The Life and Thought of Rufus Jones (1863–1948)

Abstract

This chapter provides an introduction to the life and thought of the philosopher, historian, social activist, and mystic Rufus Matthew Jones (1863–1948). Born into a well-known Quaker family in South China, Maine, Jones was educated at Quaker boarding schools and then Haverford College, where he spent most of his career as a professor of philosophy. Jones was a part of an influential cadre of young Quaker intellectuals who rose to prominence on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1890s. Their intellectual movement, Liberal Quakerism, sought to move beyond the doctrinal debates that dominated Quaker intellectual life in the nineteenth century in favor of a “modernist” form of Quakerism that replaced quietism with social activism, evangelical biblical hermeneutics with Higher Criticism, and – especially in Jones’s case – a new emphasis on the mystical experience. Jones played a key role in creating the Five Years Meeting, which united the majority of American Quakers under a central organizational structure and discipline, and in 1917, he helped found the American Friends Service Committee, which would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947. Jones’s voluminous writing and tireless lecturing and organizing transformed American Quakerism and inspired a generation of students and admirers.