Janet Melnyk and Ben Pink Dandelion were on campus Jan 14-16 as J. M. Ward Distinguished Quaker Visitors. Melnyk and Dandelion spoke on various subjects and concluded their stay with the annual J. M. Ward Lecture. This year’s topic was “A History of the End of the World: The Apocalypse in Quakerism, Christianity, and Culture.”
“Quakers don’t talk theology, they talk history,” said Mary Ellen Chijioke, Director of Hege Library, who attended Thursday’s talk.
Dandelion, with his British accent – his meeting has a clear view of the original Pendle Hill – kept his audience’s attention as he talked about history, revealing the connection between early Quakerism and apocalyptic thought.
“Christianity is all about waiting for the Second Coming,” he said.
He argued that Quakerism is no different. George Fox and the early Friends taught that the Second Coming was internal and happening in the mid-seventeenth century.
Dandelion then said that the next generation of Quaker belief was a step removed from the first: the Apocalypse hadn’t arrived but was still imminent.
“If the first Friends heard the alarm clock of the Second Coming, the seventeenth century Friends sort of pressed the snooze button,” Dandelion said.
Melnyk concluded with the Book of Revelations. The Apocalypse story illustrates the problems John saw with the Roman Empire.
“Apocalypse stories are written during times of storm and stress,” Melnyk said. “When a culture reaches a level that violence is entertainment, there’s a close connection between that culture and Rome.”
“It was nice to learn some things that I hadn’t really considered before,” said Sally Stevens, a senior concentrating in Quaker Studies. “It was really neat to study the topic from an analytical perspective as opposed to a theological one.”
The evening concluded with the typical question and answer session. An audience member asked what true modern American Apocalypse stories have to say. Melnyk’s response?
“Well, they feature a lot of donkeys and elephants,” she said, smiling.