Writing Pendle Hill's History: Cadbury scholar Doug Gwyn discusses his work
Quaker author, teacher, and pastor Doug Gwyn has been in residence at Pendle Hill this year as he researches and writes a history of Pendle Hill. Doug is the author of many books, including Apocalypse of the Word (1986), Conversations with Christ (2011), The Covenant Crucified (2006), Heaven on Earth (with Ben Pink Dandelion and Timothy Peat, 1998), and Seekers Found (2000). In this interview with Shirley Dodson he discusses his research and writing.
Doug, as the Henry J. Cadbury scholar at Pendle Hill this year, you have been working on a history of Pendle Hill. What has most surprised you in your research?
It's been a fascinating project, Shirley. One thing that has surprised and impressed me has been the consistency of the vision and its practice at Pendle Hill. Early directors Henry Hodgkin and Anna and Howard Brinton had a vision for Pendle Hill that combined Quakerism with a stream of personalist philosophy that was strong in the early twentieth century. Personalism insists on the innate dignity and worth of each human being, but that personhood is realized in dialogue with others in community. And communities are the building blocks of a more just and peaceful society. The resonances between personalism and traditional Quaker faith and practice are quite strong. By the end of the 1960s Pendle Hill had been through a lot of conflict and change, and the explicit ideas behind the vision were largely lost. But the community seemed to carry it on implicitly. When Parker Palmer came on as dean and started writing, he picked up many of the key ideas almost by osmosis. Since then, the community seems to keep finding new ways to renew the "Pendle Hill Idea" in new idioms.
Are there particular questions that have guided your research?
I have been particularly interested to understand how Pendle Hill has evolved with the times – reflecting larger social and economic currents in some ways; in other ways responding with prophetic critique and opposition.
Doug, you have a rich background in teaching and writing about Quaker history and theology. How have you drawn on this background in writing about Pendle Hill?
Most of my past work has been on early Friends, trying to understand them theologically (Apocalypse of the Word), socio-politically (The Covenant Crucified) and socio-spiritually (Seekers Found). Of course, Pendle Hill is a very different time and place, and we are very different kinds of Quakers today. But some of the core of early Quakerism comes through in the vision and history of Pendle Hill. In fact, I would say that reading the writings of early Friends and living off and on at Pendle Hill have been two instances where I have thought, "This is it! This is the blessed community!"
What has been most challenging in your writing?
Well, there's just so much material to research at and about Pendle Hill! Besides the shelves of minutes, reports, bulletins, and other publications, there are some 62 linear feet of Pendle Hill archives in the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College! A sight to make the eyes sore!
Given that wealth of material, when do you expect to complete the book?
I have just finished a chapter on the 1970s. That still leaves 30 years to go, just for a first draft. I won't be able to finish before my scholarship year is up, but I hope I can finish by the end of the summer, God willing.
What questions do you still have about Pendle Hill?
Pendle Hill continues to live in a difficult, long-standing tension between its identities as institution and community. I can't resolve that, but I hope the book can offer some useful ways of living with the questions that generate from that tension. Like the tensions between the diverging branches of American Quakerism today, we can grow in wisdom and compassion if we are willing to dwell in the middle of it all together.
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For more information on Pendle Hill’s Resident Program and scholarships, including the Henry J. Cadbury Scholarship, visit http://pendlehill.org/residentprogram/overview.