Customer Reviews

Primitivism, Radicalism, and the Lamb's War: The Baptist-Quaker Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology)

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This is an excellent book. It clearly explains differences between Quakers and Baptists in detail. The Lamb's War is, of course, that referred to in the Book of Revelations. One of the principal differences it identifies between Quakers and Baptists is that Quakers believe the second coming was purely spiritual and has already occurred. This is generally seen as an heretical view. That view explains the reason that traditional Quakers which most Quakers were until the 1850s at least, were politically conservative in American terms, even though they adhered to a religion which is generally regarded as being as at the far left of the Reformation. That is because strong left wing views religiously are often associated with a belief in a future second coming - a Millennarian attitude. Quakerism essentially repudiated any concept of a Utopia because the present world is indeed, the one that has already benefited from the second coming.

One of the questions that I have often asked is why given the fact that both the Quakers and Baptists were birthed at the same time they evolved so differently? Whereas Quakers (my only experience is UK Quakerism) have gone on an extremely liberal course Baptists have by and large remained within the traditionalist camp, both creedally and sociologically.

Although Primitivism, Radicalism, and the Lamb's War does not set out to answer this question it does pose some clues. Quakers, Baptists and hangers-on (aka me) interested in their origins and the social milieu within these movements emerged will find this is an excellent resource. In an age where ecumenism is queen the seventeenth century was an age where theological controversy was of a higher profile. The conflict between Baptists and Quakers was more pronounced because seventeenth century theological debates were important in demarcating Baptist from Quaker. Like the contemporaneous Baptist relationship with Anabaptism ("they've gone and taken a good idea to far, they may be seditious but we're not") part of the friction no doubt lays in reaffirming to the congrationalists and separatists to their right that Baptists were creed-orthodox and not to be confused with their radical interlocutors. But one detects in Underwood's survey another reason more close to home: in a time where confessional boundaries were in flux these early Baptist and Quaker religionists were eager to figure out who was in, and who was out. There was a lot of what, more recently has been called in the evangelical world "sheep-stealing", members jumping ship to join the other crowd.

It is, I think, in this context that one should read Underwood's work, it is an attempt to identify the core interpretive strategies of the two groups. And, in his survey of the numerous points of contention such as the theologies of the Church, Scripture, Christology, Sacraments (Ordinances), and revelation Underwood does an excellent and fair survey of these core points of difference, together with the inevitable ambiguities. As a survey of (General) Baptist and particularly Quaker theology on these points this is an excellent read. Although I am not up to speed on Baptist or Quaker historiography I would not be surprised if Primitivism, Radicalism, and the Lamb's War were not also a leading text in the field.

However, the book is not just an "Introduction to ... " type of work, but instead by focusing on Quaker and Baptist theologies offers a contribution to wider theology and historical understanding. Here the reference to primitivism and apocalypse (Lamb's War) in the title become significant. It is here also that Underwood comes closest to answering my initial question: why the differing evolutionary trajectories. As is so often the case it all comes down to hermeneutics; in this case the attempt to rediscover and emulate the faith of the early church or, arguably in the case of the Quakers, to emulate the faith of the early followers of Christ before the Church set in.

Surprisingly, Underwood suggests that Quakers even more than Baptists were in continuity with early Christianity; in fact, he goes so far as to say that "early Friends in the height of their enthusiasm appear to have believed they were the New Testament church. In order to make theological sense necessitated a revision of dominant modes of understanding. In explaining this Change Underwood writes that

"[t]o experience Christ immediately as the earliest Christians had, however, required an internalization and spiritualization by Quakers of outward historical events. This in turn affected their perception of primitive Christianity - a vision that stressed immediate, inward, and spiritual qualities. Up to the point of ascension, Quakers did not deny that the events of Christ's life had occurred outwardly, although they strongly emphasized his divine nature to the neglect of his humanity and they normally spoke of his crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection as occurring within them with the soteriological results. ... Friends believed that primitive Christians had Christ as their authority since the New Testament had not yet been written, and that these earliest Christians experienced their own spiritual resurrection and judgement, witnessed the beginning of the Lamb's War, practiced silence as well as quaking in worship, allowed the preaching of women, and advocated the disuse of outward baptism and the Lord's Supper (p. 4-5)."

This primitivist hermeneutic is I think helpful for understanding Quaker/Baptist differences; in large part the Baptist-Quaker debates Underwood profiles show interlocutors talking past each other. As many readers will be aware I am sympathetic to the believers church model (of whom Baptists will be one family member) and, it is this stream of Christianity that has so prioritised the apostolic witness. Certainly the Quakers offered a highly selective reading of primitive Christianity but, perhaps, the same is true of of all others to aspire to recreating the primitive church.