CJ Replay: Singing Quakers

(An excerpt from the Choral Journal article, “Singing Out of the Silence: A Survey of Quaker Choral Music” by Dan Graves)

 

       The practice of singing among members of the Society of Friends is inextricably tied to the history of Quakerism itself. In the mid-seventeenth century, the first generation of Quakers rejected music, although not outright. If Friends sang “with the spirit and with understanding also” (1 Corinthians 14:15), their singing was acceptable. If, however, the singer was not in the same “condition” or frame of mind as the composer of the music, the singing was viewed as lying. The Truth Testimony was broken under such circumstances; therefore most singing violated Quaker principles?

       Secular music led people away from God and was avoided as frivolous. Modeling his behavior after a seventeenth-century Friend who burned his musical instruments to avoid being led into sin, an eighteenth-century Friend, upon converting to Quakerism, felt obligated to stop playing his cello. Saddened by the loss, but unable to bring himself to burn the instrument, he dug a grave and buried it.

     With minor exceptions, these attitudes were strictly enforced during the Quietistic period of the eighteenth century. That period was followed by extreme turmoil during the nineteenth century, leading first to several splits among Friends and, ultimately, to the breakdown of eighteenth-century stereotypes. The major split among Quakers in America occurred between 1827 and 1828 in Philadelphia. This so-called Orthodox Hicksite division split Friends into two branches with vastly divergent practices in many areas, including singing. The Orthodox Quakers were strongly influenced by the American religious mainstream and the evangelical revivalist movement. They settled in the Midwest and turned to common religious practices, such as paid pastors, programmed worship services, and singing. The Hicksites, on the other hand, continued the silent worship of unprogrammed meetings, with no singing during worship.

       Today singing practices among Friends remain divided along much the same lines. In the United States, however, about two-thirds of all Qualms belong to branches descended from the Evangelical Friends, who have both congregational and choral singing as part of their worship meetings. Among American Hicksite descendants and British Friends, virtually all still hold silent, unprogrammed meetings for worship.

 

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