Mother Jane Wardley | |
|---|---|
| Successor | Ann Lee |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Jane Wardley |
| Died | Manchester, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | English |
| Denomination | originally Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and later Shakers |
| Residence | Bolton, United Kingdom |
| Spouse | James Wardley |
 |
| Topics |
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| Notable people |
Founders
Other members |
Jane Wardley, also known as Mother Jane Wardley, was a founding leader of what became the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more commonly known as Shakers. [1]
Little is known about Wardley's personal life. She was a resident of Bolton, located in the United Kingdom, also known as Bolton-le-moors. She lived and worked there with her husband James, who worked as a tailor. They later moved to Manchester where they continued to live in low temporal conditions. [2]
Wardley and her husband were devout members of the Society of Friends, also known as Quakers. However, around 1747 Wardley began to have visions from God telling her to go about her town teaching the truth about the end of the world: that Christ was about to return, and that his second appearance would be in the form of a woman, as is written in the book of Psalms in the Bible. [3] Inspired, she did just that. Her first conversion was her husband, soon followed by John Townley, who was considered a relatively wealthy bricklayer (he later provided significant funding for the Wardley Group), [2] and former Anglicans and Methodists. [3] As a Quaker her worship often began with a period of silent meditation. However, she often began shaking, and rocking, as she "received visions from god". This led to her followers being called "Shaking Quakers". [4]
"In their worship they would sit in silent meditation for a while, when they were taken with a mighty trembling under which they would express the indignation of God against all sin. At other times they were affected, under the power of God, with a mighty shaking; and were occasionally exercised in singing, shouting, or walking the floor under the influence of spiritual signs, or swiftly passing and repassing each other, like clouds agitated by a mighty wind." The Testimony of Christ's Second Appearing. (1810) [3]
The Wardley Society, also known as the Wardley Group and the Bolton Society, [5] [3] [6] was a Quaker worship group founded in Bolton by Jane and James Wardley. The religious practices of the group can be traced back to French prophets called "Camisards" who travelled to England in 1705 to preach and spread their method of worship. These teachings spread rapidly through England and influenced the Wardleys, who began their own preaching and teaching at their home to about 30 devout followers. [4] [7] As described in the previous section, they began their worship like many other Quaker groups but they soon began to shake, rock, and occasionally break into singing and dancing. [4]
Meetings were first held in Bolton, and later Manchester, [8] where the articulate preacher, Jane Wardley, urged her followers to:
"Repent. For the kingdom of God is at hand. The new heaven and new earth prophesied of old is about to come. The marriage of the Lamb, the first resurrection, the new Jerusalem descended from above, these are even now at the door. And when Christ appears again, and the true church rises in full and transcendent glory, then all anti-Christian denominations—the priests, the Church, the pope—will be swept away." [5]
They preached that people should open their hearts and prepare for the second coming of Jesus Christ, who would be reincarnated in the near future as a woman.
John Townley began to visit the meetings in Manchester after he left the Church of England, then joined the Methodist Society. He was a relatively wealthy bricklayer. Around 1766, he was visited at his home by James Wardley. He subsequently joined the Wardley Group and hosted many poorer members of the society. [2]
Ann Lee was the daughter of two devout members of the church. She was compelled by the power of the testimonies of Wardley and her husband, and confessed her sins to them. She taught that repentance was absolutely essential to the reception of the power to forsake sin. She became the first leader of the Shakers. [8]
George Fox was an English Dissenter, who was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends. The son of a Leicestershire weaver, he lived in times of social upheaval and war. He rebelled against the religious and political authorities by proposing an unusual, uncompromising approach to the Christian faith. He travelled throughout Britain as a dissenting preacher, performing hundreds of healings, and often being persecuted by the disapproving authorities. In 1669, he married Margaret Fell, widow of a wealthy supporter, Thomas Fell; she was a leading Friend. His ministry expanded and he made tours of North America and the Low Countries. He was arrested and jailed numerous times for his beliefs. He spent his final decade working in London to organise the expanding Quaker movement. Despite disdain from some Anglicans and Puritans, he was viewed with respect by the Quaker convert William Penn and the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell.
The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers, are a millenarian nontrinitarian restorationist Christian sect founded circa 1747 in England and then organized in the United States in the 1780s. They were initially known as "Shaking Quakers" because of their ecstatic behavior during worship services. Espousing egalitarian ideals, women took on spiritual leadership roles alongside men, including founding leaders such as Jane Wardley, Mother Ann Lee, and Mother Lucy Wright. The Shakers emigrated from England and settled in Revolutionary colonial America, with an initial settlement at Watervliet, New York, in 1774. They practice a celibate and communal lifestyle, pacifism, uniform charismatic worship, and their model of equality of the sexes, which they institutionalized in their society in the 1780s. They are also known for their simple living, architecture, technological innovation, and furniture.
Ann Lee, commonly known as Mother Ann Lee, was the founding leader of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, or the Shakers.
Light of God, Light of Christ, Christ within, That of God, Spirit of God within us, Light within, inward light, and inner light are related phrases commonly used within the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) as metaphors for Christ's light shining on or in them. It was propagated by the founder of the Quaker movement, George Fox, who "preached faith in and reliance on 'inward light' ". The first Quakers were known to sit in silence and meditate on the words of the Bible until they felt the inward light of God shining upon them and the Holy Spirit speaking.
Mary Dyer was an English and colonial American Puritan turned Quaker who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony. She is one of the four executed Quakers known as the Boston martyrs.
Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, USA, is the site of a Shaker religious community that was active from 1805 to 1910. Following a preservationist effort that began in 1961, the site, now a National Historic Landmark, has become a popular tourist destination. Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, or Shakertown, as it is known by residents of the area, is located 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Lexington, in Kentucky's Bluegrass region. It is a National Historic Landmark District.
The First Great Awakening or the Evangelical Revival was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism as adherents strove to renew individual piety and religious devotion. The Great Awakening marked the emergence of Anglo-American evangelicalism as a trans-denominational movement within the Protestant churches. In the United States, the term Great Awakening is most often used, while in the United Kingdom the movement is referred to as the Evangelical Revival.
A testimony of equality is an act, usage, or course of conduct by a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) tending to assert or promote equality of persons, arising from the Friends' belief that all people are equal in the eyes of God. The word testimony describes the way that Friends testify or bear witness to their beliefs in their everyday life. A testimony is therefore not a belief, but is committed action arising out of Friends' religious experience. Testimony of equality has included Quakers' participating in actions that promote the equality of the sexes and races, as well as other classifications of people.
The testimony of simplicity is a shorthand description of the actions generally taken by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) to testify or bear witness to their beliefs that a person ought to live a simple life in order to focus on what is most important and ignore or play down what is least important.
Anti-Shakerism refers to negative attitudes concerning the Shakers. At their peak in popularity in the first half of the 19th century in the United States, the Shakers had approximately 4,000 to 6,000 members. As of 2017, the Shakers currently have at least two active members; few to no extant religious or ethnic groups have fewer members than the Shakers.
Women as theological figures have played a significant role in the development of various religions and religious hierarchies.
Quakers, also called Friends, belong to a historically Christian (Protestant) set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of the various Quaker movements are generally united by a belief in the ability of each human being to experience and access the light within or to see "that of God in every one". Some profess the priesthood of all believers, a doctrine derived from the First Epistle of Peter. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity. There are also Nontheist Quakers whose spiritual practice is not reliant on the existence of God. To differing extents, the movements making up the Religious Society of Friends/Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2007, there were about 359,000 adult Quakers worldwide. In 2017, there were 377,557 adult Quakers, 49 per cent of them being in Africa.
Jane Lead, earlier Jane Ward, was a Christian mystic born in Norfolk, England, whose spiritual visions, recorded in a series of publications, were central in the founding and philosophy of the Philadelphian Society in London at the time.
William Dewsbury was an English Quaker minister and religious writer in the early period of the movement. He was born in Allerthorpe, Yorkshire, around 1621. Little is known of his parents or education, except that his father died when he was eight years old.
Lucy Wright was the leader of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, also known as the Shakers, from 1796 until 1821. At that time, a woman's leadership of a religious sect was a radical departure from Protestant Christianity.
The Quakers immigrated from New York, the New England States and Pennsylvania. They are a pacifist religion, and during this period were also a "plain folk" rejecting all ornamentation in clothing, speech and meeting houses (churches). The Children of Peace were founded during the War of 1812 after a schism in York County. A further schism occurred in 1828, leaving two branches, "Orthodox" Quakers and "Hicksite" Quakers.
The early chronology of Shakers is a list of important events pertaining to the early history Shakers, a denomination of Christianity. Millenarians who believe that their founder, Ann Lee, experienced the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the Shakers practice celibacy, confession of sin, communalism, ecstatic worship, pacifism, and egalitarianism. This list cover the periods from 1747 to 1826. This spans the emergence of denomination in the mid-18th century, the emigration of the Shakers to New York on the eve of the American Revolution, and subsequent missionary work and the establishment of nineteen major planned communities.
Job Bishop was an American early Shaker leader. A missionary, he founded the Shaker communities of Canterbury, New Hampshire, and Enfield, New Hampshire.
Mary Forster was an English Quaker campaigner. She wrote a preface to the 1671 edition of Guide to the Blind, which had been written by her husband, Thomas Forster.
Theophila Townsend was a Quaker writer, preacher, and activist from Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England.