Buckley addresses freshly and clearly a perennial theme for Friends, from Fox and Naylor to the present: that Quaker testimony is our behavioral witness to our Quaker spiritual life, to what the Inward Light has revealed to us. Further, he reviews Quaker history up to the present to show us how our understanding of testimony can apparently easily slip into a list of testimonies, that amount to rules or expectations or values. Such a list can come to define us, to ourselves and to others, and can become a sort of creed for Quakers. Our present use of SPICES (Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Sustainability) as "the testimonies," while it has its uses, is such a case. This is a secularized distortion of testimony.
Thus Buckley challenges us to revise our understandings and discussions of "the testimonies" by recognizing that all our specific testimonies arise from the one testimony for Friends, which is that God shows, guides, and empowers us in how to live. And surely we have many testimonies that we are led to from the one testimony, like love, joy, justice, mercy, generosity, as well as the six in our usual list. He closes with challenging each of us to discern what we are led to by the Light.
Buckley's pamphlet is clearly written and organized, interesting, and challenging.
Illustration of the spiritual source and "first motion" of a ministry or leading can be found in many of the autobiographical PHPs about the spiritual journey of a Friend. Also, let us note that the issue is perennial as seen in religions everywhere, where many of us humans drift into observing our religion as a "purity system," with observance of rules and rituals coming to define participation and membership in the religion. ( )