Quakers have a distinctive relationship with Christianity. While William Penn uses the phrase ‘Primitive Christianity Revived’ to describe Quaker faith and practice, this can be misleading. Quakers do not set out to imitate the life of the earliest Christians, except in one key respect. They seek to live under the everyday guidance of the Spirit. In living like this, they find evidence and support for the same way of living running right through the Bible but moving dramatically to the fore in the writings of the New Testament.
This central element in the lives of the earliest Christian communities becomes obscured in later Christianity as the initial power of the experience recedes and the common phrase ‘the word of the Lord’ becomes identified with the biblical text.
On these pages you will find elements of a sustained argument to show how vital the living word was for the first Christians. This is why the manner of Quaker worship and decision making today is of significance for the wider Christian Church. It makes central to the life of faith a confidence that guidance is available now, surrounding that insight with well tested practical tools for a community that, just as the first Christians, is called always to live on the edge of new possibilities.