Peace Be With You

by Don Badgley
Poughkeepsie Meeting

We Friends, when asked to define Quakerism, will often cite the “peace testimony” as a central tenet of our religion. We are a “peace church.” We are pacifists and conscientious objectors to military service. We work in the world to create conditions that lead to peace. Some say that this is because “there is that of God in everyone” and so we will not commit violence against another.  Though true in part, these constructs and beliefs are at best incomplete and may actually serve to distort the essential and foundational Truths of Quaker peace and peacemaking. 

Peace is profoundly more than the absence of war and violence. Peace is also a state of being, a condition of human Spirit. Genuine peace arises within the person who is in communion with the Divine Light, the living root of the spiritual Experience. That reality is far more than some creedal shorthand construct intended to simplify, define and validate “Quakerism.” 

The foundational premise of the radical 17th Century “Religious Society of Friends” was that the Eternal Divine Spirit was present to lead and teach humanity directly, without need of priests, creeds or hierarchy. This unchangeable and eternal “Spirit of Christ” as George Fox always named it, altered and then forever re-ordered one’s life. That is as true today as it was then, and also as when Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed it through his transcendent and prophetic ministry. A Friends peace testimony that does not arise in these Truths and that Experience is no more than “lip service”, and is not only misleading, it is no longer even a testimony. It is diminished to a worldly notion, and on that shaky ground countless Quakers have abandoned their “peace testimony” to serve the “urgency” of some conflict of the moment.

A living testimony also assumes that we are willing to testify, to speak, to offer ministry and to order our lives in ways that also testify, not just through words but also through our leadings, arising in worship and manifested in our behaviors. A living testimony directs us to live under the care of the Divine Light, even as it compels us to courageously publish the Truth in every medium available.

A living and Spirit-driven Quaker testimony of peace does not take sides in worldly partisan politics that will inevitably alienate us from those with whom we disagree. A living, Spirit-driven testimony of peace unites all who may hear it and feel it, through the power and Experience of Divine Love that is its Source. It excludes no one.

As Quakers, as humans and as citizens of nations, we are endlessly diverted and divided by forces that seduce us with the affairs and conflicts of the world and the politics of narrow worldly notions. We are persuaded by mass media to first take sides and then to criticize or condemn the other. Though always well-meaning, some Quaker partisan/political statements and works may also close ears, eyes and heart and, such efforts inevitably undermine our call to share the Truth of eternal infinite Divine Love—with everyone. 

The Truth of that Love is the living heart of our faith, and the only right path to promoting and achieving the peace we so often claim. Direct communion with the Eternal Spirit of Divine Love is the “way open” to achieve genuine and transcendent peace. That cleansing and inward Experience also engenders grace, forgiveness, justice, mercy, goodness, righteousness, forgiveness, healing and unity.

May it be so, and may peace be with you.