[This is the second segment of my multi-part series on pacifism. The first, which dealt with Gandhi, can be found here. This second part discusses the Quaker approach. It also will be divided into two smaller sections, of which this is the first. I think that’s quite complicated enough, don’t you think?]
During the long build-up to the Iraq war and for quite some time after, my regular driving route took me past the local Quaker church. In front was a large banner, prominently displayed, that read, “WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER”. Driving by, I often had to fight the urge to stop my car, walk inside, and ask them: What’s the question? And what’s your answer?
I wouldn’t have minded quite so much if the banner had read “We believe that war is not the answer” or even better “We hope that war is not the answer.” It was the absolute and sweeping nature of the statement that got to me: was war never a proper response to a situation? Was it not sometimes the least terrible of the “choices among crazinesses?”
It turns out that, despite the banner, at least some Quakers have always answered “yes” to the latter question. The Quaker attitude is far more nuanced (pardon the expression) than the banner would indicate.
Although pacifism is a basic tenet of Quaker belief—the thing that most often comes to mind when the word “Quaker” is brought up in conversation among non-Quakers—by no means do Quakers universally agree as to its dimensions and scope. In fact, the argument within the Quaker faith on this point goes back hundreds of years, to its founding in the 1600s by George Fox, and the disagreement mirrors in some interesting ways arguments in the larger world about pacifism itself.
Here’s a brief history of the dilemma within the Quaker faith, taken from this piece by Quaker Vernon Mullen:
There have been several sides to the pacifist stand from George Fox’s time. The question has always been: How far should one go in refusing to use force to try to bring about peace and justice? On one side stand the pure idealists who have renounced force or violence in any form; on the other are the pragmatists, although they may be pacifists, who are willing to use force to maintain law and order.
George Fox’s declaration of 1661 to Charles II is referred to as the Friends historic peace testimony: “We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any ends or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world.” The rulers feared that the Quakers might lead some kind of revolution against their authority, and Fox wanted to assure them that the Quakers were peaceful.
In his biography of George Fox, First Among Friends, Larry Ingle says:
“Fox was not a pacifist in the modern sense that he utterly rejected participating in all wars and violent conflicts. He couldn’t imagine himself bearing the sword, at least under {his} present circumstances… but he also recognized that someone must wield the sword against evil-doers.”
Ingle goes on to say, “Fox would not condone violence except ‘in the cause of justice’… ‘in a war with the devil and his works’… ‘for a righteous cause’… or for ‘keeping the peace and protecting people’s estates’ (i.e. not their property but their condition), and Ingle continues that Fox would ‘never deny the right of a nation’s rulers to wield weapons in defense of a just cause. The problem was in defining such a cause.’ Thus the dilemma.
The old question keeps on appearing: “What would you do if you saw your mother being raped?” [neo-neocon note: sound familiar, Mike Dukakis?] I know my answer: I would use whatever force or weapon I had available to protect her. I would not try to kill or maim but use only enough force to stop the aggressor. Yes, I would respect “that of God” in the aggressor, but I must respect it also in the victim. I believe this principle applies as well to nations.
So here we have a Quaker tradition that runs a surprising gamut from what I call “absolute pacifism” (what Mullen refers to as the “pure idealists”) to “relative pacifism” (what Mullen refers to as the “pragmatists”). The pragmatists adhere to a doctrine that is somewhat similar to the “just war” doctrine of Catholicism (another topic for another day, perhaps) although the Quaker version seems to me to be the slightly more restrictive one.
The Civil War presented a particularly compelling case to Quakers as being both just and necessary, since Quakers had long been in the forefront of the abolitionist movement. In fact–as Ingle himself writes here–despite the “peace testimony” being the heart of Quakerism, at least some Quakers have participated in every war since the religion’s founding in the 1600s.
Ingle describes the conflict within Quakerism on this issue, and emphasizes the individual nature of the Quaker decision about pacifism vs. war (and in his description of the William Penn approach you may find, as I did, a hint at the genesis of many modern-day strains of pacifism, both Quaker or otherwise):
…Fox, at least, never betook himself to deny the right, even duty, of a ruler to wield weapons in a just cause. The problem was determining exactly what such a cause was and by whose standards it would be judged. In this sense, it fed the individualism at the heart of Quakerism, for it ultimately left to each Friend the responsibility of making that determination.
In addition, since the statement spoke only for Friends and formally represented only the signers’ personal testimony against participation in war, it never presumed to speak for those beyond the bounds of the Quaker faith. Certainly in denying carnal weapons, it was not making a universal statement. Hence its spirit was foreign to the kind of Enlightenment optimism that practically oozed from William Penn’s 1693 Essay “Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe,” only a bit more than a generation later.
This pamphlet proposed a structure for a united European parliament that would end international conflict and secure peace. The difference between the two approaches involved more than the mere passage of time: one from two ill-educated Quakers, whose despair at the Stuart Restoration gave them little hope of ever seeing “the Day of the Lord” or having to personally confront the question of wielding the sword in a just cause; the other from the pen of a thoughtful, well-off, and worldly educated imperial proprietor who oversaw his colony’s rules.
The implications of the peace testimony thus stand apart from most modern Quaker peacemaking, which owes more to the aristocratic Penn than to the ruder Fox and Hubberthorne….our 1661 authors…[who gave] a sectarian call to Friends to be faithful to the word of God they had heard in the silence of their meetings; it spoke only to those who had been convinced of its truth and knew themselves called to uphold a unique standard.
So the original pacifist Quaker position was a highly individual one, more akin to that of the modern-day conscientious objector who cannot himself fight but who might support a war in other ways by being a medic or ambulance driver, for example. The second, or William Penn strain, is the “international law” variety so popular today, and often espoused by those who are not aligned with any religious movement, Quakerism or otherwise. This second type of pacifism embraces the idea that courts and the UN and treaties and disarmament will usher in the era of the lion lying down with the lamb, and among Quakers it is connected with the mission to work as social activists to hasten the arrival of that day.
The first wing of Quakerism is eloquently represented here, by one of its early founders, Penington, writing in 1661:
I speak not against any magistrates or peoples defending themselves against foreign invasions; or making use of the sword to suppress the violent and evil-doers within their borders – for this the present estate of things may and doth require…There is to be a time when ‘nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more’…This blessed state, which shall be brought forth [in society] at large in God’s season, must begin in particulars [that is, in individuals].
So, Penington’s position is: for now, war is necessary and will not be opposed, except by individual non-participation based on individual decision. Quakers in their pacifism have a special call to be a sort of harbinger of the world to come, when war will no longer be necessary. This state will be brought about through God’s will and the efforts of individual humans such as Quakers.
The dangers of pacifism, especially of the absolute variety, were well-expressed in 1974 by the British Quaker writer and teacher Wolf Mendl (who, by the way, began life as a German Jew—an unusual journey, I would imagine):
Because of their personal experience and convictions, [early] Friends did not deny the reality of evil and of conflict. Nor did they equate conflict with evil. They were well aware of the suffering which a non-violent witness could bring in an imperfect world. This is in contrast to those who identify peace with the absence of conflict and value that above all things. It is the latter who have given modern pacifism its bad name and have led their critics to refer to them contemptuously as ‘passivists’. The failure to take evil and conflict into account as elements in our human condition and an obsession with the need for peace and harmony have led pacifists badly astray… Christian pacifists [are] not exempt from the temptation to sacrifice others for the sake of peace.
Mendl is not exactly a hawk, to be sure. But his writing shows a deep awareness on the part of at least some Quakers about what is at stake, and of the damage that can be done by “passivists” in the name of goodness.
[Go here for Part I, and here for Part IIB, the final post in the series.]