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Overview
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: | 9780231123624 |
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Publisher: | Columbia University Press |
Publication date: | 12/03/2003 |
Series: | Columbia Contemporary American Religion Series |
Edition description: | New Edition |
Pages: | 304 |
Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d) |
Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Meeting for Worship and Meeting for BusinessThe 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
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.
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
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.