Primitive Quakerism Revived – Returning to Friends’ Roots as a Radically Transformative Prophetic Movement

This program is an elective of the Pendle Hill Spring Term resident student program. Admitted Spring Term students will be automatically given the option to participate. Participants not enrolled in The Spring Term are invited to register as commuters, and are also invited to book a sojourn at Pendle Hill to live on campus for any or all of the course.

If you are seeking funds or alternate payment options to participate in this program, please wait to register and first complete our Financial Assistance Application.

All registrations are due by 3/25/25.

In England during the second half of the 17th century, God drew together an extraordinary movement of people united in a shared understanding of how to live with each other faithfully in truth and love, guided by the immediate revelation of God to their community. The Children of the Light or Publishers of Truth (as they called themselves) carried a prophetic vision of God’s hopes for how people can live with each other here on earth. That vision contrasted sharply with the values and assumptions of the established church, the state, and the economic system of the day.

That early Quaker movement looked and acted very differently from all the branches and variants of this Society of Friends today. In this course, we will do a deep dive into what that early Friends community was about, where and how Friends have departed from their faith and witness, and how Friends today might once again be a transformative prophetic force in the world around us capable of “shaking the earth for ten miles around”.

We will walk together with selected writings by early Quaker women and men and of modern Friends like Sandra Cronk, Thomas Kelly, Marcelle Martin, and Paul Buckley (whose 2018 book gave this course its title). All readings used are freely available to all Friends in the online Quaker library InwardLight.org.

If you would like to join us for dinner before any of the sessions, please sign up at least 24 business hours in advance.

Leader

Peter Blood-Patterson has spent a diverse life as activist, Quakerism teacher, advanced practice nurse, family therapist, and promoter of communal singing among Friends and around the world. He was mentored by and received spiritual direction from Bill Taber and Parker Palmer at Pendle Hill. He has led Quakerism courses, workshops, and retreats for meetings through Philadelphia YM’s traveling teachers program and for meetings and retreat centers around the world.

Peter’s ministry of teaching and writing about Quakerism is currently under the care of Mt. Toby Friends Meeting in NEYM. Working in close collaboration with a number of leading Quaker historians and writers, he is the primary curator of the online library InwardLight.org, which has already provided free access to hundreds of Quaker pamphlets, books, and talks stretching from the beginnings of Quakerism to the present day. He has received grants from NEYM’s Legacy Gift Fund and the Obadiah Brown Benevolent Fund to develop adult Quakerism courses and the Inward Light library. Peter is a frequent contributor to Friends Journal, most recently with his article “We Are All Held in Love: Reflections on Holding in the Light.”

As a 2025 Kenneth L. Carroll Scholar at Pendle Hill, Peter will build on his long-term belief that faith-based work of social transformation represents a form of prophecy. He will explore ways Friends today can play an important role in helping create the Kingdom of Heaven on earth – springing from God’s vision of a new creation here among us today.

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