com/2021/05/03/what-does-quaker-faith-and-practice-say-about-sin-and-evil/ Book: Good and Evil: A Quaker Perspective. A very pricey book by Jackie Leach Scully and Pink Dandelion. https://www.routledge.com/Good-and-Evil-Quaker-Perspectives/Scully-Dandelion/p/book/9781032099736 https://www.routledge.com/Good-and-Evil-Quaker-Perspectives/Scully-Dandelion/p/book/9781032099736