Introduction

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book considers the nature of Quaker liturgy, particularly in the ‘Liberal’ ‘unprogrammed’ tradition of Quaker worship. It looks beyond the processes of silent worship and argues that the Quaker self-understanding of liturgical form has changed dramatically between the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries. The book argues that in the 1650s, early Quakers believed they were the vanguard of an inward Second Coming of Christ, that the end of the world was unfolding before them, and that heaven was to be created on earth as humanity experienced the end of time and the beginning of God’s realm. It also argues that while the first Friends derived a radical liturgy of intimacy with God from within a radical understanding of time, intimacy for Liberal Friends has become the dominant organising principle and has become decoupled from its original source.