Over on Red­dit, a dis­cus­sion try­ing to square our oft-quoted advice to see “that of God” with the arrival of secret police on U.S. streets.

I don’t think Quak­ers’ his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry always serves us very well. In 1656, George Fox wrote a let­ter from Launce­s­ton Gaol, a por­tion of which is quot­ed in every edi­tion of Faith and Prac­tice. It’s been repro­duced as giant posters and the key phrase has become one of the go-to ele­va­tor pitch­es for mod­ern Friends. It tells us to “be pat­terns” and “walk cheer­ful­ly over the world, answer­ing that of God in every one; where­by in them ye may be a bless­ing, and make the wit­ness of God in them to bless you: then to the Lord God you shall be a sweet savour, and a blessing.”

We’ve tak­en one para­graph from one let­ter as a mis­sion state­ment and now we get peo­ple wring­ing their hands try­ing to rec­on­cile this Pollyanna-style nice­ness with the hor­ror we see in the world. You get Friends valiant­ly try­ing (and most­ly fail­ing) to see “that of God” in ICE agents, ter­ror­ists, or author­i­tar­i­an polit­i­cal leaders.

I think a big part of the prob­lem is that Quak­ers have over­all been a com­fort­able, well-off peo­ple for a long time. We’ve spent much of the last 300 years most­ly remem­ber­ing the happy-feeling stuff. Fox and his fel­low ear­ly Friends were wary of “the world,” see­ing it as a fall­en place that we could tran­scend only with the guid­ance and heal­ing pow­ers of the Liv­ing Christ. Yes, he talked about being pat­terns in that let­ter, but way down. The let­ter actu­al­ly start­ed off in a thun­der­ous man­ner that quite frankly, I think per­haps speaks more clear­ly to our time:

Dwell in the pow­er of life and wis­dom, and dread of the Lord of life, and of heav­en and earth, that you may be pre­served in the wis­dom of God over all, and be a ter­ror and a dread to all the adver­saries of God, answer­ing that of God in them all, spread­ing the truth abroad, awak­en­ing the wit­ness, con­found­ing the deceit, gath­er­ing up out of trans­gres­sion into the life, into the covenant of light and peace with God. Let all nations hear the sound by word or by writ­ing. Spare no place, spare no tongue, nor pen; but be obe­di­ent to the Lord God. Go through the work, and be valiant for the truth upon earth; tread and tram­ple down all that is contrary.

None of this is prac­ti­cal advice for what to do if you see secret police jump out of unmarked van to kid­nap some­one off the street. But what if our edi­tions of Faith and Prac­tice all advised us to a ter­ror and dread and to walk the earth tread­ing and tram­pling on all that is con­trary to divine love? Toward the end of the let­ter, Fox advised us to “be obe­di­ent to the pow­er, for that will save you out of the hands of unrea­son­able men and pre­serve you over the world to him­self.” May it be so.

Oth­er com­men­taries: Simon St. Lau­rent (2007), Stu­art Mas­ters (2016), Mark Wut­ka (2018) and Lewis Ben­son’s bril­liant 1970 essay “ ‘That of God’: What Did George Fox Mean by It?” Also, John Andrew Gallery has a recent Pen­dle Hill pam­phlet on the essay, which I haven’t read but assume is worth reading.

Update: in the Red­dit dis­cus­sion Kei­thB said that he won­dered if there were Quak­ers out there look­ing for jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to tan­gle it up with ICE offi­cers. Pret­ty much as we were talk­ing, word came out that the son of well-known Philly-area Quak­er fam­i­ly being arrest­ed at his home in Port­land, Ore­gon, on sus­pi­cions of par­tic­i­pat­ing in vio­lent anti-ICE protests a few weeks ago.

The pros­e­cu­tors have released a bunch of pic­tures of vio­lent activ­i­ty being per­pe­trat­ed by some­one who looks like the accused, with a sim­i­lar arm tat­too. That pro­tes­tor used a stop sign as a bat­ter­ing ram, and then threw a brick at an ICE agent that hit his head, drew blood, and required med­ical atten­tion. I sure hope it’s not a Quak­er in those pho­tos and that his defense attor­neys can prove it. Tread and tram­pling is not a license for assault.