the pitt - part five: in a Quaker State of mind

So, this may be obvious to most people, but after we discerned and felt God calling to us to join with what the Father is doing in Pittsburgh, it slowly dawned on me that Pittsburgh was - of course - in Pennsylvania...and Pennsylvania is known as the Quaker State: Quakers came there as William Penn, a Quaker himself, offered protection in this colony to Quakers (also known as the Society of Friends) who were being persecuted not only from non-Christians but also other Christians, especially the Puritans.

In fact, one hundred and twenty years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Quakers Mary Fisher and Ann Austin landed at Boston where the Puritan authorities had them seized and kept under close guard. A hundred of their books were burned in the marketplace and they were dispatched to Barbados on the next departing ship. Their bedding and even their Bibles were confiscated to pay the jailer's fee.


Eventually, in 1681, William Penn accepted the grant of land which became Pennsylvania as the payment of a debt which King Charles II owed his father. He met with the Native Americans at the great elm at Shackamason, the ancient meeting place of the tribes and made friends with them. He purchased land from them at a fair price and also concluded a treaty with them that was agreeable to all.  In fact, a century later the French philosopher, Voltaire, would observe that this was the only treaty ever made between white men and the Indians that was never sworn to and never broken (talk about your "yes" being "yes"...that's faithfulness).

This as well as their well-known advocacy and action toward ending slavery (Susan B. Anthony was also a Quaker and worked against slavery while working for women's rights as well!), Friends have tried to apply their faith to every aspect of their lives. Embracing this holistic aspect of their faith in Christ has often led them to be social pioneers and to come up with discoveries in a variety of fields.

Anyway, you're probably thinking: what's with the diversion into Quaker history and this whole Quaker State-thing? Well, we belong to a tribe called The Vineyard, and it just so happens that the Vineyard as a movement of the Spirit has some unique DNA in it's formative early history. The evangelical roots are well attested to elsewhere, but some of the primary founders of the Vineyard came from the Society of Friends, otherwise known as the Quakers: John and Carol Wimber.

[aside: my friend Mike Barrett, teaching pastor at the Coast Vineyard in Oregon, wrote an article awhile back - Searching for Radical Faith - in which he discovered that Quakers had initially founded through their actions the organization known today as Greenpeace.  check out the article, it's a great read!)

Being trained in history myself, all of this began to resonate as I dug into the history of Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, and my tribe, the Vineyard, with its strong Quaker roots. All to say, my intuition tells me that while this planting and faith community is sort of a grand-child, given the generation between us and the beginning of the Vineyard movement, I believe the DNA in us that will be dominant will be the Friends/Quaker DNA, while the evangelical - still there - will be more recessive, genetically-speaking. Not that I'm into labels, but I do believe we live our lives by metaphors. Just a hunch, but a strong one.

and the journey continues...even so, Come Holy Spirit!



[to be continued...]