‘Creative Worship’: Howard Brinton, John William Graham and the Quaker Meeting for Worship: A Comparison

Abstract

This essay compares the views of two Quakers, John William Graham (1859–1932) and Howard Haines Brinton (1888–1973), on the Quaker Meeting for Worship. One was British, one American, both were active in succeeding generations, and both were committed to the view that the Meeting for Worship, based on silence, was essential to true Quakerism. Each developed a theology of the Meeting, drawing on both current thinking, especially with respect to evolutionary theory, and original Quaker belief and practice. They agreed on the essentially mystical character of Quakerism, but had different interpretations of the concept. My argument is that, in Brinton’s terms, Graham’s view of the meeting is akin to the ‘Puritan’ or ‘Protestant’ understanding of worship: in this view it deserves to be called ‘mechanical’ rather than ‘organic’ or ‘creative’. In Blakean terms, Graham is limited to ‘single vision and Newton’s sleep’.