In this issue we have been gifted with three credible, nay expert, expositors of three interpretations of Quakerism in historical perspective: Penn’s interpretation of Quakerism as “primitive Christianity revived,” Barclay’s evolving interpretation of Quakerism’s “inward Light” as vehiculum dei, and his speculation on a corresponding spiritual sense, and the twentieth century development of Quaker understandings of Christianity and universalism—mutually excluding or complementary?—traced across the prestigious Swarthmore Lectures
