Reflection on ‘Maxim 4’ (Fox is no authority)

“Fox is no greater authority than you or I, nor was his access to the true authority any greater than ours.”
–Maxim 4

I was not surprised that this one was controversial for some Friends. I suppose I wish I were surprised, but really I was more relieved that it seemed very few found it challenging.

George Fox is often spoken of as the founder of the Religious Society of Friends. He was certainly a charismatic leader (and for those into Christian theology, that applies in both the everyday and technical sense), and the proto-Quakers of the North West of England did coalesce around him. Yet it is in the very nature of what he taught – and he wasn’t the only one teaching it, mind you – that we not ascribe authority to other people. The message being shared by various spiritual teachers of the time, including Fox, was that we all had access to the ultimate source of teaching and authority. Not only did we not need intercessory priests, as asserted by Luther and Calvin, but every single one of us could sit down and find the still small voice within, and know some measure of God’s guidance and God’s will (at the time, there would have been no question as to whether or not it should be identified as such).

The practical refinement that the early Friends, and to some extent the proto-Quakers, found to put on this, to reduce the possibility of spiritual anarchy, was putting it in the context of methods and structures to test leadings. Not one of us, not you and not I, can stand and proclaim the will of God or a new teaching and expect others to listen, but we can come together to test ideas, probe them, refine them using spiritual and intellectual methods, and thus come to conclusions that are less vulnerable to ego or misguided zeal (though far from invulnerable to those perils).

This is not a maxim that really calls for much reflection on its essential meaning. It is very clear, and not subtle. Every one of us has the same access to the guidance and teaching of the Divine as George Fox did. The views of the first generation of Friends, or even the first few generations, do not define Quakerism for all time. Liberal Friends may see the way Pastoral and Evangelical Friends do things as a betrayal of Quaker principles, and vice versa, and Conservative Friends may be deeply troubled by both groups, but there is no reason to believe that any group has not been faithful to the most fundamental of Quaker principles – faithfulness to the Light and where it leads us.

It doesn’t have to lead us all the same way.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Did you enjoy this post, or find it interesting, informative or stimulating? Do you want to keep seeing more of these posts? Please consider contributing to my Patreon. More information is available in the post announcing my use of Patreon.