An Impartial Songbook Joel Nofziger

Friends, if it be possible, as much as lies in you, live peaceably with all. (Romans 12:18)
When I was a child, I grabbed every history book I could reach off the library shelves. I was especially drawn towards those richly illustrated books of men in armor, with plumes on their helmets, and their brightly flashing swords and spears. My mother, a woman of care, thought that this was not the education I needed. So she took me up the road to Wilmer and Velma Heisey.


Wilmer, a Brethren in Christ minister, was a missionary, historian, and honorary rear admiral in the navy of New Mexico. He was also a conscientious objector during World War II, spending the war in the dairy farms of Maine for his 1-W service, and a good family friend. In short, Wilmer was the perfect person to teach young Joel the ways of peace. Or so Mother thought.


She arranged for my brother and I to have a week of history lessons with Wilmer to talk about war and peace. Now, although Wilmer opposed war, and spent much of it working on farms, he followed its conduct closely. He carefully read newspaper accounts and listened to radio broadcasts updating the American public on the course of World War II. To mother’s chagrin, this was most of the content of those discussions. By the third day, it was too much for her and she broke in exclaiming, “Where’s the peace, Wilmer? I want you to tell them about the peace!”


This is a story about where peace is.


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The Hicksite schism at its root was a discussion within the religious society of Friends on how to weigh past testimony and scripture against current ministry. The Orthodox placed a heavy emphasis on scripture and teachings of early friends. The Hicksites, influenced by the New York minister Elias Hicks, placed a higher emphasis on inspired ministry given by contemporary friends. There was also an undercurrent of class, with the educated, wealthy, and industrial leaning towards orthodoxy, while the poor, uneducated, and rural leaned towards the teaching of Elias Hicks.


I first encountered this story in Seth Hinshaw’s Historic Atlas of Ohio Yearly Meeting: An Illustrated Documentation of the History of the Ohio Quakers From Their Earliest Meetings to Their Bicentennial in 2013. To learn more about the Hicksite/Orthodox split, I recommend reading Tom Hamm’s The Quakers in America


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