A brief history of the NC Fellowship of Friends

North Carolina Fellowship of Friends is a non-creedal, cooperative fellowship of Friends meetings rooted in traditional Quaker teaching, gathered under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and guided by our vital practice of seeking God’s presence and activity today. While our meetings differ in many ways, we do the best we can with the Light we have today to be open and inclusive to anyone who would like to journey with us. Our mission is to affirm the autonomy of each member organization to pursue God’s peaceable Kingdom on Earth as put forth in their individual mission statements. Our vision is to be a leading Christ-centered agent for healing, learning, peace, and justice in our communities and the world. The statements below demonstrate the theological and geographical range we cover.

Origins of the Quaker Movement

Quakerism began in the volatile mix of political, social, economic, and theological turmoil of England in the mid-1600s. As the country endured a bloody civil war, the execution of its king, and the introduction of a new form of government, all previous “authorities” came under scrutiny. The Quaker movement arose amid this chaos to call for a return to “primitive” Christianity and a social order congruent with the Gospel of Christ.

Several other movements influenced Quakerism and gave shape to what emerged as “testimonies” of the early Friends – later to be called the Religious Society of Friends.

  1. Restorationism. A product of the Radical Reformation in Europe following the Protestant Reformation, “Restorationists” sought a deeper fidelity to the teachings of Christ and a church restored to the early Gospel.
  2. Apocalypticism. The overturning of so many pillars of society at mid-century led to a sense that the world itself was “turned upside down” and presaged the possibility of the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God.
  3. Radical Social Movements. Groups such as the Diggers, Levellers, Fifth Monarchists, and Ranters sought to level social distinctions and encourage the rights of the common folk of the realm.
  4. A Renewal of Interest in Spiritual Alchemy. Influenced by European mysticism and the origins of modern science, spiritual seekers in England sought to take the outward forms of alchemy as inward spiritual processes toward human perfection.
  5. Seekers. Discouraged by the lack of integrity in the established Church, some sought reform from within, while others abandoned the institutional Church and sought spiritual community outside of it.

From these influences and the personal experience of early Friends, Quakerism developed as a movement focused on returning to Jesus’ teaching of:

  • Direct and Immediate Access to God by each Believer
  • The Possibility of Holy Obedience
  • Integrity
  • Simplicity
  • Nonresistance (peace)
  • Spiritual equality

They witnessed to the Living Presence of Christ as an “inward apocalypse,” the Light of Christ within as their priest, savior, prophet, Lord, and king. This recognition of the Light of Christ in all people encouraged an emphasis on the spiritual equality of men and women and the possibility of wholeness, of “salvation,” for all who obeyed the promptings of Christ’s saving Light.

Quakers Come to the Carolinas

A nonconformist faith such as Quakerism found fertile ground in the “back country” of the Carolinas, where there was no established Church, and people were free to follow their own conscience. The first Friends arrived in what is now North Carolina in 1665, settling in the eastern part of the colony. Early Quaker leaders such as George Fox and William Edmundson visited these Friends and gathered others into fellowship, helping to establish “meetings.” By 1698 there was a significant enough community of Friends in the area to establish a “yearly meeting,” North Carolina Yearly Meeting.

Friends on the eastern seaboard were joined in the mid-1700s by a migration of Quakers from the Delaware Valley and Nantucket into the Piedmont, with numerous meetings established in the 1740s and 1750s, and by the end of the century the center of Quaker life had gravitated to central North Carolina.

Friends Face Growing Issues

Many challenges confronted the growing Quaker community in the South, including battles of the Revolutionary War and slavery. Adopting an anti-slavery testimony in the 1770s, Friends in North Carolina had to deal with further nonconformity with the prevailing culture. Some became involved in abolitionist activity, including the Underground Railroad. This was one of the major factors in a growing migration of Friends out of the South into “free” states such as Ohio and Indiana in the early 1800s.

And then came the Civil War. By the end of that devastating conflict which encouraged even more Friends to leave for the North, fewer than 2,000 adult Quakers remained in the South.

The Quaker Community is Rebuilt

Through the efforts primarily of the Baltimore Association to Advise and Assist Friends in the Southern States, the Quaker community was restored through economic revitalization, education, spiritual renewal, and cultural programs. Adoption of “new measures” in worship followed the influx of new members through revival meeting activity in the post-Civil War period.

While there were some tensions between “traditional” Friends and “renewal” Friends over forms of worship and sources of spiritual authority, Quakers in North Carolina Yearly Meeting went through the 19th Century without any of the separations that plagued Friends in the North. Only in 1904 did a separation occur as some meetings formed an association (now known as North Carolina Yearly Meeting-Conservative) to maintain unprogrammed worship and an authority structure that focused on the local meeting rather than an over-arching “denominational” structure.

New Challenges in the New Century

North Carolina Yearly Meeting continued through the 20th Century without a further separation even while there were tensions over the modernist/fundamentalist theological controversy, segregation, war, the Civil Rights movement, and disagreements over scriptural authority and social issues such as inclusive “new age” theology, commitment to the peace testimony, women in pastoral leadership, and homosexuality. When tensions built within NCYM, way typically opened for accommodation, reconciliation, and community.

Into the 21st Century, however, differences became insurmountable, and growing pressure for a separation came from some in the Yearly Meeting. Following several years of intense work to avoid a split, the decision to separate into different organizations occurred in 2017. After 319 years, North Carolina Yearly Meeting ceased to exist, replaced by a corporation that handled trust funds and other fiduciary matters and two associations, one eventually adopting the name of Friends Church of North Carolina and the other North Carolina Fellowship of Friends. The following “faith and practice” document outlines the nature of the latter, the NCFF.

[For a more thorough treatment of the history of Friends in North Carolina, see Max L. Carter, “Quakers,” in W. Glenn Jonas, Jr., ed., Religious Traditions of North Carolina (McFarland & Co., 2018), 248-265.]

Directory

Click here to see a directory of Meetings in the NC Fellowship of Friends.

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