The Impact of the American Revolution on Quakers' Ideas about Their Sect

T o0 American Quakers the Revolution was a bitter cup. They prayed that it might be taken from them, but they finally had to accept it. They consoled themselves with optimistic predictions about the spiritual effects it would have on their neighbors; yet as, it turned out the Friends themselves underwent a transformation they had not expected. The sufferings and schisms which the war brought them have been treated elsewhere.' The cluster of changes to be examined here concerns the Friends' views about the nature of their Religious Society, its future, and its relationship to the civil community at large. Revolutionary events and ideology not only revealed both the inadequacy and the inconsistency of a long-held group of ideas about the church but also required their revision. In addition, the Revolution challenged the Quakers either to find a new role in American society or to accept a futile isolation from it

Political science · Sect · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Law · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment

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