Quakers

I'm reading a book right now that I would recommend to everyone. Its called "A Patriot's History of the United States". Its a book full of the true history of our country without history revising from progressives. Most of what children are taught in school anymore is what we call revisionist history. Over time progressives have tweaked the pages of history to cast America in a terrible light. Most of this revising happened during the Woodrow Wilson presidency and some during FDR's presidency.

Anyway, this book is full of good true stuff about our amazing country. I just started reading and am only to the part about the founding of the colonies, particularly Pennsylvania. What you'll read next is an excerpt from "A Patriot's History of the United States" in the section about William Penn and the Quakers founding Pennsylvania.

Pg. 35- "In 1674 the proprietors sold New Jersey to representatives of an eve more unorthodox Christian group, the Society of Friends, called Quakers. Known for their social habits of refusing to tip their hats to landed gentlemen and for their nonviolence, the Quakers' theology evolved from the teachings of George Fox. Their name came from the shaking and contortions they displayed while in the throes of religious inspiration. Highly democratic in their church government, Quakers literally spoke in church as the Spirit moved them.
William Penn, a wealthy landlord and son of an admiral, had joined the faith, putting him at odds with his father and jeopardizing his inheritance. But upon his father's death, Penn inherited family lands in both England and Ireland, as well as a debt from King Charles II, which the monarch paid in a grant of territory located between New York and Maryland. Penn became proprietor and intended for the colony to make money. He advertised for settlers to migrate to Pennsylvania using multilingual newspaper ads that rival some of the slickest Madison Avenue productions. Penn also wanted to create a "holy experiment" in Pennsylvania, and during a visit to America in 1682 designed a spacious city for his colony called Philadelphia (brotherly love).  Over the years, Pennsylvania's Quakers would lead the charge in freeing slaves, establishing antislavery societies even in the South."

There's a lot in that paragraph that I find very interesting and inspiring about these Quakers. First of all, I don't quite know the extent of their theology but these people were full blown, Spirit-filled, Pentecostal Christians. They were the first American pentecostal movement. They would sit in their meetings and literally quake in the power of God. Nowadays we need 45 minutes of contemporary praise and worship music followed by a 20 minute tithing message, followed by 40 minutes of hard preaching, I mean hard preaching, to get even close to shaking from the Holy Spirit. By they way, don't look up Quaker theology on Wikipedia because its almost hilarious reading their explanation of why Quakers were called Quakers without saying it was the Spirit of God.

Another thing I pull from this is that Quakers were certainly unorthodox as far as Christians go at that time because of their nonviolence. And they didn't even tip their hats to landed men! I mean I tip my hat to everyone that lands anywhere near me, but that's just how I was raised. And using William Penn as an example I see that the Quakers were radical and zealous in their faith because he paid no mind to the implications of his inheritance as a result of his beliefs. The Quakers were apparently very ethnically accepting because Penn attempted to reach out to multilingual people to settle in PA and Quakers lead the way on freeing slaves.

Quakers may still exist today in small numbers but I do know that Quakers help evolve the Mennonite and Brethren faith in America which still exists today. I feel their is much to be learned from these quaking zealots. While I rarely agree with physical nonconformity there is a lot that Quakers have in common with what I see should be a goal of the restoration of the modern church. They didn't compromise on their beliefs, they saw the human race, not just one race, as important in the church body, they abhorred slavery in all forms, and most importantly they understood how insignificant all of the little programs and ministries in the church would be without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the awesome power of God.

To go back to the book for a second, I really encourage everyone to pick up this book and absorb it. Its a heavy read at over 900 pages but I believe its something that will really benefit you and your knowledge of true history. I am also looking forward to writing more posts from this book on the topic of the Biblical and Christian foundations of our country. God bless.