George Fox was born in England in 1624 to Christopher and Mary Fox.  Even as a child he was disturbed by the insincere actions and practices of so called “religious adults” and the hollow form of the rituals and ceremonies of the church of his day.  Failing to find inward peace and satisfaction in any of the churches or religions of his day, Fox set out as a seeker on a pilgrimage to find what he was missing when he was nineteen.   His wanderings lasted for about three years, until he was in a state of complete frustration and despair.  Then, as he records in his journal:

    And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then I heard a voice which said, “There is one, even Christ Jesus that can speak to thy condition,” and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy

George Fox immediately began traveling across England, sharing this message of an immediate, personal experience with the Living Christ.  He did not intend to start a new denomination.  He had a strong disdain for formalized creeds or restrictive organizations.  His was a universal message intended to call everyone out of or off of the world’s religions to the New and Living Way.   Fox soon encountered others who were also searching for something beyond the ritualistic and hierarchical church of their day, and the new movement began to spread throughout England and Ireland, then to the European continent and eventually to Barbadoes and to the colonies in America in 1656.  So zealous were Fox’s followers that in the last half of the seventeenth century, Quakerism was the fastest growing religious movement in the world.  What was at the heart of this message that captured so many?          

          

George Fox was born in England in 1624 to Christopher and Mary Fox.  Even as a child he was disturbed by the insincere actions and practices of so called “religious adults” and the hollow form of the rituals and ceremonies of the church of his day.  Failing to find inward peace and satisfaction in any of the churches or religions of his day, Fox set out as a seeker on a pilgrimage to find what he was missing when he was nineteen.   His wanderings lasted for about three years, until he was in a state of complete frustration and despair.  Then, as he records in his journal:

    And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then I heard a voice which said, “There is one, even Christ Jesus that can speak to thy condition,” and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy

George Fox immediately began traveling across England, sharing this message of an immediate, personal experience with the Living Christ.  He did not intend to start a new denomination.  He had a strong disdain for formalized creeds or restrictive organizations.  His was a universal message intended to call everyone out of or off of the world’s religions to the New and Living Way.   Fox soon encountered others who were also searching for something beyond the ritualistic and hierarchical church of their day, and the new movement began to spread throughout England and Ireland, then to the European continent and eventually to Barbadoes and to the colonies in America in 1656.  So zealous were Fox’s followers that in the last half of the seventeenth century, Quakerism was the fastest growing religious movement in the world.  What was at the heart of this message that captured so many?          

   The Good News According to George Fox:

1.  Fox believed based on his own experience  in the Inward Light of Christ (that true Light that gives light to every man) that was universal and present in all mankind, and which if obeyed and followed would lead every person into a right relationship with God.  Just as Jesus promised his disciples that the Spirit would guide them into all truth, Fox proclaimed  that “Christ has come to teach his people himself.”   He is our teacher and we need no priest or intermediary to teach us.  Although Fox is said to have virtually had the entire Bible committed to memory, he constantly reminded people to look beyond the printed page to the Spirit that existed before the Scriptures were given.  Quakers referred to the Bible as “the words of God”, but never as the “Word of God,” since according to John’s gospel, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

I was commanded to turn people to that inward light, spirit, and grace, by which all might know their salvation, and their way to God, even that divine Spirit which would lead them into all Truth                                                                               George Fox

Fox referred to that principle of God in man as the light of Christ or the seed.  Barclay in The Apology compares the action of the Holy Spirit on that seed to the physical birth of Christ, saying that “Christ is born anew in our hearts.”

2. This experience with Christ can be universal for all persons if they respond to the transforming power of the Living Christ.  Grace comes from God to all, not just to the “elect”and not through ceremonies or rituals, but by immediate personal experience At first Fox and his followers met as a simple worshiping fellowship, calling themselves “Children of Light.”  Gradually the term “Friends” of Truth came into use.  The word “Society” was used much as we would use the term “fellowship” today.  The world called Fox and his followers “Quakers” because they trembled under the power of the Holy Spirit, especially when they prayed.

Sometimes the power of God will break forth upon a whole meeting. . . and thereby trembling and a motion of the body will be upon most if not all
Robert Barclay

Early Quakerism did look like New Testament Christianity revived.  Fox and his followers would be arrested, held in jail for a time, released, and be right back out in the street again preaching the same message and often in the same place where they had previously been arrested.
The love by which Jesus said his disciples would be known was also there.  Often prison officials would be besieged by Quakers asking to trade places with their brothers and sisters who were jailed there.

3. The church is not a building or an institution but a living fellowship, the body of believers indwelt by Christ.  Jesus said “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them.”  Church happened whenever and wherever people gathered in Christ’s name.

So I opened to the people that the ground and house was no holier than any other place, and that the house was not the church, but the people of which Christ is the head

4. We can know Christ experientially and respond in obedience.  One of the problems Fox had with the Puritans is that they were always “preaching up sin” but failed to emphasize the power of God over sin

And the Lord answered that it was needful I should speak to all conditions; and in this I saw the infinite love of God.  I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness.  And in that also I saw the infinite love of God and had great openings                                   

 

5.  A message of hope, that in the face of evil and darkness, the Spirit of Christ gives the power to overcome the darkness such that there is not only hope for the individual, but hope for the world that God’s kingdom can come and his will can be done “on earth as it is in heaven.”

George Fox was extremely sensitive to all forms of wickedness and social injustice, especially war; he did not invent a peace testimony, rather it was a part of his obedience to the life and teachings of Christ. I told them that I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars                               George Fox


Fox saw himself as being somewhat like John the Baptist, a voice crying in the wilderness, calling people out of (or off of) the world’s religions and into a new and Living Way.
It was a radical form of discipleship, that rather than seeking to bring people into the kingdom of God sought to put the kingdom of God into the hearts of men.    

Let all the nations hear the sound by word and writing.  Spare no place, spare no tongue or pen, but be obedient to the Lord God; go forth through the world and be valiant for the Truth upon earth . . . Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every man