Quakers and Anabaptists

[Outsider]

Bill Rushby, weren't you on the Friends Theology mailing list? Nice to see you again, if you are. I don't remember what net-name I was using then, but I do remember you (if you are the man) as being one of the one's (along with Joe Ginder) I learned the most from. If you're not, happy to meet you.

[Outsider]

Gary K.:

“This gem in the city of Thomaston is apparently owned and operated by Mennonite Quakers..."
This was in a Yelp review of our deli.

I've eaten there. Do you attend the Beachy Amish meeting there in Thomaston? Do they still meet in the community center?

[Neoanabaptist]

Parallels between Quakers and Anabaptists result from the following causes:

1. Both were awakening movements (at different places and times), and all awakening movements are somewhat similar (for example, they all are critical against the predominant state-protected church).

2. When Quakers began mission travelling to the continent, they at first visited people who were already near to them, which were often Anabaptists. So a lot of early Quaker converts in continental Europe had an Anabaptist background. These converts and also other Anabaptists (not or only partly affiliated to Quakerism) tended to emigrate to Quaker Pennsylvania. (From what I've learned, It is quite possible that temporal1's forefathers had an Anabaptist background and only affiliated themselves for a while with the Quakers.)

3. After being established, American Anabaptists and Quakers came under the same influences of younger movements, above all Evangelicalism and Liberalism/Social Gospel- which led to parallel divisions wwithin the Anabaptist and the Quaker community.

[Neoanabaptist]

Political differences between Quakers and Anabaptists result mostly from class differences.

Anabaptist were - till the time of college education began - farmers, craftsmen or at best little shopkeepers. The had a strong sense of freedom and independency and saw the state as a natural opponent who taxed and controlled them - rightwing libertarians resp. anarchists.

Quakerism was mostly formed in Great Britain where Quakers belonged to the merchant class and their clerks. They administered businesses and traded with clients not as single individuals, but numbers in accounts - which led to a strong sense for administrative values like "distributive equality". And they rightly saw the state as parallel organisation which in their eyes ought to be organized like a Quaker business.

Personally I prefer the old-times Anabaptist approach.

[Bill Rushby]

Neoanabaptist: I would like to know who you are and how you came to frequent Quaker and Mennonite discussion lists. Bill Rushby

[temporal1]

This thread’s been dormant for awhile.

i think i’ve found a new Quaker connection in my family. BUSH RIVER QUAKERS, S. CAROLINA.
On my father’s side: ROGER KIRK, son of ADOLPHUS KIRK, Friends from New Castle, Ireland.
Roger was born and died in Pennsylvania .. Bush River was in SC.

Now i read of Quakers on my mother’s father’s side, AND my father’s mother’s side.
i never heard a word of this in my family, AND, “absolute” denial of any Irish ancestry.
when St Patrick’s Day came around, my mother told us not to wear green, and, no parades,
“we aren’t Irish.”

there are other reasons not to do those things, but, we are in part descended from Irish.
i wish i could talk with them about these things i find. some things are not that far back.

Many 1700’s Bush River Quakers left for “the Northwest Territories” = (Ohio, Indiana, PA, and Illinois) due to divisions over slavery, both between Quakers, and, the surrounding S.C. culture/politics.

Find A Grave: Bush River Meeting House/Quaker Cemetery
https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/216 ... r-cemetery

PDF 6 Pages / “Road Through a Home:
A History of the Bush River Quaker Settlement in Colonial South Carolina”
https://www.ncurproceedings.org/ojs/ind ... d/1966/991

[temporal1]

PDF 6 Pages / “Road Through a Home:
A History of the Bush River Quaker Settlement in Colonial South Carolina”
https://www.ncurproceedings.org/ojs/ind ... d/1966/991

1. Introduction
Who are the Quakers?
And what beliefs distinguish them so greatly from other Christians?

The Society of Friends, or Quakers, began in Northwest England in 1652.

1 Other Christians saw Quakers as blasphemous and diabolically inspired because their practices were so different from those of other Protestants.

2 The term “Quakers” was actually the nickname given to Friends because of how they shook during worship.

3 Quaker doctrine is centered on a person’s inner light of Christ.
Quakers believed in a direct inward connection to Christ, which allowed for salvation on an individual level.

4 Quaker theology is based on four key points.
First, direct inward encounters with God and revelation are central.

Second, church business was based on the ideas of direct communal guidance.

Third, everyone was spiritually equal and there existed “the priesthood of all believers.”

Fourth, Quakers preferred peace and pacifism over war, and they committed to other forms of social witness.

5 These principles translated to a distinctive culture that reflected their religious beliefs.

Quakers did not believe in the need for churches or outward sacraments.
Instead they believed every day was equally holy and they chose to ignore the traditional church calendar and its holidays, such as Christmas and Easter.

6 Similarly, Quakers chose to ignore the authority of the state when its policies conflicted with their faith.

7 Early Quaker ministries first spread to the rest of Britain, Scotland, and Wales, then on to Barbados and the mainland American colonies. All throughout the Atlantic world, the Quaker doctrine and public practices of its members conflicted with prevailing religious and political practices and ideology.

In the 17th century, Quakers continuously migrated seeking to spread their faith, to create new Quaker communities, and to escape persecution.

This paper chronicles the duration of the Bush River Quaker settlement in South Carolina, from the 1750s until 1808.
It explores the Quaker motives for migration into and out of the colony, and the conflicts that existed between the Quakers and the rest of the colony.

This paper seeks to answer the question:
to what extent did living in colonial and early national South Carolina affect the Bush River Quaker community, culture, and faith?
And, to what extent is this case studies emblematic of the development of the Quaker antislavery position in the Atlantic World?

i’m having intermittent tech difficulties, power outages, these days, combined with my typical shortcomings. so. bear with me as a fumble along.

Always hoping Bill Rushby might respond.

[temporal1]

”The Royal Colony of South Carolina
The Quaker Settlers During the Royal Period (1729 to 1775)”
https://www.carolana.com/SC/Royal_Colon ... akers.html

In 1681, when the Society of Friends (Quaker) leader William Penn (1644-1718) parlayed a debt owed by King Charles II to his father into a charter for the province of Pennsylvania,
many more Quakers were prepared to grasp the opportunity to live in a land where they might worship freely.

By 1685, as many as 8,000 Quakers had come to Pennsylvania.
Although the Quakers may have resembled the Puritans in some religious beliefs and practices,
they differed with them over the necessity of compelling religious uniformity in society.

The peak in the development of Quaker political leadership in the Carolinas was achieved in
the appointment of John Archdale, convinced Friend, as Governor of the Carolinas in 1694-1696.
During the period beginning with his governorship, a number of Friends were elected to the Assembly, and
Quakers were the dominant power in the Carolinas in the last decade of the 17th century.
Archdale also appointed several Quakers to the Executive Council in Albemarle County.

Quakers were amoung the earliest settlers of South Carolina.
Many of the immigrants were from Barbados (Mayo, Pike, Flewelling) and Bermuda (Basden, Crosse, Bayley, Rawlings). William F. Medlin published an account of early South Carolina families entitled "Quaker Families of South Carolina and Georgia."

Remnants of the early records were sparsely kept.
The Quaker records were maintained for the Charles Town Meeting from 1680 through 1786.
The Quaker's meetings were held in private homes until 1715, when a meeting house was finally built in Charles Town. Many of the early members were buried in the Friends Burying ground.
By 1791, there were only fifteen members in Charleston.

Other Quaker meetings in South Carolina were Bush River Monthly Meeting, in what became Newberry County, South Carolina (established in 1770) and Cain Creek Monthly Meeting, in what became Union County, South Carolina (established 1775), which in 1809 were merged with New Garden Monthly Meeting.
Many of the members of Bush River and Cain Creek later moved to Ohio.

The Piney Grove Monthly Meeting in what became Marlboro County, South Carolina began around 1755. Pee Dee, Gum Swamp, and Piney Grove, all meetings on the North Carolina - South Carolina border, were transferred to the Deep River Monthly meeting,
and in 1809, were part of New Garden Monthly meeting. .. ..

So, early Quakers were political, they were dominant in SC., but, left S.C., principally over slavery.
This adds-to and aligns with other accounts i’ve read.

Nixon’s ancestors might not have been surprised at his presidency.

[Bill Rushby]

Actually, I seem to have one leg in the Quaker world and the other in the Mennonite/Brethren world. I would not for even one minute claim that the Quaker take on Christian faith and witness is flawless. In fact, my impression is that it has gone downhill. Yet, as one "cradle" Conservative Friend-turned-Mennonite says, "I can't get Quakerism out of my system!" So, here I am, near the end of my life, still stuck in between!!!!

Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, in *The Churching of America, 1776-1990*, claimed that approximately one in four early Americans were of Quaker persuasion. If I were forty years younger, I would write my Ph.D. thesis on why Friends became one of the major losers in the American religious economy! I am already in the dog house among the Conservative Quaker elite for my analytical essay on "Conservative Friends" in *Quaker Religious Thought*. If I wrote the aforementioned dissertation on American Quakerism, I might get burned at the stake!!

By the way, Friends in colonial Pennsylvania were active in the colonial legislature, keeping it from waging war against the Indians!! During the 1750s, there was a major religious revival and tightening of the Quaker church discipline and many nominal Friends, whom Richard Bauman called the "politicos", were forced out, and the Society of Friends disengaged from political involvement for many years. See Richard Bauman, *For the Reputation of Truth: Politics, Religion and Conflict Among the Pennsylvania Quakers, 1750-1800* The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1st edition (June 1, 1971)

[barnhart]

I would read that book about how Quakers lost economic power. Maybe you would like to do some preliminary work by putting the thesis down in posts on Mennonet.