Historically, for the first eighty-five years of Quaker history, there was no such thing as formal membership. In those days no one ever applied for membership, was accepted into membership, or resigned. George Fox, Margaret Fell, William Penn and their contemporaries were not officially members of any meeting of Friends. There were no formal membership lists until 1737. They did not need membership lists. Both within and without the Society, their status was unmistakable.
People were known as Quakers who attended meetings and who were prepared to suffer for their beliefs. The persecution of Friends was so severe that there was little to induce anyone to associate with the Society unless they really belonged there. In the words of Francis Howgill: “The Kingdom of Heaven did gather us all as in a net.” Friends who felt that way about their Society had no need for formal membership!
In describing our own religious experiences, we should use words which liberate rather than words which imprison the spirit. Jesus said, “I am the way.” He did not say, “I am the End of the road.” We say to an applicant for membership: “We expect you to have a belief, but we do not require you to accept a particular statement of belief. You need not have formulated a full theology, and you need not subscribe to a particular theology, but you must be sincerely seeking Truth. We expect you to be a humble learner in the School of Christ. We hope you will study the Scriptures and we hope you will try to formulate your beliefs, but you need not have arrived at Truth; what we ask is that you be sincerely seeking Truth”.
Thomas R. Bodine