The Quakers in America

The Quakers in America

by Thomas Hamm
The Quakers in America

The Quakers in America

by Thomas Hamm

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Overview

The Quakers in America is a multifaceted history of the Religious Society of Friends and a fascinating study of its culture and controversies today. Lively vignettes of Conservative, Evangelical, Friends General Conference, and Friends United meetings illuminate basic Quaker theology and reflect the group's diversity while also highlighting the fundamental unity within the religion. Quaker culture encompasses a rich tradition of practice even as believers continue to debate whether Quakerism is necessarily Christian, where religious authority should reside, how one transmits faith to children, and how gender and sexuality shape religious belief and behavior. Praised for its rich insight and wide-ranging perspective, The Quakers in America is a penetrating account of an influential, vibrant, and often misunderstood religious sect.
Known best for their long-standing commitment to social activism, pacifism, fair treatment for Native Americans, and equality for women, the Quakers have influenced American thought and society far out of proportion to their relatively small numbers. Whether in the foreign policy arena (the American Friends Service Committee), in education (the Friends schools), or in the arts (prominent Quakers profiled in this book include James Turrell, Bonnie Raitt, and James Michener), Quakers have left a lasting imprint on American life. This multifaceted book is a concise history of the Religious Society of Friends; an introduction to its beliefs and practices; and a vivid picture of the culture and controversies of the Friends today.

The book opens with lively vignettes of Conservative, Evangelical, Friends General Conference, and Friends United meetings that illuminate basic Quaker concepts and theology and reflect the group's diversity in the wake of the sectarian splintering of the nineteenth century. Yet the book also examines commonalities among American Friends that demonstrate a fundamental unity within the religion: their commitments to worship, the ministry of all believers, decision making based on seeking spiritual consensus rather than voting, a simple lifestyle, and education. Thomas Hamm shows that Quaker culture encompasses a rich tradition of practice even as believers continue to debate a number of central questions: Is Quakerism necessarily Christian? Where should religious authority reside? Is the self sacred? How does one transmit faith to children? How do gender and sexuality shape religious belief and behavior? Hamm's analysis of these debates reveals a vital religion that prizes both unity and diversity.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780231508933
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication date: 12/03/2003
Series: Columbia Contemporary American Religion Series
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 304
File size: 9 MB

About the Author

Thomas D. Hamm is archivist for the Friends Collection and professor of history at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. This is his fourth book on Quakerism.

Table of Contents

Meeting for Worship and Meeting for Business
The Origins of American Quakerism, 1640-1800
Their Separate Ways: American Friends since1800
Quaker Faiths and Practices
Contemporary Quaker Debates
Quakers and the World
"A Quarterly Meeting in Herself": Quaker Women, Marriage, and the Family

What People are Saying About This

J. William Frost

Hamm has written a superb portrait of modern Quakerism, drawing on the latest historical research, wide reading in contemporary Quaker sources, and extensive interviews, as well as visits to many varieties of meetings. Readers will learn how past beliefs influence recent Quaker practices and controversies over worship, theology, pacifism, marriage, family, women's rights, and education. Hamm has the rare ability to write in a manner that is informative for academic specialists and appealing to lay men and women. If a person wishes to read only one book about the Society of Friends, this is the one I would recommend.

Margaret Hope Bacon

There has long been a need for a study of American Quakers in the twentieth century. With meticulous scholarship and a graceful style, Thomas Hamm has filled this need admirably. He treats various forms of contemporary Quaker belief with remarkable evenhandedness and compassion. The Quakers in America will become a classic.

Margaret Hope Bacon, author of The Quiet Rebels: The Story of Quakers in American

Mark A. Noll

Although scholarship is rich on the history of the Quakers, brief, reliable guides are hard to find. Thomas Hamm's carefully crafted book thus meets a real need in supplying an authoritative introduction. It is one of the book's special merits that it makes not only the ins and outs of Quaker history, but also the bewildering variety of intra-Quaker differences as interesting as they are clear.

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