Elise M. Boulding - The Religious Society of Friends

The Religious Society of Friends

Boulding’s Quaker faith played a vital role in her focus and development as a sociologist and peace activist. She found the Religious Society of Friends in young adulthood, but did not have a particularly religious upbringing. Though there was a church near her childhood home that had services in Norwegian (her family had emigrated from Norway), her family did not attend. Her father would read the story of Jesus from the Bible on Christmas Eve, and she knew the Lord’s Prayer in Norwegian all her life. Despite the lack of structured religion in her youth, she claims she felt the presence of God as a young child, and when she was 9 years old she began attending a local Protestant church on her own. She developed a relationship with the minister’s wife, who served as a spiritual mentor of sorts for the young Elise. In her teens, however, she recalls a longing to know “god” (she often used a lowercase g in referring to God in her personal writings) but felt that “no religion can quite fulfill needs, so will make own religion”. She also was strongly influenced by her mother, who in Norway had been involved in peace parades and was a social worker for girls who worked in Norwegian factories. Elise shared her mother’s nostalgia for Norway, and always thought of her homeland as a “safe place” until her last year of college when the Nazis invaded it. It was then that she embraced pacifism, and began attending Quaker meetings that she had been introduced to by college friends. She decided that if “safe places” were to exist in the world, she would have to work for them, and this was her calling as a Friend.

Soon after becoming a Quaker, Elise met her husband Kenneth, who was also a Friend. He was an accomplished academic economist, international peace researcher, and poet when the couple met, and Elise names him as her strongest influence throughout her life. Together they moved to various universities and colleges where Kenneth taught and began a family. All the while, Elise was involved in different peace organizations, such as the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and also introduced peace studies to public schools. Out of these experiences, Elise focused on the networking of international religious and/or peace organizations and education. She wrote several pamphlets on the Quaker educational philosophy. The Religious Society of Friends does not separate the spiritual and secular worlds, and see God as being present in all people.

Elise viewed listening as the key to advancing world peace and nonviolence. She published numerous works and gave frequent talks on this and related subjects. It is what she strove for in the many Friends’ organizations and newsletters she contributed to or developed, among them the American Friends Service Committee and the Committee on Friends Responsibilities in Higher Education and Research.