Short-Answer Quiz

Answer the following questions in two to three sentences each, based on the information provided in the source documents.

1. Explain the concept of “benevolent harm” as it relates to Quaker history.
2. What was the “Great Separation” of 1877, and what were the core theological differences between the two factions involved?
3. Describe the three interconnected pillars of “Christian Colonial Capitalist Violence” (CCV).
4. How did the witness of conscientious objectors evolve from the Civil War to the Vietnam War?
5. What is the “symmetrical antidote” to CCV, and how does this praxis connect to traditional Quaker testimonies?
6. What was President Ulysses S. Grant’s “Peace Policy,” and how did it formalize Quaker involvement in assimilation projects?
7. Explain the decolonial concept of “incommensurability” and its relevance to the contemporary debate within Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative).
8. What specific methods, constituting an “Architecture of Assimilation,” were used in the Indian Boarding Schools administered by Quakers?
9. How does the proposed “New Conscientious Objection” (NewCO) expand upon the traditional Quaker Peace Testimony?
10. Explain the principle of “Solidarity, Not Charity” as it relates to the practice of Mutual Aid.

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Answer Key

1. “Benevolent harm” describes a pattern where Quakers, motivated by good intentions to mitigate overt violence, partnered with the state and adopted its tools of confinement and assimilation. This partnership, while seeking to be humane, ultimately served to legitimize and execute the state’s violent objectives, such as the cultural genocide enacted through Indian Boarding Schools.
2. The “Great Separation” was the 1877 schism that formed Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative). It pitted the Gurneyites, who moved toward evangelical Protestantism with programmed worship and biblical authority, against the Wilburites, who sought to “conserve” traditional Quaker practices like unprogrammed worship and the primacy of the Inner Light.
3. CCV is a fused system of oppression with three pillars: the Christian pillar provided moral license for conquest (e.g., Doctrine of Discovery); the Colonial pillar executed the physical violence of land theft and dispossession; and the Capitalist pillar was the economic engine that commodified stolen land and labor.
4. The witness of conscientious objectors evolved from a personal refusal to kill (exemplified by Seth Laughlin in the Civil War) to a refusal to participate in the military institution itself. By the Vietnam War, this had radicalized into a systemic critique and a refusal to cooperate with the entire state apparatus of conscription, including the draft system.
5. The “symmetrical antidote” is a holistic praxis with three pillars to counter CCV: Mutual Aid counters Capitalism and expresses the Testimony of Equality; LANDBACK counters Colonialism and expresses the Testimony of Integrity; and Abolition counters Christian/State Violence and expresses the Peace Testimony.
6. President Grant’s “Peace Policy” of 1869 formalized the partnership between the U.S. government and various Christian denominations, including Quakers. It assigned them to manage Indian agencies and their associated schools with the stated purpose of protecting, “civilizing,” and “Christianizing” Indigenous peoples, framing assimilation as a peaceful alternative to military extermination.
7. “Incommensurability” is the conviction that the worldviews and logics of settler colonialism and Indigenous sovereignty are fundamentally irreconcilable and cannot be reformed or compromised. This concept frames the debate within IYM(C) not as a simple disagreement, but as a clash between those who believe the institution can be reformed and a radical faction that believes a faithful response requires a complete break from the settler project.
8. The “Architecture of Assimilation” in boarding schools included several methods of cultural violence. These were: physical alteration, such as forcibly cutting children’s hair; renaming children with English names; strictly prohibiting Native languages under threat of severe punishment; and a curriculum focused on manual labor for servitude.
9. The NewCO expands the traditional Peace Testimony from a refusal of military service and international warfare to a holistic conscientious objection to the entire interconnected system of capitalist, colonial, and carceral violence. It transforms the testimony from a “negative” witness of refusal into a “positive” witness of active repair, solidarity, and the building of alternatives.
10. “Solidarity, Not Charity” is the defining principle of Mutual Aid. Unlike charity, which is often a top-down practice reinforcing power imbalances between a giver and receiver, solidarity is a horizontal practice of collective care where communities solve shared problems, building “people’s infrastructure” outside the market’s transactional logic.

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Essay Questions

Construct detailed, essay-format answers to the following questions, synthesizing information from across the provided source documents.

1. Analyze the concept of “benevolent harm” as a recurring pattern in Quaker history, comparing Quaker involvement in Indian Boarding Schools with their role in the creation of the penitentiary system.
2. Trace the evolution of the Quaker Peace Testimony from the 1660 declaration to King Charles II through the various stages of military conscientious objection to the proposed “New Conscientious Objection” to CCV. How has the definition of “violence” and “peace” changed over time?
3. The documents describe the 1843 abolitionist schism as a precedent for a potential modern division. Compare and contrast the core conflicts of 1843 (urgency and methods) with the contemporary debate over the “incommensurable path” of decolonization.
4. Discuss the “symmetrical antidote” (Mutual Aid, LANDBACK, Abolition) as a holistic praxis. Explain how each pillar is designed to counter a specific form of violence within the CCV framework and how it is re-framed as a living expression of a core Quaker testimony.
5. Using the personal journey of Jeff Kisling as a case study, explain how an individual’s conscientious objection can evolve from a “negative” witness of refusal against war to a “positive” witness of repair and solidarity against systemic injustice.

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Glossary of Key Terms

Term	Definition
Abolition	A dual strategy of divesting from violent state institutions like police and prisons while simultaneously investing in community-based alternatives that create genuine safety and address the root causes of harm. It is framed as the modern expression of the Peace Testimony.
Benevolent Harm	A pattern in Quaker history where well-intentioned efforts to mitigate overt violence, when allied with the state’s tools of confinement and assimilation, resulted in new forms of structural violence like cultural genocide and psychological torture.
Christian Colonial Capitalist Violence (CCV)	An analytical framework identifying contemporary injustice as a single, fused, and interlocking system of oppression with three mutually reinforcing pillars: Christian ideology providing moral license, Colonialism executing physical dispossession, and Capitalism driving economic extraction.
Colonization	An implicit declaration of war by one nation on a foreign people with the purpose of taking their land, using overwhelming military and legal violence to establish control for empire.
Decolonization	An attempt to reverse the colonization process by destabilizing the occupiers’ systems of power and reacquiring land that was taken. It involves returning Indigenous language and religious autonomy and giving land back.
Doctrine of Discovery	A series of 15th-century Papal bulls that authorized Christian nations to claim non-Christian lands, providing the theological and moral license for European colonial conquest.
Gurneyites	A faction of 19th-century Quakerism that moved toward mainstream evangelical Protestantism, emphasizing the authority of the Bible over the Inner Light and adopting “programmed” worship services with pastors and prepared sermons.
Incommensurability	A concept from decolonial theory positing that the worldviews, goals, and logics of settler colonialism and Indigenous sovereignty are fundamentally irreconcilable, mutually exclusive, and cannot be reformed into one another.
Inner Light	A core Quaker theological belief in a direct, unmediated experience of the divine within every person that can guide individuals toward Truth. It is the wellspring of the Peace Testimony.
LANDBACK	A comprehensive and literal political project demanding the material return of ancestral lands to Indigenous stewardship, which includes the full restoration of sovereignty over language, culture, and ecology. It is framed as the necessary expression of the Testimony of Integrity.
Mutual Aid	Defined by the principle “Solidarity, Not Charity,” it is a horizontal practice of collective coordination to meet community needs outside the transactional, scarcity-based logic of the market, building “people’s infrastructure” through collective care. It is framed as the living expression of the Testimony of Equality.
New Conscientious Objector (NewCO)	An evolution of the traditional Quaker witness, expanding from a refusal of military service to a holistic conscientious objection to the entire system of Christian Colonial Capitalist Violence, shifting the focus from a “negative” refusal to a “positive” praxis of repair and building alternatives.
“Peace” (of Empire)	A term used to deconstruct the colonial concept of peace, defined as aggressive military engagement against Indigenous resistance to establish an order that accommodates business and capitalism, effectively eliminating Indigenous autonomy.
Peace Testimony	A foundational Quaker conviction that war and violence are contrary to the spirit of Christ. Historically focused on refusing military service, it is being expanded in the modern context to include rejecting all forms of state and systemic violence.
Programmed Worship	A form of Quaker worship, adopted by Gurneyite factions, that includes pastors, prepared sermons, music, and a pre-arranged order of service, contrasting with the traditional silent worship.
Query	A question for spiritual examination used within the Religious Society of Friends to regularly and prayerfully orient the community toward a core concern, ensuring testimonies remain living, active principles.
Settler Colonialism	The political project of permanently replacing Indigenous populations and sovereignty with a settler society, primarily through the mechanism of land theft and the elimination of the native.
Solidarity, Not Charity	The defining principle of Mutual Aid, distinguishing it from traditional charity. It emphasizes horizontal, collective action to solve shared problems rather than a top-down dynamic between a powerful “giver” and a dependent “receiver.”
Syncretic Theology	The blending of different religious beliefs and practices into a new, cohesive framework. The NewCO movement is presented as a potential syncretic fusion of the Christian peace testimony and Indigenous spiritual worldviews.
Unprogrammed Worship	The traditional form of Quaker worship, also known as “waiting worship,” held in expectant silence without a pastor or pre-arranged service, based on the belief that ministry arises directly from the Spirit’s leading.
Wilburites	A traditionalist faction of 19th-century Quakerism that sought to “conserve” original Quaker practices, upholding the primacy of the Inner Light and staunchly defending unprogrammed worship.