ABSTRACT
These are the first words of the quaintly named ‘Advices and Queries’, a booklet of distilled insight of Quakers through the centuries and still taken seriously by Friends as wise counsel. Quakers have, since their inception, placed much emphasis on the inner Light, wisdom and love that arises not from some external source, not the Bible or the church or Christian tradition, valuable as these may be, but out of ‘the promptings of love and truth in your hearts’. Because these are personally experienced, rather than imposed from without, they cannot be easily dismissed or shrugged off without damage to one’s integrity: recognition of the inner Light and acceptance of its promptings thus makes for whole-hearted engagement with its leadings. Thus Quakers place great stress on silent listening, on discernment of the promptings of the inner Light; and they place at least as much stress on being obedient to what they thus come to understand. The promptings of love and truth are not fundamentally sets of doctrines or beliefs but clarification of attitude and action: answers not to the perplexities of systematic theology but rather to the questions: ‘What should I/we do about a particular situation now? How are we to live?’ It is the combination of attention and obedience to the inner Light that is at the heart of Quaker work for peace and justice, rejection of violence and war, opposition to slavery in any form, and affirmation of racial and gender equality long before these causes were more widely established. In such a broad sketch, it is not difficult to see the connections in the con-
stellation of ideas. However it is also easy to raise questions which serve as an invitation to go deeper. What exactly is the inner Light? How is it to be recognized? What is its relation to reason, or emotion, or conscience? In what sense, if at all, is it from God or divine, and how does it connect with Christian (or other) religious traditions? How can counterfeits or deceptions be discerned and
avoided? What is the relationship between the individual and the group in recognition of the inner Light? Above all, what is the connection between the illumination of the Light and obedience to it? How, precisely, does this offer resources that provide alternatives to violence? All these questions are internal to Quaker thought and practice, and are obviously crucial to a spirituality of beauty. There is, in the nature of the case, no definitive Quaker creed or systematic
theology from which answers to these questions could be sought. Rather, it is in the continuing faith and practice of Friends that we can find clearer indications of what is involved in the inner Light. Neither is it at all surprising that there have been changes and development of understanding. I shall therefore begin historically, with George Fox and some of the early Friends, before addressing issues more thematically.
