Liberal Theology—A Definition
June 30, 2025 § 2 Comments
I’ve just finished reading The Foundations of Liberal Quakerism, by Stephen W. Angell, the 45th Annual Walton Lecture presented at the Annual Southeastern Yearly Meeting Gathering of Friends in 2008 and published as a pamphlet available from SEYM. It describes the historical precursors of liberal Quakerism, especially the writings of William Penn, progressive Friends in the Midwest, and Lucretia Mott and the Progressive Friends movement (see also Chuck Fager’s books on this movement). I highly recommend Stephen Angell’s pamphlet.
Stephen Angell starts with some definitions and he quotes Garry Dorrien, a historian of liberal Christian theology, with this definition, which I found useful:
“liberal theology is defined by its openness to the verdicts of modern intellectual inquiry, especially the natural and social sciences; its commitment to the authority of individual reason and experience; its conception of Christianity as an ethical way of life; its favoring of moral concepts of atonement; and its commitment to make Christianity credible and socially relevant to modern people.”
According to my own studies, this very aptly describes the priorities of the young adults who gave birth to liberal Quakerism in the late 19th century, whose new sensibilities emerged fairly decisively with the Manchester Conference in Britain in 1895. The most famous of these young Friends were John Stephenson Rowntree and Rufus Jones.
The sciences. These young Friends embraced Darwin’s theory of evolution and the critical study of the Bible that had begun in Germany earlier in the century. These two advances, one in the natural sciences and the other in the social sciences, were directly related to each other in their influence, since the theory of evolution required an all-new look at the creation story in Genesis and by extension a new kind of relationship to the Bible’s authority and role in religious life.
Individual reason and experience. Those young Friends were desperate for a place in a Quaker culture of eldership that had become ossified and restrictive; they wanted their voices heard and they wanted a theology that matched their religious experience, and vice versa.
Ethics. They revolutionized how Christian moral principles should be applied to society’s problems. In the evangelical view that had dominated Quaker culture for roughly a century, social problems derived from sin, and so the solution to these problems was evangelism: bring people to Christ and they will act more righteously, and society will follow. But social science was just then realizing that social ills had structural elements that both constrained and transcended individual moral choice. The signature development along these lines was Seebohm Rowntree’s book Poverty: A Study in Town Life, which proved scientifically that poverty in the city of York was not due to the poor’s moral failures—sex (too many children), drink, gambling, and other vices—but simply because they were not being paid enough. Capitalism was the problem, though he didn’t put it that way.
Atonement. Friends had always emphasized the transformation of the soul by the immediate and inward work of Christ over the theology of blood atonement on the cross, at least until the evangelical revolution in Quakerism that began around 1800. These young liberals reclaimed the earlier emphasis on God’s direct moral guidance.
Credibility and relevance. And they wanted their faith to be relevant, they wanted to be able to stand on their faith as a foundation and in their faith as a frame for their message and work to make the world a better place. And for that, they needed a theology that spoke to their time.
Through the Flaming Sword 
Steve,
To be fair, I haven’t read Stephen W. Angell’s pamphlet yet, and I hold him in a kind of reverence, both as my mentor, as I first embarked on my study of Quaker history and theology at Earlham School of Religion (2015-2019), and as a personal friend who was immensely helpful to me as I transitioned from being an ESR graduate to being an Alzheimer’s dementia caregiver to my late wife, and as I emerged from that cocoon as an octogenarian small-time independent scholar with a Wilburite bent. I’m sure I’ll find Steve’s pamphlet edifying.
But I have a problem with a “liberal Christianity” characterized by a “conception of Christianity as an ethical way of life… [with a] commitment to make Christianity credible and socially relevant to modern people.” This description reads as if there were no living Christ Jesus indwelling us, providing a light in the conscience to every person that comes into the world [John 1:9]. This indwelling Christ has spoken to me, arresting me as unforgettably as He arrested Paul on the road to Damascus, though without knocking me to the ground and striking me blind (fortunately! Because I was bicycling down New York City’s busy West Side Highway the first time I heard Him speak!) And it’s my belief that He will so speak to *anyone* willing to lay down self-will in order to be made obedient to the divine will.
This is the Pearl of Great Price, several orders of magnitude greater and brighter than a “credible, socially relevant, ethical way of life!” It is a Divine Person who knows your every thought, approving some thoughts and rebuking others! It is your rightful Owner, and your Savior! I recommend that any liberal Quaker who yearns for something intenser read page 103 in v. 3 of the _Works_ of Isaac Penington (Quaker Heritage Press edition): “This is he; this is he; there is not another; there never was another. He was always with me, though I knew him not… oh that I might now be joined to him, and he alone might live in me.” These are the kinds of cords of love He draws us with — if we will only let Him.
Steve,
Thanks for this review of Stephen’s important pamphlet. I read it when it was first published and use it as a reference for talks that I give on how Quakers became modern.
That evolution is often quickly glossed over in the many “introduction” to Quakerism books which while needing to present a broad survey tend to over emphasize the beginnings. And, many Liberal Friends have no idea of how we acquired that appellation.
I have found that lately some Friends are even a little embarrassed by the word itself, preferring to identify themselves as Progressive. The word Liberal has become a term of ridicule on both the left and the right.
Of course, Progressive Friends are historically something completely different from today’s Liberal Quakers. I often explain that I/we’re using the term in its 19th C. sense, as valuing science and individual thought as opposed to today’s emphasis on ameliorating the social ills of capitalism through gradual reform (although that is not an unworthy cause!)
In its beginnings, FGC Friends more closely resembled Progress Friends YM gatherings in form by not requiring membership, not being convened by Elders and offering workshops addressing contemporary issues in social reform/change and theology and inviting non-Friends to offer plenary sessions/addresses.
One lacuna in the history of PYM is the role of Jane Rushmore, the first General Secretary of PYM (Race Street) in helping to realize the culture change that Rufus Jones and Rowntree were advocating.
Jane wrote two thin volumes on the Quaker way, testimonies and practices in which she encourages Friends to speak from their own experiences, avoid speeches, allow a respectful pause between ministry and avoid debate and to listen intently on the ministry of others to understand (with empathy) where they are coming from. What we today call “listening in tongues.”
She also incorporated Cadbury’s historical critical approach to the Bible which was fairly revolutionary in the 1910’s and 20’s. And, her ideas were disseminated through her monthly columns in the PYM Newsletter and have today become normative.
Anyway, as you can see, even after joining the staff of PYM some fifty years after Jane’s tenure, I was able to discern her impact on PYM (in our theology and folkways) and therefore the wider Liberal Quaker movement. Of course, Chuck Fager gives Jane her props, as they say, in his book on Progress Friends. But, she deserves to be better acknowledged among us.
Take care my friend,
George Schaefer