Criticism
Some Quakers have a negative view of the Richmond Declaration. For example, Chuck Fager argues that, among other problems, the Declaration never represented most Friends and that it has prompted an unfortunate division in the Society.
Though it was primarily written by a British Friend, Joseph Bevan Braithwaite, Britain Yearly Meeting (then called London Yearly Meeting) rejected the proposal that it be adopted. The Richmond Declaration was one factor leading to a sharp doctrinal turn for London Yearly Meeting in 1895.
The Declaration is not accepted as a statement of faith by Friends General Conference or Beanite Quakerism in North America, or by most "unprogrammed" Friends in the rest of the world.
Read more about this topic: Richmond Declaration
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)
“... criticism ... makes very little dent upon me, unless I think there is some real justification and something should be done.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)