Cecil Hinshaw presents an evaluation of Quakerism, which, he feels, owes more to ethical perfectionism than to the mysticism often ascribed to it. It was this perfectionism which, above all else, separated George Fox and his followers from the Calvinism of their time. Substituting neo-orthodoxy for Calvinism, the author draws a modern parallel.

In his view Quakerism is definitely a religion which is relevant to his and our time. First, “an important and basic contribution that Quakerism can make today is a witness to an experience of immediate knowledge of God. … A second contribution that can be made by modern Quakerism is a restatement of our faith that human nature has potentiality for goodness far beyond the evidence our world produces today. … A third area where Quakerism is relevant to our time is in the search for integrity.”

“We have our choice of living on the basis of this faith, believing it to be true and living as though it were true, or of living on the assumption that human nature is fundamentally evil. In either case we shall be choosing a faith. For the Quaker the choice is always on the side of qualified optimism about human nature rather than despairing pessimism.”