Walking in the way of peace : Quaker pacifism in the seventeenth century

by Meredith Baldwin Weddle

Paperback, c2001

Status

Available

Call number

P WED

Publication

New York, Oxford University Press, c2001

Original publication date

2001

ISBN

9780195383638

Local notes

index ; bibliography

Description

This book investigates the historical context, meaning, and expression of early Quaker pacifism in England and its colonies. Weddle focuses primarily on one historical moment - King Philip's War, which broke out in 1675 between English settlers and Indians in New England. Among the settlerswere Quakers, adherents of the movement that had gathered by 1652 out of the religious and social turmoil of the English Civil War. King Philip's War confronted the New England Quakers with the practical need to define the parameters of their peace testimony - to test their principles and to choosehow they would respond to violence. The Quaker governors of Rhode Island, for example, had to reconcile their beliefs with the need to provide for the common defense. Others had to reconcile their peace principles with such concerns as seeking refuge in garrisons, collecting taxes for war,carrying guns for self-defense as they worked in the fields, and serving in the militia.Indeed, Weddle has uncovered records of many Quakers engaged in or abetting acts of violence, thus debunking the traditional historiography of Quakers as saintly pacifists. Weddle shows that Quaker pacifism existed as a doctrinal position before the 1660 crackdown on religious sectarians, but thatit was a radical theological position rather than a pragmatic strategy. She thus convincingly refutes the Marxist argument that Quakers acted from economic and political, and not religious motives. She examines in detail how the Quakers' theology worked - how, for example, their interpretation ofcertain biblical passages affected their politics - and traces the evolution of the concept of pacifism from a doctrine that was essentially about protecting the state of one's own soul to one concerned with the consequences of violence to other human beings.… (more)

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Call number

P WED

Barcode

4761
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