The Peaceable Kingdom Lost

June 30, 2026

06/30/202606/30/2026 · Martin Kelley

A story by Charles Fox of just a few of the massacres of Indigenous people in Pennsylvania in the late 1700s. While the Friends and Moravians often harbored endangered Susquehannock, their pacifism meant they were largely unable to stop the marauding Scots-Irish who were doing the killing.

As one historian wrote:

The frontier did collapse in late 1763. The surprise was that the armed mob that descended from the frontier into Lancaster — and then to Philadelphia in 1764 — were White frontiersmen. Everybody had expected it would be Indians.

Even more tragically, a few of the people who escaped the mobs ended up being slaughtered in later attacks. Much of the colonial government wasn’t Quaker in the latter half of the century, including some of William Penn’s descendants. Still, Friends today can wonder whether the high-minded promises of eternal friendship between Quakers and Indigenous Peoples were more hollow and aspirational than we’d like to admit. (Of course most of the Lenape and Susquehannock died from European-imported diseases, with every boatload of settlers bringing more death to the original inhabitants.)

The ‘Peaceable Kingdom’ Lost: A Friendship Found — ICT

The Conestoga massacres in Pennsylvania more than 250 years ago forever changed Native-White relations

ICT

Johan Maurer: Whose faith? Whose practice?

April 16, 2026

04/16/202604/16/2026 · Martin Kelley

Johan Maurer brings up a question in a post about what was the London Yearly Meeting’s book of Christian Faith and Practice. He asks whether our practices should be treated as models we’d expect other Christians to follow.

I suppose that in either case, Christian or Quaker, the prevailing assumption was that these books are for internal use among Friends. This is who we are, more or less. But what I like about the title Christian Faith and Practice is another interpretation entirely, one I have no permission or evidence to propose: this way of faith and life is not just for us; it’s recommended for all Christians.

I’d argue a strong yes to this. When I think about what ancient Quaker oddities might still be relevant, one of the questions I ask myself is whether we could argue that the whole church should also adopt the practice (however unlikely that might be in reality). If it’s just some Quaker canard, we can toss it into an antiquity dustbin. But if all Christians should be following the practice, then let’s set the example.

I like Thomas Clarkson’s historical account of Friends particularly because he’s not writing for a Quaker audience. I get the feeling he’s holding our practices up for scrutiny, as if to say that maybe everyone should be following them and indeed, his pacifism and abolitionism were greatly influenced by the Friends he met in his work.

Of course this witness to other Christians sort of falls apart if we don’t consider ourselves Christian. If online discourse is any indication, there are large numbers of Quakers who are rather oblivious that almost all of our Quaker identity has a biblical basis (selective, of course, and also interpreted, debated and changing). Quakerism is seen as something that just randomly popped up in the world. None of the early Friends would have thought that.

Whose faith? Whose practice? (part one)

Political and cultural observations in light of Quaker discipleship.

blog.canyoubelieve.me

Tim Gee tracks down Ann Lee’s Quaker connection

March 17, 2026

03/17/202603/18/2026 · Martin Kelley

I always love a little sleuthing and all the better if it argues against some poorly researched report that made its way to Wikipedia.

The claim is that Shaker leader Ann Lee was born a Quaker. The Wikipedia entry says: “Her parents were members of a distinct branch of the Society of Friends (a sect of Quakers) and too poor to afford their children even the rudiments of education.” The source of this is given in the citation: a 1879 encyclopedia article, a copy of which is hosted on Wikisource: “Her parents were members of a distinct branch of the society of Friends, and too poor to afford their children even the rudiments of education.” A source for this claim was never given in the encyclopedia, though later on it does reference Frederick William Evans, a much later Shaker figure.

That is the Tim Gee compiles five pieces of evidence that together feel very convincing.

There are of course influences but that’s to be expected. Every religious movement of the Second Great Awakening had some relationship to Quakers. The Methodists, Mormons, Holiness, Adventists all have some connections. When you tour the “1652 Country” area of England, where George Fox first brought Quakers together, you’ll keep running into signs about John Wesley doing the same for Methodists a century later, and here in South Jersey where I live a whole slew of Quakers became Methodists in the early 1800s. At least one early Mormon evangelist in Ohio essentially went from Quaker town to Quaker town trying to recruit people. The Quaker defense of female leadership and the principle that women can preach obviously rubbed off on the Shakers and other movements.

The idea that the British colonies in America were some pure land where we could reinvent a primitive Christianity was a powerful meme (if you will) at the time and certainly drew Ann Lee to cross over and plant a religious movement here. But Ann Lee picked one of the least Quaker areas to plant her community and drew early members from New England millennialist revivalists. She definitely wanted to build something distinct from Friends.

Just a moment…

www.friendsjournal.org

Indigenous and Quaker Both

January 27, 2026

01/27/202601/27/2026 · Martin Kelley

There’s often an implied us-them dichotomy when Quakers talk about Indigenous Peoples so I’m fascinated by communities that are both. My colleague Sharlee DiMenichi wrote about the handful of monthly meetings — and an entire yearly meeting — in the U.S. that are majority Indigenous.

I love complicated identities like this. There’s a lot of discernment that goes on about how to incorporate Indigenous and Quaker elements into life. For many, it seems a surprisingly natural fit. This is true elsewhere, in parts of Africa and South America, where missionary Quakers’ beliefs meshed with the belief systems of pre-colonial ethnic groups, allowing an easy transition.

Also of interest is that these meetings are all Christian, which demographers tell us is the norm for Native Americans today.¹ Decolonialism means something very different for those who are committed to hold on to Christianity.

Just a moment…

www.friendsjournal.org

Unintentional Consequences, Intentional Repair

January 8, 2026

01/08/202601/08/2026 · Martin Kelley

I wrote the opening column for the January Friends Journal, which looks at Indigenous Peoples and Friends. As regular readers of this blog already no doubt know, I’m a fan of local history, especially contact-era and colonial histories and especially about relations with the Indigenous Lenape and the enslaved Africans.

The whole issue is really powerful and I hope you find it as enlightening as I did.

Where I live, in one of the colonial-era Quaker colonies of the Mid-Atlantic United States, there has long been a benevolent portrayal of Quakers’ relations with the local Indigenous Peoples. We are told that early Friend William Penn negotiated the Treaty of Shackamaxon with Lenape leader Tamanend, a moment memorialized by parks, statues, and a famous painting by Benjamin West. The great French philosopher Voltaire declared it “the only treaty never sworn to and never broken.” The new settlers bought each plot of land from the local Lenape bands. Violence in the first half-century of Quaker governance was rare; cooperation and good will were the norm.

And yet: there is no federally recognized Indigenous Nation left in this former Lenape territory. Every boatload of Quakers that sailed up from Delaware Bay brought the threat of another round of deadly smallpox. Every creek dammed to power a mill cut off the spawning fish runs that stocked upland creeks. Every pig let loose from an English farmstead ate through nearby Lenape maize and squash plantings.

Talking about Who We Believe In

December 11, 2025

12/11/202512/12/2025 · Martin Kelley

I talked with Tom Gates this week about the nature of belief. He has an article in the current Friends Journal titled “Beyond What Words Can Utter.”

We agreed that a lot of Quaker belief can only be experienced, not described, which makes for difficulties when doing outreach. It’s easy to go into nuance once someone has coming into the meetinghouse and is participating in an education program but how do we get them off the street in the first place. Tom said:

I’m comfortable with Christ language and the inward light of Christ. And I know there are friends who are not, and there are good reasons why they’re not. I’m not denying that. in these newcomer sessions a persistent question is: Are Quakers Christian? And how do you understand that? And they’re mostly coming from backgrounds and other kind of more conservative churches.

And so that’s a live question for them because in some sense they all left those churches because the fundamentalism was grating on them. I always pull off this thing from my shelf, it’s the Reader’s Guide to George Fox’s Journal by Joseph Pickvance. And he makes a fascinating statement: the commonest cause of misunderstanding of Fox’s teaching today is a failure to realize how wide and deep and functional is the meaning that quote Christ had for him.

Our discussion ranged quite a bit, from Art Larrabee’s “Nine Core Quaker Beliefs” to Marcus Borg’s Heart of Christianity and 1653’s Saul’s Errand to Damascus, by James Nayler and George Fox. I definitely need to do some more reading!

Full show notes and a transcript are available.

Tom has also written a follow-up post on Quaker belief on his blog.

Young adults profiled in publications

December 7, 2025

12/07/202512/11/2025 · Martin Kelley

Two recent articles in publications have gotten some buzz. One written by AP reporter Luis Andres Henao looks at a rise of young adult interest in Friends and profiles a dramatic increase in attendance at Arch Street Meeting in Philadelphia. It’s been reprinted in a lot of newspapers. It quotes a Valerie Goodman:

“It feels like I can have a minute to breathe. It’s different than having a moment of meditation in my apartment because there’s still all of the distractions around,” Goodman says. “And it’s crazy being in a room full of other people that are all there to experience that themselves.”

The other is a beautiful essay by a new UK Friend, who explains the appeal of the silence:

It was as if someone had turned down the volume of the world, and all that remained was my feelings, sitting raw and open like a wound. Rather than running, I sat for an hour and let them wash over me. I left with a fresher perspective and spent the rest of the day in a calm daze. For the first time in a while, I felt anchored to something greater than myself.

What Do Quakers Believe?

December 1, 2025

12/01/202512/03/2025 · Martin Kelley

How’s the old joke go? Ask five Quakers what they believe and you’ll get ten answers. Undaunted, December’s Friends Journal tries to give some answers to the question anyway. I very much hope that individual Friends will find viewpoints they really like as well as ones they really don’t like, or at least don’t agree with. That there are no pat answers is itself part of the answer to the question.

Bonus: we’ve been working on expanding our international inclusion in the magazine and an article from Salvadoran Jasson Arevalo on the role of Quaker pastors is the first fruits of our new Latin American correspondent’s outreach efforts.

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