Holiness: The Soul of Quakerism; An Historical Analysis of the Theology of Holiness in the Quaker Tradition. By Carole Dale Spencer. Studies in Christian History and Thought. Milton Keynes, U.K.: Paternoster, 2007. xvi + 319 pp. $41.00 paper.

摘要

In this irenic intellectual history Carole Spencer presents Quakerism asndistinctively embodying the mystical core of Christianity. Illustratingnrelations between liberal silence-based and evangelical sermon-basednFriends, she argues that throughout its history Quakerism has been centerednon holiness. Defined as union with God through balancing apophatic andnkataphatic mysticism, holiness is evident in early Friends’ communalnworship. Beginning in “deep [apophatic] silence beyond words andnthoughts,” it ends “in a luxuriant [kataphatic] cascading of religiousnimages” (31).