Rethinking Quaker Principles

Is our Quakerism to be an open or a closed type of religion? Open religion means a type that is uncongealed, fresh, free, formative and in vital contact with the creative stream of divine life. Open religion has faith in the spiritual capacity of the soul and confidence that God and man are akin and essentially belong together. Open religion, therefore, is expectant, forward looking. It prizes the past, but believing profoundly that God is a living God, it sees more yet of love and truth and goodness before us. Its ultimate assurances are not in books or creeds or formulations or arguments, but in the soul’s experience of the reality and Christlikeness of God. It dares to leave religion free to grow with the growing world and growing mind, and to sail the uncharted seas with God. The Society of Friends in its early formative period was a striking illustration of open religion. The day dawn and the daystar had arisen in the hearts of these “Children of the Light,” and they moved forward.