Comments on: Reading John Woolman 3: The Isolated Saint

By: PR

PR — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:33:00 +0000

Well, the first step has been taken. A Saint needs to have passed away, and my friend is no longer with us. He never officially joined the RC church, but some say he had the baptism of intention. My understanding is that he would have to be nominated and a committee of sorts would examine his life to see if he had lived with the necessary “heroic virtue.” Then two strictly proven miracles would be needed to show that he was a Saint: which , as you say, may take a very long time. You may find it interesting that his “heroic virtues” were largely ones of Quaker origin–simplicity, social activism, ecumenism, gifts to charity. http://www.fum.org/QL/issues/9804/mullins.htm

Richard Mullins gets quoted a lot, and here is one quote of his:

“If my life is motivated by an ambition to leave a legacy, what I would probably leave is a legacy of ambition. But, if my life is motivated by the power of God’s spirit in me and the awareness of the indwelling Christ, if I allow His presence to guide my motives, that’s the only time I think we really leave a great legacy.”

I just wondered what a Quaker might think of the idea of a fellow Quaker interceding on behalf of the rest of us sinners. Given my friend’s penchant for tipping sacred cows, I almost wonder what kind of scrapes he would have eventually encountered had he ever joined the RC church.

By: Martin Kelley

Martin Kelley — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:21:00 +0000

In reply to PR.

Hi PR, I don’t know too much about this. The term “saint” comes from the Bible–early Christians were often called saints. I looked up Barclay’s Apology (http://www.qhpress.org/texts/barclay/apology/), which is the fullest treatment of “official” Quaker theology and the word “saint” shows up a lot. Of course Barclay isn’t talking about official Catholic saints. The formal canonization process is very involved and can take centuries; I can’t imagine any Friend would qualify.

By: PR

PR — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:32:00 +0000

Hi, Martin I have a lack of understanding that perhaps you can help me quench. I found your blog by juxtaposing "Quaker" and "Saint" in a Google search. You may wonder why I chose to do this. I have a question for you. Is there any particular teaching about Quakers being titled saints? Would that be a contradiction in terms, since Quakers like to think of all as being equal before God? I'm not being rhetorical. There is discussion of having a friend of mine who was a very ecumenical Quaker canonized as a Catholic saint. With deep respect for both Quakers and Catholics, I find this very distressing; mostly because I believe it would distress my friend to be thought of this way. Would you mind sharing your thoughts on the subject? Perhaps you could direct me to some written materials that would clarify Quaker beliefs about sainthood.

By: Martin Kelley

Martin Kelley — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 14:01:48 +0000

Hi Dave Carl: I've never struck deep into the history, but I think Lay was actually disowned for these sorts of pranks. So no, at least Eighteenth Century Quakers weren't allowed to have that much fun. I'm in Barnesville right now, at Ohio (Cons) sessions, maybe this is a good chance to see if blood splattering is okay (though now that the clerk is a blogger he might see this and stop me before I can throw open my cloak). Simon St.Laurent: I certainly understand Quaker quietism and have a good amount of respect for the care it's always insisted needs to go into rightly-led discernment. I just don't find Woolman as helpful in my own walk as someone like Samuel Bownas.

By: Dave Carl

Dave Carl — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 18:28:36 +0000

The most widely-told tale is of Lay walking into Philadelphia Yearly Meeting sessions, opening up a cloak to reveal military uniform underneath, and declaring that slave-made products were products of war, plunged a sword into a hollowed-out Bible full of pig’s blood, splattering Friends sitting nearby.
So, what you’re saying is, Quakerism can be fun!?

By: Simon St.Laurent

Simon St.Laurent — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 11:14:35 +0000

I suspect that you’re asking a lot of questions of John Woolman that Woolman would have considered the wrong questions — most notably “Were his struggles merely interior?”
After Fox’s Journal, Woolman’s Journal is a very different experience. Both see their messages as central to the story, but Fox is much happier describing his own participation in that message, while Woolman seems to remove himself from the story as much as he can.
Perhaps I was lucky to be reading Fenelon before I read Woolman’s Journal, since I would have had a hard time getting through Woolman’s Journal without it. Reading things like this:
The chief thing is not to listen to yourself, but silently to listen to God; to renounce all vanity, and apply yourself to real virtues; to talk little, and to do much, without caring to be seen.
give me some sense of why Woolman made his choices (and wrote his Journal) the way he did.
Maybe Quietism is just too alien to the way we think today to be amenable. You write that:
But without the context of a lived life he becomes an ahistorical figure, an icon of goodness divorced from the minutiae of the daily grind.
I don’t think Woolman set out to become a historical figure (or an icon) — he just wanted to make sure his message got across, and his Journal reflects that.
I was upset at first at the lack of context, his few mentions of his wife and daughter, and all the pieces people have said are missing. At this point, though, I think it’s pretty clear that Woolman accomplished what he set out to do, and that very success is what makes it hard for modern readers to enjoy.
Howard Brinton pointed out some of the complications this causes for readers who expect Woolman to talk more about justice as well:
But how, the activist will ask, can we heal a sick world when we are advised to “retire from all outward objects and silence all desires in the profound silence of the whole soul”…? The answer is that there is no peace without until there is peace within. A man who is inwardly disordered will infect all about him with his inner disorder.
John Woolman, a New Jersey tailor of the eighteenth century, followed without reservation the type of religion portrayed in The Guide to True Peace, yet he was one of the world’s greatest social reformers. When he went about persuading the Quakers, a hundred years before the Civil War, to give up their slaves, he did not say much about suffering and injustice. He simply pointed out to the slaveholders that they felt no inner peace.
The history of the Society of Friends shows that almost always this search for inner peace is the dynamic of Quaker pioneering in social reform. True peace comes, not by inaction, but in letting God act through us. (The Guide to True Peace, x‑xi)
It’s a heavy message, not one that fits with modern perspectives, including many Quaker perspectives. It makes reading and understanding people like John Woolman difficult, even for his fans.