The Colonial American Jeremiah: Woolman’s Prophetic Witness
In the last post, I explored how colonial American Quaker, John Woolman, came to spiritual knowledge. In other words, how did he know what he claimed to know of God's will? The answer to that question is to be found in an encounter with God that reshaped his understanding of reality and that dissolved physical/spiritual, temporal/eternal dichotomies.
In this post, I want to explore how the revelation Woolman received, which was spiritual and inward, made claims on human affairs and societal organization. In other words, I want to look at the way religious conviction can move beyond the predefined sphere of meaning we call "religion," and can shape all the venues that typically, and artificially, fragment human existence (i.e. political, spiritual, economic). The inward turns outward. I call this "propheticism," because the task of the prophet is to embody and pronounce the revelation she or he has received. This is what Woolman did, too.
Thomas Kelly's quote is helpful for understanding the inward/outward dimensions of the prophet:
“[There is a] life beyond earnestness, beyond anxiety, beyond strain. Its strength sets in when we let go. This is a way frought with danger, for it is easy to deduce human passivity from divine initiative. But the root experience of divine Presence contains within it not only a sense of being energized from a heavenly Beyond; it contains also a sense of being energized toward an earthly world. For the Eternal Life and Love are not pocketed in us; they are flooded through us into the world… The beyond which is within opens up as yet another beyond, the world of earthly need and pain and joy and beauty. For the Inner Light illumines not only God but the world. Its discovery within ourselves does not insulate us, together with the Eternal, in solitary ecstasy, away from the poverties of earth; it opens our eyes to the old world and shows it to us in a new way.”
-Thomas Kelly, The Eternal Presence, pp. 36-37
Kelly highlights a prophetic impulse that originates within the apophatic tradition. In contrast to modern forms of activism that are often exclusively grounded in social scientific insights - such that the activist who is also a Christian and the activist who is also an atheist are nearly indistinguishable - Kelly points to a social consciousness that arises out of a revelation from God that rejects human striving, and out of that via negativa emerges divine striving through human agents.
One instructive way to view historic images of prophets is through their depictions in art. By looking at these famous paintings we can see how the prophetic task was conceptualized and interpreted in a particular place and time. Both of the paintings, below, are European, and, so, are not meant to give a global representation but they are meant to show changes in western views over time. Since Woolman found particular resonances with the prophet Jeremiah, for reasons we will delve into later in this post, let's start there.
The Prophet in Art
This first image is Michaelangelo's masterpiece, found on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel:
Michelangelo's Jeremiah is a sober figure. He is not a firebrand, but is shown here pondering what he is to do. Whatever activity he is to perform, he starts as one in meditation and, perhaps, regret for bearing the message that sets him apart from his peers. This is where Jeremiah's title as "the weeping prophet" speaks to the angst he felt at the difference between his perception of God's will and his observation of historical events.
The other figures in the background of this scene are hardly friendly faces. Jeremiah is clearly one of these, his people, but he is separated from them and given a role he did not ask for.
The second image is Rembrandt's Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem (c. 1630):
Here Jeremiah sits in a dark setting, alone. He is distraught at the way events have played out, even though he tried to prevent them. I'll admit that I am not an art historian and have no particular specialty in analyzing this piece, but it looks to me that Rembrandt is doing something really interesting with light, here: Jeremiah's mournful face is highlighted in the light, but so are the treasures at his elbow. It does not console Jeremiah that he was right, that the vestiges of Jewish glory and religious pomp are of no use as Jerusalem burns in the distance. Rembrandt's juxtaposition of Jeremiah's lamentations and the uselessness of material glory serves to challenge the viewer's perception of value and meaning. This, too, is part of the prophetic task.
Key Elements in Woolman's Propheticism:
Woolman's propheticism has several key elements that illumine how religious conviction is integrated into social vision, and, from there, points to the way that a community falls short of its own vision for itself:
- inward/outward: inward revelation making claims on outward affairs
- commissioning: commissioning to a prophetic calling is not a one-off thing. Woolman was called to a prophetic vocation that was comprehensive, not issue specific. It concerned a reconceptualization of the powers and authorities that were seen as governing human affairs, which subverted "worldly" forces that alienated people from the true-selves-in-God
- divine intervention: in his prophetic embodiment, Woolman was an agent of God’s intervention in the world. This is incredibly apocalyptic. God was not removed from world events, God was not a clock-maker who set things in motion and then stepped back and let humans do their thing like the deists believed. God had a will for the world and was intervening to draw the world toward the culmination of God’s purposes. As a prophet, Woolman saw himself as God’s agent through which God intervened on behalf of the world. The end result of God’s intervention would be the transformation of society and the end of sin.
- called the community to its truest interests, which was in God: the prophet is concerned with absolute obedience to God’s revelation and to the communities eternal welfare. The prophet is not a schismatic looking to divert the community from its tradition. Rather, the prophet pushes the limitations of the tradition in a way that expands its reach in the cosmos
- representative of the community, called to remain connected to the community. All of Woolman’s prophetic agitation was for the purpose of embodying the faithfulness that would be normative. He stood as a representative of the community before God, upholding a vision for human faithfulness on their behalf
- interprets world events for the community: the prophet sees God intervening through historical events and then interprets those events for the community. In the mid-eighteenth century, we have the French and Indian War and we have an outbreak of small pox. Woolman interpreted these events for his fellow Quakers. For Woolman, these events were God’s hand at work, intervening directly in history, calling colonists to greater faithfulness, to greater reliance on God
A Trumpet for the Lord
Woolman’s inward experience of God’s voice changed the way he viewed the world around him. The logic of the sinful world was upended and subverted under the power and presence of a God who was always reaching out, always at work, always right at hand. In Woolman’s propheticism, we see the way that the inward Government of Christ made claims on every aspect of world affairs. The inward took on outward significance. The voice of God to Woolman was, at the same time, the voice of God for the world. As a young man, first coming to his sense of ministry and divine vocation, Woolman wrote:
I was thus humbled and disciplined under the cross, my understanding became more strengthened to distinguish the language of the pure Spirit which inwardly moves upon the heart and taught [me] to wait in silence sometimes many weeks together, until I felt that rise which prepares the creature to stand like a trumpet through which the Lord speaks to his flock.[1]
The inward and spiritual revelation Woolman received commissioned him to a prophetic vocation that made public God’s vision for the world.
The specific social issues Woolman challenged were those issues he could no longer accommodate without violating his understanding of the unfolding, remade world Christ had revealed to him.[2] As Woolman attended to God's revealed will, existing social structures were subverted by a new ethic dictated by God's immediate presence.[3] He could not benefit from slave labour because oppression and exploitation resisted the transformation of the divine revelation. He could not continue as before in his retail business when retail was part of a transatlantic economy which he felt advanced the idolatry of materialism, luxury and war.[4] He could not use silver dinnerware[5] when such opulence was the result of a misallocation and abuse of labour which hindered the spreading of the peaceable kingdom.[6] He proclaimed against the emerging luxury trade which created a sense of superiority in the economic elite and hindered the wealthy from full 'resignation' to God's revelation in all things.[7]
A Prophet Like Jeremiah
Woolman had an affinity for the prophet Jeremiah, which can be seen by the way he framed his own struggles with eighteenth century colonial Americans. Woolman quoted extensively from the Hebrew prophets throughout his writings. Often, Woolman does something absolutely amazing with his use of the Bible. The bible is not just a record of past events, but a living narrative in which he himself is an actor. He was a prophet who understood his vocation to be like the Hebrew prophets. In one of Woolman’s antislavery essays, he notes how accepted slavery was in colonial society and how the general acceptance of slavery in colonial culture, meant that those who were against slavery had a difficult task and had to face the prospect of being pushed to the fringes of their communities. Many people backed away from their sense of God’s leading against slavery, because they felt that they were all alone. And to this prospect of rejection, Woolman wrote:
The repeated charges which God gave to his prophets imply the danger they were in of erring on this hand: “Be not afraid of their faces; for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.” Jer. 1:8. “Speak...all the words that I command thee to speak to them; diminish not a word.” Jer. 26:2. “And thou son of man, be not afraid of them...nor dismayed at their looks. Speak my words to them, whether they will bear or forebear.” Ezek. 2:6[-7].[1]
In the next paragraph, Woolman proceeds to gently but firmly undercut some of the common rationales for slave-ownership. For Woolman the prophetic task did not end in the Hebrew scriptures. It was ongoing. God continued to commission prophets, continued to reveal God’s will to them, and continued to expect that they would face personal anguish on behalf of the community. God’s words to Jeremiah, were God’s words to Woolman whose calling to colonial America was in the same stream as Jeremiah’s calling to the Hebrew people.
Both Jeremiah and Woolman were distraught over the current state of spiritual affairs in their day. Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet for two reasons: First, he wept for his people who were approaching their end; and, secondly, he wept because no one would listen to him and no one saw what was so transparent to him.
On several occasions, Woolman mentions his own weeping over the sinfulness of the world around him. At times, he said he was “almost overwhelmed” by the spiritual conditions he encountered. Not only did the sin around him cause him suffering, but he suffered because the clear message God had revealed to him was not shared by others and so in order to be obedient to this revelation he had to stand in opposition to his social betters, his neighbors, and his fellow Quakers.
Many are the Vanities and Luxuries of the present Age, and in labouring to support a Way of living conformable to the present World, the Departure from that Wisdom that is pure and peaceable, hath been great. Under the Sense of a deep Revolt, and an overflowing Stream of Unrighteousness, my Life has often been a Life of Mourning, and tender Desires are raised in me, that the Nature of this Practice may be laid to Heart.[1]
"Singularity"
A concept that was important to eighteenth century Quakers, though largely forgotten today, was the notion of "singularity." To be called "singular" was not a good thing, and could result in community ostracism and disownment. The threat of being considered "singular" was a method of Quaker control of dissidents. There was within Quakerism a tension between the individual's sense of divine leading and the conviction that one should not proceed the Spirit's movement in the community. Some Quakers acted on their own personal sense of leading, even though the community had not recognized it. These Quakers came to be seen as schismatics. Woolman faced the threat of "singularity," and it pained him considerably. However, he was absolutely committed to his religious community and never became schismatic. As a result, he was given important positions among Pennsylvania Quakers, even as many Quakers thought his convictions were outside of Quaker requirements.
On a trip to the eastern part of the colonies Woolman explained the hardship of confronting slaveowners and noted that it was only by submitting himself to God, giving up his desire for acceptance and popularity, that he was able to accomplish it:
“Though in this thing I appear singular… I do not repine at having so unpleasant a task assigned me, but look with awfulness to him who appoints to his servants their respective employments and is good to all who serve him sincerely."
Notice how Woolman’s opposition to slavery and his decision to work against slavery were derived from God’s leading. Woolman was aware that he was risking “singularity,” but, like the prophet Jeremiah, he felt his commissioning and message to be from God.
Letters about Woolman show that he was not always accepted:
"London 5 of 9mo 1772 7th day
...As I enclose thee a letter I received today from William Dilworth [of Lancaster] thou wilt esteem it prudent to be wholly silent about unacceptance of worthy John Woolman's white dress. To some it is unpleasing, but wisdom and authority are with him in his Gospel labors, and that strongly obviates with me the difficulty of singularity in superficial appearance."
And,
John Pemberton to Joseph Row 4 mo. 28, 1772 letter:
"[John Woolman] is a truly upright man but walks in a straiter path than some other good folks are led, or do travel in. He is a good minister, a sensible man, and though he may appear singular, yet from a close knowledge of him he will be found to be a man of a sweet, clean spirit and preserved from harsh censure of those who do not see and conform as he does. It will be safest for Friends with you to leave him much to his own feelings... He is much beloved and respected among us, and I doubt not will on close acquaintance be so to the truly religious with you."
Ironically, what kept Woolman connected to his fellow Quakers, and what kept him from simply dropping out of society, was his grief.
The suffering and conflict he experience, which resulted from the disparity between Woolman’s vision for society and the reality of the situation he observed around him, could have led him to disconnect from others. However, he saw in the prophet Jeremiah’s grief and Jeremiah’s reluctance to make waves, a model for his own prophetic vocation.
Woolman’s reluctance to confront his peers and the personal anguish he suffered from doing so, assured him that he was not acting out of his own human will, but in God’s will – because in his human will, he would rather not cause trouble.
Irresistible Commission
The prophetic commission is given, not looked for. It is imparted with the divine revelation of the new world God is bringing about. Since it is irresistible, it is not a matter of human authority but of God's sovereignty designating human agents to embody the revelation.
On one occasion, while traveling in the South, Woolman attended an annual gathering of Quaker ministers and elders in which he felt led by God to confront the group with their sin, though his Journal does not identify what that sin was.[1] Directly after sharing his leading to confront the group, he wrote about the necessity of enduring in the midst of conflict because God's calling could not be resisted:
Through the humbling dispensations of divine providence men are sometimes fitted for his service. The messages of the prophet Jeremiah were so disagreeable to the people and so reverse to the spirit they lived in that he became the object of their reproach and in the weakness of nature thought to desist from his prophetic office, but saith he: “His word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing and could not stay” [Jer. 20:9]. I saw at this time that if I was honest to declare that which Truth opened in me, I could not please all men, and laboured to be content in the way of my duty, however disagreeable to my own inclination.[2]
God's revealed Truth, as Woolman interpreted it, led him into conflict with other Quakers, but the prophetic identity in which the reluctant prophet acted only as compelled by God, guided and informed his interactions. In fact, Woolman claimed that the prophet who neglected the revealed will of God and did not confront Quakers 'undermine[d] the foundation of true unity.'[1][3] Woolman modified the accepted Quaker criteria for corporate unity[2][4] by emphasising obedience to divine revelation as "true unity."
The Act of Obedience, not the Effects
For Woolman, "true unity" was obedience to the prophetic task, regardless of how that revelation would be received.[1] What enabled Woolman to remain connected to the corporate body was his belief that the prophet was responsible for executing the divine revelation, but not for the "effects" of delivering that revelation.[2]
On several occasions, Woolman confronted a gathered body of Quakers with his understanding of God’s will in relation to the evils of slavery or lotteries or excessive wealth.[3] The meetings became contentious and Woolman could see that he could not push any further and so "felt easy to leave all to him who alone is able to turn the hearts of the mighty and make way for the spreading of Truth in the earth by means agreeable to his infinite wisdom."[4] On one hand, this suggests that Woolman, despite his grand claims about knowing God’s will and being able to enact it, was, to a certain extent, a pragmatist. On the other hand, "to leave all to him" is consistent with Woolman's conviction that, ultimately, God is the sovereign revealer, whose will would be accomplished. In this sense, Woolman's own experience of revelation led him to believe that God would "make way", as he put it, in God's own time.[5]
Beyond Quakers
In the Bible, the prophets believed God’s revelation had two audiences, 1) the watching world as a whole; and 2) the specific religious community (i.e. Israel). The prophet’s outward expression of the inward revelation reaches both. However, when directed at the prophet’s own religious community, the prophetic voice becomes more specific and more poignant
God >>> prophet >>> the prophet’s community>>>>> the world
The message of the Prophets to their own religious community is one of challenging the dominant religiosity. The prophet declares that the religious tradition has lost it’s true focus on God and lost it’s rootedness in the advancement of God’s reign on earth, and has become insular and ethnocentric.
This helps us understand how Woolman engaged with his fellow Quakers and with colonial society. The vision he proclaimed of a
Thomas G. Couser argues that Woolman’s concerns "clearly transcended tribal considerations, but his role was to extend rather than to ignore or denounce the concerns of the tribe."[1]
Woolman's concern was to ground Quakerism, and the Quaker tradition, within the power that gives it relevance. By subjecting the auspices of Quaker religiosity to the revelation of God that breathes life, Woolman placed Quakerism within the stream of salvation history. As a prophet, Woolman sought to challenge the difference between religiosity and revelation:
By subsuming the tradition within the Source that breathed it, but from which it had become alienated:
Here "tribal" customs are no longer tribal because they become a part of God's universal mission, comprehensive of national identity, religion, and, even, time. Tradition remains important, but becomes reflective of the transforming experience that birthed it, rather than possessive and controlling.
Woolman Beyond Tribal Conformity
Perhaps the ascetic practice that occasioned Woolman the most turmoil and ostracism, but that he understood to be a practical manifestation of the new order God was bringing about, was that of wearing undyed clothes.[2] Woolman viewed his clothing as a visible pronouncement of divine purposes and a chastisement of apostasy.[3] As he walked through England, in 1772, he noted dye running in the street of an industrial town and wrote:
To hide dirt in our garments appears opposite to real cleanliness. To wash garments and keep them sweet, this appears cleanly. Through giving way to hiding dirt in our garments, a spirit which would cover that which is disagreeable is strengthened. Real cleanness becometh a holy people, but hiding that which is not clean by colouring our garments appears contrary to the sweetness of sincerity.[4]
This opposition to dyed clothing seems obsessive. However, Woolman is here challenging tribal customs concerning the style of clothing one must wear to be a good Quaker for the purpose of exposing the spiritual depravity and prideful religiosity that had snuck in among them. Woolman used his own body as a signpost on which he exposed the real state of the dirtiness of his clothing, which reflected back to his fellow colonists the real state of the dirtiness of their souls. Woolman’s spiritual state of transparency before God and humanity stood in opposition to Quakers and other colonists, who claimed to be well-esteemed members of their religious groups on the basis that they rigidly adhered to its precepts outwardly, such as wearing their religious uniforms. Woolman thought that following tribal customs, like wearing traditional Quaker clothing,[5] fell far short of a state of union with God and it was that state in God that mattered.
Wearing dyed clothing allowed people to adorn clothes that were dirty, but outwardly appeared clean, to hide the true state of their clothing.[6] Likewise, being in the habit of covering over one's true state obstructed the necessary transformation God intended. When Woolman wore undyed clothing, he broadcasted this theology; it made visible the difference between sincerity and lies. Woolman demonstrated a fundamental desire for others to know a state of "real cleanness" in God.[7] Wearing undyed clothing, he thought, was an act of faithfulness, but also challenged colonial standards of piety and proclaimed a vision of society that established absolute dependency on God's governance as the true measurement of faithfulness.
This example of wearing undyed clothes challenged tribal norms of religiosity and extended the true concerns of the tribe beyond religious performance and to a state that reflected the authenticity of the divine-human relationship.
Conclusion
In A Plea for the Poor, Woolman wrote:
To labour for an establishment in divine love where the mind is disentangled from the power of darkness is the great business of man's life. Collecting of riches, covering the body with fine-wrought, costly apparel, and having magnificent furniture operates against universal love and tends to feed self, that to desire these belongs not to the children of the Light.[8]
In the prophetic mold, Woolman challenged his contemporaries to replace tame theologies of religious performance and luxury consumption with a subversive theology that declared war on the fabric, ethics and assumptions of the transatlantic imperial economy.[9] Woolman intertwined explicitly theological concerns for the liberation of the true-self from sin with the outward and material because he could not separate the two into distinct spheres. Woolman's challenge to "labour" for the "establishment" of God's love in the human’s self was, simultaneously and authentically, a struggle for the establishment of God's purposes in all aspects of human behaviour.[10]
Woolman’s message was one of a new freedom available to those who dwelled in a state within God’s love. There is a new way of living, the old value systems that dominated a world apart from God no longer control those who are established in God’s love. Here, the accumulation of material goods that denote social status are distractions from the singleness of vision known to those who are transformed in God, but available to all.
In his propheticism, Woolman called his fellow colonists to re-evaluate standards of religious faithfulness, and called them to a direct, life-changing experience with God, a new spiritual state where the old value system was overthrown and replaced with a vision of the world that aligned with God’s ultimate purposes.
[1]Couser, American Autobiography, 38.
[2]Woolman struggled over the decision to begin wearing undyed clothing because:
the apprehension of being looked upon as one affecting singularity felt uneasy to me. And here I had occasion to consider that things, though small in themselves, being clearly enjoined by divine authority became great things to us, and I trusted the Lord would support me in the trials that might attend singularity while that singularity was only for his sake.
Woolman, 'Journal', 121.
[3]Woolman, 'Journal', 120.
[4]Woolman, 'Journal', 190.
[5]William Penn wrote that Quakers should dress plainly, not to receive attention: 'Chuse [sic] thy Cloaths [sic] by thine own eye, not anothers. The more simple and plain they are, the better.' While conformity to accepted standards of dress was prescribed among Quakers, there were very few cases of discipline on those grounds (comprising only 0.1% of total Quaker delinquencies 1748-1783, according to official records). However, Marietta notes that wealthy Quaker merchants were known to indulge their tastes in attire. Thus, while Woolman was unlikely to face official PYM discipline for his choice in clothes, he was nonetheless transgressing a community value and, perhaps, grieved at the prospect of associating himself with the contingency of apathetic Quakers much of his reforms were directed against. Amelia M. Gummere, The Quaker: a Study in Costume (Philadelphia: Ferris & Leach, 1901), 15–16; William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (London: Headley Brothers, 1906), 38; Marietta, Reformation of American Quakerism, 6, 22–23. Woolman, 'Journal', 120-121.
[6]Woolman, 'Journal', 190.
[7]Woolman, 'Journal', 190.
[8]Woolman, 'Plea for the Poor', 250.
[9]Elsewhere, Woolman proclaimed that through a deep spiritual struggle, individuals and nations entrenched in greed and the slave-based economy could be relieved by God and, in absolute trust in God, could overcome 'the most exquisite difficulties':
How deeply soever men are involved in the most exquisite difficulties, sincerity of heart and upright walking before God, freely submitting to his providence, is the most sure remedy. He only is able to relieve not only persons but nations in their greatest calamities. David, in a great strait when the sense of his past error and the full expectation of an impending calamity as the reward of it were united to aggravating his distress, after some deliberation saith, “Let me fall now into the hands of the Lord, for very great are his mercies; let me not fall into the hand of man.” 1 Chron. 21:13.
Woolman, 'Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes', 204.
[10]Woolman, 'Plea for the Poor', 250.
[1]Woolman, 'Journal', 52.
[2]Woolman, 'Journal', 52.
[3]Woolman, 'Journal', 112.
[4]The maintenance of corporate unity was a key theological value for Quakers because corporate unity reflected the unity of Christ. Individual behaviour not in line with Quaker communal norms could bring about the charge of 'singularity'. The individual Quaker charged with 'singularity' risked alienation from the larger Quaker body. This placed individual Quakers in a paradoxical position. On one hand, they were obligated to discern and obey divine truth. On the other hand, the 'singular' appropriation and outward embodiment of divine truth threatened corporate unity and challenged the status and acceptability of Quaker tribal norms. Around the time of Woolman's death, Esther Tuke took great pains to defend Woolman's ministry from the charge of singularity. Esther Tuke to “Friend”, 10mo 14, 1772, Swarthmore College, Friends Historical Library; Calvert, Quaker Constitutionalism, 37; Moore, Light in Their Consciences, 80-81; Meranze, 'Materializing Conscience', 75.
[1]Woolman, 'Journal', 112.
[2]Woolman, 'Journal', 72.
[3]Woolman, 'Journal', 66-67, 110.
[4]Woolman, 'Journal', 66-67.
[5]Woolman, 'Journal', 66-67.
[1]Woolman, 'On the Slave Trade', 497.
[1]Woolman, 'Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes', 212.
[1]Woolman, 'Journal', 31.
[2]Woolman, 'Plea for the Poor', 268.
[3]Woolman, 'Plea for the Poor', 268.
[4]Plank, John Woolman’s Path to the Peaceable Kingdom, 149-150.
[5]In 1770, Woolman had a vision he thought revealed the oppression and evil of the silver-mining industry. The appropriateness of silver dinnerware had been on his mind for some time by that point. Around the time of that vision, Woolman wrote an unpublished statement against the use of silver vessels describing the 'concern' about silver he had felt of 'late years'. In 1772, correspondence among British Quakers reflecting on Woolman's travels in England demonstrates that he had abstained from the use of silver in the last year of his life. John Woolman, 'Statement on the Use of Silver Vessels', A.D.S. Laminated, n.d., Swarthmore College, Friends Historical Library; Cadbury, John Woolman in England, 101-102.
[6]John Woolman’s Letter to a Friend, 9th Day of 7th Month, 1769, in Friends Miscellany: Being a Collection of Essays and Fragments, Biographical, Religious, Epistolary, Narrative, and Historical ..., ed. John Comly and Isaac Comly, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Printed for the editors by J. Richards, 1834), 6–7.
[7]Woolman, 'Considerations on the True Harmony of Mankind', 443.
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