Welcome back to the Fourth Wave podcast. In this episode, I had the privilege of talking with Mary Krateroof, who is an archivist, archivalist, something like that, in regards to Quakerism. And this was really exciting for me because I have been talking a lot about Quaker individuals over the past few years, and it was nice to actually be able able to talk to somebody who was a Quaker and knew a lot about them. In some ways though, it was also disappointing because I kind of elevated the Quakers, and I should have known better. Right?

I mean, humans are humans, and we are very complex creatures, and the same thing goes with with any ideology. You're gonna find a lot of people, a lot of variants within ideologies, and then a lot of inconsistency even within somebody's own internal ideology because we're hypocrites a lot of times too, and self interested. So as we talked about the Quakers, I still really respect them, and and a lot of the work that they've been able to do, and some of their ideologies really influence their ability to be able to, you know, to move forward on justice issues before other groups do. Nevertheless, it they definitely have a solid past just like all of our groups do. So hopefully in this episode, since we talked so much about Quakers, you'll be able to hear a little bit more about Quakers from somebody who actually knows something about them.

And we'll also have another episode right after this one where we're gonna talk with another Quaker and maybe dig into to some more of this. So sit back and enjoy. Yeah. So you're I don't really know. I grew up in Pennsylvania, Lancaster County area.

I did not grow up a Quaker. I'm not a Quaker at the moment. But, it's kind of interesting because my life journey has taken me kind of back to the roots, which is kind of it's just yeah, it's different. But you're at Haverford College? Yes.

Is that like a Quaker school?

Yeah. So Haverford College is it was founded as a Quaker college in 1833 just outside of Philadelphia. And today, it's nonsectarian, but it still roots itself in its Quaker values. So I'm the curator of Quaker Collections.

Okay. Cool. And by the way, I didn't introduce myself formally, so I'm Derek Crider, by the way. So yeah, why don't you just tell me a little bit about your background because it looks like you're a historian of sorts, but I don't really know much more than that.

Yeah. So, yes. So I was raised Quaker and I went to another Quaker institution for college. I went to Earlham College, which is in Indiana, which is where I started getting interested in Quaker archives. And then I went to graduate school specifically for archives and records management at the University of Maryland.

At the time I wanted to either go into Quaker archives or become a children's librarian. And I feel like I've accomplished both because I have lots of nieces and nephews who I get to find books for and then I get to do Quaker archive stuff. So I started here six years ago and stepped into this is a department I have my supervisor who runs the department and then there's a total of five and a half full time equivalents, permanent equivalents. And we kind of work together to run the Quaker collections, the college archives, photographs, rare books that we have. There are several Quaker archives around the world.

There's one just thirty minutes down the road at Swarthmore College, France Historical Library. So we collaborate a lot as you could imagine, but there's also Earlham and then Guilford, which is in North Carolina. And of course, there's a lot in England, especially in London because of Quakerism being founded there. So it's a small landscape of Quaker archivists and we all come in from slightly different perspectives. I do feel like I come more from the archives perspective than the historian side, although I do take on the role of historian sometimes.

And I do the French Historical Association, which was founded in the late 1800s, kind of has fostered Quaker scholarship and kind of quicker, quicker discourse over the past almost one hundred and fifty years. So I think if I'm passionate about nothing else, it's about conversation and complicating the conversation with embodying the multitude of truths.

Oh, no. I wasn't hoping for complicating. I was hoping that I could be less confused. No. I understand what you're saying.

But it's something that as I learn more about Quakers so I didn't come through the Quaker door. I was, you know, researching justice issues and nonviolence and that kind of stuff. And it's like, of course, I knew about Quakers and abolition, but then I I, you know, listened to a podcast about Quakers helping in Nazi Germany and, like, France, and and, you know, they're just they're just always involved in things. And so when I started to to look deeper into it, they they have so many cool stories. And as the archivalist or historian, I was hoping that you could maybe bring some of those that I I haven't heard of out and kinda paint a a clearer picture.

Because I had always pictured Quakers as just like these stoic, I don't know, boring. Well,

so so my first question back to you is what's the podcast that had that episode? Because I wanna listen to it, and I don't think that I've listened to it.

So it came through the site. There's a site called Waging Nonviolence. And City of Refuge. Oh, where

is Lizzie? Right?

I'm not sure I'm not sure what his name is, but City of Refuge is the podcast. Okay. And it's like a 10 part series on on France in particular. And and so it it wasn't an a series on Quakers. It was a series on this guy, Andre Trocme, and but he encounters a bunch of Quakers who assist him, and they're already doing the work over there in France too.

So you just you've run into Quakers everywhere being on the right side of of justice issues, it seems.

Yeah. Well and that's sort of where things get complicated from the beginning, which is that I think oftentimes in the aftermath, it kind of looks like Quakers were on the right side of things. But it's oftentimes been more complicated than that just in thinking about so one of the things that sometimes leads to that is the way that quicker process works. So I don't know if you were raised religious at all. But I know a lot of religions kind of use like Robert's Rules or like, it's a lot more hierarchical.

So someone like, there's like a band of people at the top who make a decision and that kind of is like, and this is how it will be. And that's not really how it works with Quakers. It really tends to start, it kind of goes back and forth between different levels of a pretty short hierarchy. So it can sometimes take a very long time. So the first document of anti slavery was written by a group of Mennonites and Quakers in 1688.

It's called the Germantown Petition. And it sort of talked about, you know, is this actually moral for our souls? Like, we know that the people that we are enslaving, like, that they also have souls and how does this impact our morality? And it took another hundred years before Philadelphia yearly meeting said, like, you cannot be a Quaker in this area and be an enslaver. Like, if you do, then we will kick you out.

So that's a hundred years. That's a long time. So like, on the right side of history, sure. Like, you look back on it. Yes.

I think in a lot of ways, it's true with a lot of other revolutions that you see as well. I think something that Quaker so Quakerism came out of this time in the 1650s, it was, you know, there was this a lot of civil unrest in England at that time. So they were among many groups who were called seekers, trying to find truth. But it really came out of this hardship that they that this kind of grew grew out. And I think that when you look at Quaker history and specifically around things, you know, like Quaker relief work.

So times like in World War One, World War Two, the Vietnam War, things like that, that will find that quicker ism sometimes like changes in reaction to. So there's a big organization which probably the podcast hit on, the American Friends Service Committee, which was founded in 1917. And it was actually founded on the grounds of Haverford because there were many men who were professors who were involved in that founding. And basically saying like, why can't we train Quakers and other people to go and do relief work in the same way that the military is training people to go and fight. And so that sort of starts a couple of generations worth of people going and there's a lot of relief work around Europe, particularly around feeding children and clothing children and women and people who have been devastated by who are devastated by war.

And sometimes what you'll what we find in the archives is materials that actually show that Quakers, I think in order to do a lot of their work actually worked with the enemy. Like, so there's documents of like, where the Nazis were like, yes, like, you as the American Friend Service Committee can go to this place. Like, we approve that. And you're like, but they were doing this radical relief work. Right?

There's sometimes contradictions in that, but I think sometimes for that longer view. A major shift that happened, I think, really kind of shifted Quakerism towards the second half of the twentieth century is the Vietnam War and conscientious objection. They don't know how familiar you are with conscientious objection at all. Oh, I can't hear you.

Oh, sorry. I'm not super familiar, but I mean, I know what it is.

Yeah. So they're basically, particularly, so in the Vietnam War, like you had you had the draft, and there were a lot of young men who did not want to be drafted. And so a lot of Quaker young men, they became conscientious objectors. And a lot of other young men were like, Oh, I don't want to fight and these values really align with my values. So I'm going to become Quaker and become a conscientious objector.

And what you find in that transition point, I think a lot more of when sometimes people talk to me, they're like, is Quakerism like a place for political action or is it a religion? I'm like, well, yes. But I think that particularly around the Vietnam War and then many generations since, a lot of the outward look of it has looked like protest. And there are still, the American Friend Service Committee still exists today in many places around the world, and also works with other organizations who do relief work like the Mennonite Central Committee and things like that who are continue to be on the ground in places that the American Friend Service Committee is not anymore. So I think that that kind of gives a general arc of things.

And I think today, there's definitely, I think, if you ask people, like, if there was, some of the through lines of Quakerism, I think that one of them would be political action and involvement in politics in that form. I think there's there are sometimes few strands that everybody believes, but I think that that is one of them in seeking to do, to be on that right side to be looking at like, what has God called us to do, and to support people. I think that that's certainly an avenue that when you look around Quaker involvement in the Spanish Civil War as well, all of these times, there's a big involvement and push and it kind of changes, like, Quakerism kind of morphs around those times.

Okay.

Yeah.

I wanna go back to something that you said because I just read the story of of Benjamin Lay a couple months ago. And it was it was very clear that there were slaveholders among the Quakers, and Benjamin Lay was kind of the odd man out in all of that. Yeah. But I guess the reason that I would it feels like I should still characterize Quakers as being on the right side of justice is because it seemed like and maybe this was a was a one off case, but it seemed like the way that they had things set up provided even though everybody was was against Benjamin Lay, he was able to work within the system and eventually influence it to change. When I think about, you know, my group, the the conservative evangelicals, I mean, the SBC, a lot a lot of his nominations, basically, they come to a head, and then they're like, well, we're just gonna split.

And so there's never a resolution until you get a civil war or something like that, and then you're kind of forced into into a place. So I guess that's why it feels like the Quaker's on the right side because even though it was one man, he was able to transform the group kind of like a representative of them, and eventually they they shifted to his side. Does that make sense?

It does make sense. So Benjamin Lay was part was part of a movement of people. It was not just Benjamin Lay. Right? There was a a group called the Progressive Friends that actually did break away and were some of them were kicked out.

Lucretia Mott is a very famous Quaker later on who was also kicked out over abolition and anti slavery. And so I think I think you sometimes have these like small groups of people and then like, I think that you're right. Like, there is a small movement that then does change the whole body. There are I will say there are many different types of Quakers in the world today. So, you know, when you look in the Philadelphia area, there's pretty like there are some more evangelical Quaker churches that are Spanish speaking.

But predominantly, like when you think of like, the pictures of Quakers in like a meeting house and everything like that, that's like silent worship. That that's a lot of what's in this area. But around the world, actually, the majority of Quakers are evangelical, or are just a lot more, a lot more, like mainline in terms of thinking, you know, so the majority of Quakers in the world are in Africa. And, and are, you know, so like on, on the, I sometimes like to talk about like, there's a scale, there's the like, there's the progressiveness and political value, and then there's the progressiveness. And then there's the type of worship that is held.

So you have around here, you have a lot more liberal politics and it's called unprogrammed worship. And then on the very other side, you have a very programmed worship with a lot of singing and preaching, and also a lot more conservative political values. That would be, you know, like anti queer rights, you know, very patriarchal. Like even like on the furthest edge of that, not wanting women as ministers, which is actually one of the beginning founding Margaret Fell, who is one of the 60, it's called the Valiant 60 at the beginning. And she wrote basically looking in Scripture of why women should be able to minister as much as men.

So you really have this and then you kind of have a lot of different things on that spectrum. And so I think that it's easy to categorize and to only think especially in The US, especially on the East Coast about this one type of Quaker. But there were breaks. There were real breaks. And some of that comes from distance.

A lot of that comes from Quakers in Philadelphia moving west. And as they were trying to attract more people, were like, oh, it seems like people really like this singing thing. Maybe we should have singing. It seems like people really like being, like, preached at by like one person. Like, I guess we should do that.

Even to the point of having like major Quaker revivals with like, like when you think of a of a like a revival and like revival tent and like a whole big thing. Like, they were doing that. And sometimes like a meeting would have started as an unprogrammed like silent Quaker worship model and will have transitioned to being this other type of worship. So I think that there's some interesting things in that as well. Because, you know, there's I think that compared to many other religions, Quakerism has stuck together a little bit more over time, but there's still a lot of breaks.

There's actually a really wonderful tree that kind of shows all of the different schisms and breaks and where everything is still continuing today because of it.

Okay. So they're not nearly as homogenous as it seems. But do they would a more patriarchal church fellowship with a church that has a woman pastor? Or is it like, is the break really a break? Or is it do they still kind of meet together and and worship together or have committees or whatnot?

Yeah, sometimes people work together. There are three major Quaker umbrella organizations. So one is called Friends General Conference and that one's the more unprogrammed liberal one. Then there's Friends United Meeting and then there's the Evangelical Friends. So they kind of have their own hierarchies within those organizations and committees and gatherings and things like that.

There are a few. There's a Friends World Committee for consultation and that one does embody, like tries to bring people together from around all of the different types of Quakers. And I've been to other conferences especially as a young adult with other young adults from different kinds of Quakers. And it's very hard and we all try to a difficult place to sometimes sit in

that

uncomfortableness. And I think one of the things that we all struggle with is, they are they still Quakers? Right? And that comes from many different directions. Like if you aren't worshiping and believing the way that that like I am, can you still call yourself a Quaker?

So do you have like, I associate nonviolence with Quakers. Like, seems like it would be if you get rid of that, you're you can't really be a Quaker. That that's just how it feels. Is that true? And then also, are there any other defining aspects that would make one a Quaker or not a Quaker?

Yeah, that's a great question. So, So I think so nonviolence and think thinking about peace as that active peace and not a like, we're just going to let things pass us by but being involved, think that's where you see a lot of that political action coming through. I do think that that is a big tenant of Quakerism around the world. I was in Kenya A Year And A Half ago and I was listening to people preach about climate change because it really impacts their day to day life and in a way that like I think of that as part of nonviolence as well in terms of care for the environment. So if you look online about Quaker beliefs, one of the things that you might find is something called that has oftentimes been called spice or spices that kind of outlines major tenants.

You have simplicity and peace and let's see, integrity, community, equality. And I think people have sometimes just gone towards, oh, that's what we believe and don't remember. Peace testimony as we call it today was actually a testimony against outward war at the beginning when it was when it was written in 1660. And to me, like when you read it, it's not actually against all war. It's against outward war.

If there's an inward war, that's really important and is part of that challenging yourself and being challenged that I think is really, really important across Quakerism And that we have it's really only been in the twentieth century and the twenty first and twenty first century that we've called it the peace testimony, which I think kind of turns it on its head. And it's really like, must have peace everywhere. Well, we know that there's going to be tumult. And so how do we work through that? So absolutely peace is a major one.

Think simplicity kind of goes a bit with like environmental justice of like, using things that are within your means and not being overly extravagant. But which I think carries through a lot of Quaker, a lot of different types of Quakers. And I think that oftentimes looks really different depending on people's class particularly. What I might consider to be simple is not what you might consider simple. There are people that wear plain dress, so wear the same outfit and they actually people oftentimes think that they are Amish, but they're just wearing very simple clothing.

And then for someone else, might be that like in their group of friends, don't wear nail polish. But because all of their other friends do, for them not to, it's simplicity. Right? And I think that that is the heart of it where these testimonies are personal testimonies that also grow to be community testimonies. So I think that that's sort of how that works.

And in the twenty first century, we've kind of more like been secured in these ones. But I think one that's really been growing is justice in terms of racial justice and economic and climate justice. So

another question, and I don't want you to spend too much time on this because I know that I found a lot of other good things on, like, through other interviews, and there are some other questions that I haven't found that I'd really like to get to. But I don't think it's really possible to talk about Quakers without talking about the way that they make decisions because you were so and that's something that kind of confuses me and I think confuses a lot of Westerners. And I've seen a little bit of it in the Orthodox Church where, you know, instead of having, like, a pope who's preeminent, they have, you know, different people, and they might have one priest who is the what is it called? Some like, not prominent among equals, but it's it's something like that, where it's like, we're all equal, but nevertheless, everybody kind of gives reverence to this this one person a little bit more so. It kinda seems that way on Quakerism.

So when you use words like, you know, different versions of Quakerism have different hierarchies, so hierarchy doesn't seem to go with how I imagine the decision making process, but I can't imagine having a decision making process without hierarchy. So could you maybe simplify that a little bit for me?

I will do my best to simplify it. Is this the one that you do wanted me to spend a lot of time on or no?

No. You go for it and then Okay.

Oftentimes the way that Quaker decision making has been translated into Western language has been consensus making, which is not actually what it is. What Quaker decision making is is sense of the meeting, which is probably even more confusing than less. So the sense of the meeting is basically so business decisions so so business meeting is called it's not just called business meeting. It's called meeting for worship for business. Weddings are meeting for worship with attention to marriage.

Everything kind of flows through that because a lot of the Quakerism and that grounding is through community and through being in the presence of one another. So in business meeting, you do have we usually call them clerks who who kind of organize the meeting and kind of work through the agenda. And when a decision comes forward, there's conversation and discussion. And then the clerk might call for silence to kind of settle back in and to kind of really try in a lot of ways, they're trying to read the room, I think is another way to think about it. But trying to read the room as well as also trying to see what is God trying to say in all of this as well.

Like, how how is that impacting all of this? And then what they might say is, so what I'm hearing the sense of the meeting is, and then they'll make their statement. And then there might be people who are like, oh, no, that is not at all what I said. I meant something completely different, and I do not agree with what you said.

So when they when they say that I I feel this is the sense of the meeting, are they are they really saying, hey, this is how I feel? Or are they saying, this is what I think I heard from everybody else? Is it others focused or self focused?

It's other focused as well as God focused, right? So like, so in a lot of ways, like when I am clerking a meeting, I might have like what I want, but I have to take, see what other people are thinking. And so I might not actually get my way. But but sort of seeing like, oh, like, is what is this? What are people actually thinking?

And there are sometimes decisions that don't get made for years. This is why it takes so long is because of the sense of the meeting that like, sometimes the clerk will say, I don't have a clear sense of this meeting. We will have to keep talking about this. And sometimes this gets very infuriating when it's a decision like what there are jokes about this. How many Quakers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

And there's the committee and you have to get a sense of the meeting. But literally around painting the color of the walls, things like that. That there's kind of jokes towards that end. But that's how quicker decision making that's how that led to meetings deciding to become anti slavery. It's in meetings like that and having those discussions and clerks reading that room and saying like, there is not a clear sense here.

Now, does this get taken advantage of at certain points? Absolutely. People have their agendas. You know, this happened with the sixteen eighty eight protest where it just didn't get on the agenda. The person who was making the agenda put it in well, lore goes that it just got it got folded and put into a drawer.

They were like, we are not ready to hear this, which is also a decision and it could have been a personal decision, and also could have been part of that sense of the meeting. But those things certainly happen. I don't know if that kind of clarifies things enough.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'll definitely I'll put links to some of the other videos that I saw because I I know it can sound it can sound really fickle at first to say, you do this about the colors of the walls, but I've seen some very good explanations as to and and it's one of the things that I I love about how you really do put God into every decision and think about the ramifications it has for other people and and how the world is really interconnected.

Right. So like like the color of the wall, well, it might not actually be about the color of the wall, but it's about the paint that you're using and the fumes. Right? And caring about what we're like, what the meaning is bringing in and what it's doing to the environment. Right?

So like, the joke and the fickleness is about the color of about painting the walls, but that's not what it's about. So, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So kind of shifting shifting gears a little bit because I I wanna get into some of the the historical things more so. So again, I come from conservative evangelicalism. And, you know, in the the last five years, the make America great again thing came up. And I've just I've read through too much history to like, I know that that's just that's baloney, and and it's it's trying to get people riled up, and it's like people just don't know history.

And so my group oftentimes, we think that, well, we were kind of saviors. You know, we were good. We established this this wonderful wonderful institution, this wonderful government, and we were we were being persecuted and here for religious freedom. And and I'm sure there's a a bit of truth to that in some ways, but we don't we don't seem to be able to understand the real picture. And so as I'm reading through different accounts and I'm seeing, like, Quakers and and other nonviolent groups, like Mennonites were you know, when when there was conscription or when that when there was wartime, like, they'd have their possessions taken or they'd be killed or beaten.

The the Quakers especially who were friendly with the Native Americans, there were a lot of repercussions for them, and and there were stories of Quakers being slaughtered alongside of their their Native American friends. And this is done by, you know, my ancestors, the the Protestant Christians who were fleeing religious persecution. So I would love for you I I know that's a very long deep history, but I'd love for you to to help my group get a sense of how we persecuted other people, like other Christians even, and how how in a sense there were other groups of Christians who are bearing the witness of Christ through martyrdom more so than than my group or alongside.

Yeah. So I'm trying to figure out how to make this a short story, which I'm not sure that there fully is a way, but I can at least give a give a beginning of it. So Quakers were persecuted from day one. They were going against the Church of England and they were they were instigating people. So Quakers were arrested all of the time.

All of the time. There were points when there were more Quakers in jail than outside of it in England. They were heavily, heavily persecuted for not wanting to become part of the military, for worship. It was illegal to worship. It was illegal to marry as a Quaker, like to marry outside of the institution of the Church of England.

So that is kind of the story from the beginning is of this persecution. And that when I mentioned earlier that document that Margaret Fell wrote about women, it's called Women Speaking Justified. She wrote that while she was in jail. A lot of that writing happened in jail. They would take care of each other's kids when both parents were in jail, then the kids would still be taken care of.

So there is a lot of of that from the beginning. And so when so William Penn becomes Quaker, sort of not very happily by the rest of his family, particularly his father. But he inherited this land called he inherited this land he inherited this land called Pennsylvania or that became Pennsylvania, right? Penn's Land, Penn's Woods. And it was founded on this idea of religious freedom.

Right? Like that's part of this whole idea of where we are. This part was founded in that way. Know, it's not the same like in New England. They were they were founded like, those areas were founded under different circumstances.

And you find people like Mary Dyer who was hanged on Boston Common for being Quaker. And she had been kicked out of Boston and basically said, do not come back to the colonies. Otherwise, we will hang you. And so she went to England and then was like, I'm supposed to be in Boston. I have work to do and God's calling me back to be in Boston.

And she went back. And then she was hanged along with a few other people. And so I think that there's this idea of I think once there's the idea of this is the right side and I'm going to stay on it, even if it means that you're going to persecute me and throw me in jail and threaten me with death and murder. Like, these are the things that I'm supposed to be doing. And I think that there's can be some danger in that.

But I think that that is of that history. People travel together. There were ways to kind of when you say like, oh, you're being called by God. It's like, well, who's checking you on that? Who is actually saying that?

Is that you or is that something happening? And then we actually have committees of people that will help figure out, sit down with you and say, so where is this coming from? Where is this leading coming from? Tell us more. Is this actually something that we can affirm?

Or does this kind of need some more testing and you need to think about it for longer? I think that there are some of those things that got built in, particularly around when things did not go their way. If you read up on James Naylor, is a whole other thing. But if you read about him, he he was led through through London naked on a donkey. And so but there's a really complicated story around health, mental health, and who was actually doing the work, but that led to needing to have more of those checks and balances.

So it means that a lot of Quakers were on the side of indigenous folks in this area and people didn't like that as you were saying. Quakers were really involved in politics for the first hundred years And then slowly, it became a lot harder for them to stay in that the same level. So yeah, know that that's sort of only starts to get at it, I don't know if that helps at all to kind of explain a little bit of where that comes from.

Yeah. Yeah. I know you probably have to go. Just I can schedule another Yeah,

I have, I have like ten more minutes if you want to. Okay. I usually block things off to have some buffer, but I'm happy to to spend a little bit more time.

Okay. So let me let me ask you the I have, like, two two big questions, and I'll I'll ask them to you, and then you can pick one. Or if you get time to to hit both, then great. Uh-huh. So I would I would like to know so with women, like, know Benjamin Lay, I think his wife, Sarah Lay, was also kind of like a preacher.

I think she was a and so women leading, which I'm sure was very different than than most other groups at that time, and they're reading on abolition, which you know, I've read some of Mark Knoll's work, he assesses what what the interpretations of scripture were at that that point. And it's it's like, where did they get the hermeneutic to read the Bible differently than just about everybody else had for most of Christian history? And and read it rightly, but differently. So that would be that would be one point of interest. My other question is is about government because I struggle, someone who who embraces nonviolence, government is inherently violent.

Legislation is violence. I mean, it it's backed by the sword. No matter no matter how little the legislation, if you don't follow it, it ultimately leads to sword. If you don't pay the fine or do this or do that, police come to your door and they will take you to jail. So how do you how do Quakers like, I know that that in Pennsylvania, there was they were doing politics, but my understanding was a lot of them were kind of it was kind of, like, very minor what they were doing in terms of their, like, oversight.

And, you know, they they created penitentiaries is my understanding. And and so they they did things very differently, it seems, or at least started to. So I'd be interested in how they mesh nonviolence or peace with governments and how that might have looked different when they ran government. So hermeneutics or government, take your pick.

I'll take government for for 200. Yeah. Well, so well, so first, I'll I'll hit on the first part, which is that I would you'll be you can find the text of of women speaking justified by Margaret Feld. And you so you can read her. Early Quakers, they breathed and wrote the Bible and Bible verses.

I had I've had professors who have said, basically, most of Quaker writing in the in for the first, like, twenty to forty years is Bible scripture just rewritten with some other prepositions. So I think that that would be a good place to start in terms of where she was reading that and where where Quakers were reading that. So that's sort of where I would leave for that part. I don't have a strong background for abolition in terms of the hermeneutics around that. But I think that that would at least would get some of the the women part.

In terms of government, I think Quakers knew from the beginning that they weren't going to necessarily be able to do this whole like sense of the meeting thing at a governmental level. Right? So I think that there was some understanding in that, but also being like, okay. So like maybe it goes back to the sword, but maybe we can make it a nicer sword, question mark. Like maybe, like, we don't have to do all of these fines, question mark.

I think that there's definitely some of that. And I'll speak a little bit I'll like jump from the beginning. I'll kind of talk today about how people how some Quakers think about government and things like taxes. Right? Like taxes, feel like is one really amazing piece that a lot of us don't think about in terms of the damage and violence inherent in our tax system.

Right? And how big of the percentage is of our taxes that goes to war, for instance. So there are Quakers who will literally sit down and look at the percentages every single year. They will do their taxes and they will say, okay, I am not paying taxes to support war. I will pay my 32% of my other taxes that will go to all of these other benefits, but I will not pay my war taxes.

And there are lawyers who will work with people on war tax resistance in many different forms of not paying those exact taxes. There are some people that choose to live below the poverty line, which means that they might be receiving benefits that are government benefits, but they're also not paying into the tax system itself, if that makes sense. That's another way. Then there are some people that just don't pay them and the IRS comes after them and there are lawyers who do some pro bono work on this with people to kind of help craft language around it. It's tricky.

I think many people inside the Quaker world as well as outside who are nonviolent and who really kind of question the use of those taxes, it can be really, really hard when it comes to writing that check or whatever it is. Right?

Well, helps you understand the paint color dilemma too because if I give a particular company my money, and that's basically depending on what they do with it, you're paying a tax to them that that is gonna be used for malicious purposes.

Right. Well, this you know, I think one of the things that Quakers have done a lot is is kind of walked the talk with their money. Around abolition, a lot of this idea of like drab, like Quaker gray, and like all of these things is because they would not use cotton or dyes produced by slave labor. So that would oftentimes cost more money. That's one element.

There are a lot of people who the American Front Service Committee is not particularly beloved by the Israeli government today, for example, because they not only participate themselves but encourage other people to become part of the boycott divestment and sanctions movement. And so speaking with those dollars, and I think that there are a lot of Quakers who, if you ask them like, do you boycott something that they would say, yes, I boycott x for y reason. That I think would be a fairly especially in the Western world. I think that'd be a fairly common thing to say. So absolutely.

And I think it also gets tricky of where things kind of come around. I think Quakers are in favor of government and government involvement to make sure that people can be secure, but also making sure that it's doing the right things for the right reasons and being on the right side of it, which I think is tricky. Some people would say, like, I want my money to go to war and I don't want it to go to my local library. Right? So how we work around those things is always a challenge.

Right?

That's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to nonviolence and Kingdom Living.