Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

"Silence is a natural demand born of a need for God
Felt by young and old, in all the world's religions.
In silence we may worship together, sharing our search for life,
Sharing our quest for peace, sharing God's gift for love."
 — the Friends General Conference of the Religious Society of
Friends of Truth.

There are many voluntaryists in the Society of Friends.   You might enjoy meeting some of them.  I do.

On 10 June 2018 my request for membership in the Dayton Friends Meeting was accepted.  The following Wednesday, I attended the annual session of the Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting.  There was a great deal of peace, love, and understanding.  As Eddy Money once sang, what's so funny about that?

Let's start with a bit of history.  There was a Hundred Years War in Europe which reflected many power groups seeking to gain mastery over one another.  There was also a Thirty Years War which started 400 years ago in 1618 ended in 1648.  It was similarly about power groups but focused on violence between states with different sorts of established religions, Protestant or Catholic.  About 8 million people died as a result of this war, either directly from combat and related genocides (cities were sacked, homes were pillaged, people were slaughtered, women were raped, many people were tortured) or famine and disease directly related to the war.  In 1649, a very bad man named Charles the First of England was taken to a scaffold at the Banqueting House in London and a headsman took off his head with a sword.

It was in the context of these events that George Fox walked up Pendle Hill in England.  He would be 25 years old when the king was beheaded.  He had searched for some group outside the established clerical power (the Anglican or state "church" of England) that made sense.  One group he visited was unable to accept his view that women have souls.  He had met with nearly every dissenting faith group in England at the time.  One day he walked up a hill, meditated on the fact that none of the groups he had encountered were able to satisfy his yearning, and he heard a voice.  In his own words, "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, oh, 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."

The first person to use the term "Quaker" as applied to the Religious Society of Friends of Truth was Gervase Bennet, who used it to mock Fox's suggestion that he should tremble at the word of God.   Thus, I prefer the term "Friends of Truth" or " Publishers of Truth."  There are many aspects of what we believe, and choose to do, and there have been hundreds of years of our particular faith.  During those centuries, there have been schisms.  Many histories on these topics exist, but I should get back to the subject of this essay.  I went to a regional conference and met a bunch of really great people.

These are people who are against the death penalty, against wars, against established churches taxing parishioners and calling it "tithes," against taking oaths because they believe in telling the truth all the time, against slavery, who have been willing from the very start of their faith to act on those beliefs.  Put more positively, we believe in peace, love, and understanding.  We believe that it is possible for anyone, whatever their belief system, whatever their opposition to belief systems, to have guidance from what we call "the light within, " or the Holy Spirit. 

Several of the people I met are war tax resisters.  Several of the people I met have been active in helping people in prison endure their sentences and gain scholarships for furthering their education.   Several of the people I met have experienced childhood physical or sexual abuse and are committed to further action to prevent those things.   Most of the monthly meetings (which is what we call the weekly gatherings that hold a meeting "for worship with attention to business " once a month) in our region work to help the poor, feed the hungry, house the homeless, and attend to the needs of their communities.

Voluntaryism is the belief that a voluntary society is possible, that it is possible to organise our world without coercion, without taxation, without force, without government.  I believe that is true, and that there are people committed to living up to that fact.  It was my pleasure, from the 13th to the 17th of June, to meet several hundred of them.

Jim Davidson is a storyteller, entrepreneur, digital currencies expert, and Friend.  He has organised mutual aid response teams, search and rescue groups, and is always eager to help.  You can learn more about him online at EldarCapital.com and ResilientWays.net