William Penn said of George Fox, the human founder of the Quaker faith, that he was “no man’s copy.” In this analysis of Fox’s letters, Charlotte Condia reflects on the ways George Fox’s contemporaries, saw him as an original, He was unique. The crown of Fox’s experience is his knowledge and passionate love of God and his ability to share this with others. The best expression of this love is his more than 400 pastoral letters which he wrote between 1650 and 1690.
He invented new religious ideas, looked at old ideas and made them new and fresh or discovered new things in them. He recombined information in refreshing and different ways. The invention of new religious and social ideas is much more difficult than the invention of mechanical ones, and it happens less often.
