The 2025 Lecture will be given by FWCC General Secretary Tim Gee. Below he shares part of his spiritual journey, and about singing and Quaker practice.

After my daughter was born I couldn’t keep from singing. Sure, there weren’t many other ways to entertain her, as our hands were literally full, and it seemed to be one of the better ways to get her to sleep.

But that wasn’t really why. In truth I felt a deep need inside, to express the joy I felt. That came out as singing.

Mostly I sang love songs because I was falling in love. But I also sang hymns. Often when she was on my front in the baby carrier, ear next to my chest, the long deep notes of hymns seemed to calm her, especially if accompanied by a walk.

And so I walked the streets of South London, singing Calon Lan, Sing John Ball, How Can I Keep from Singing – anything I even half knew, second verses quickly learnt when she was asleep, ready for longer versions next time they were needed.

All this came as a surprise. I’m not really much of a singer. It was nice to have an appreciative audience, but I’m not one to sing for performance. I also didn’t think I liked hymns. When they are big and bombastic I still don’t. But that’s not the only way to praise God through song.

Early Quakers sang

It also came as a surprise to me as a Quaker. In Britain—as in Australia—Quakers mostly don’t sing, at least usually not together during Meeting for Worship. I used to think this had always been the case. That was until I read the sources more carefully.

Most Friends know that George Fox said he couldn’t sing, and was most unimpressed when a priest told him to cheer up by smoking tobacco and singing psalms. Tradition has also preserved the story of his companion, Solomon Eccles, who publicly burned his musical instruments on Tower Hill.

But Eccles also clarified that Friends approve of “Musick that pleaseth God”. From the writings of later generations of Friends, this would seem to refer to song emerging from a personal experience of Spirit, rather than simply “mouthing the words of another.”

Fox didn’t like empty words of any sort, spoken or sung. In a passage from his Journal where he seems to condemn singing, he quotes Isaiah 1 in which God calls out the hypocrisy of people engaging in all kinds of worship practices whilst failing to stand up for the oppressed.

And Fox sang. On being beaten in prison, he found he “was moved in the Lord’s power to sing” which made the warders go away. Under arrest in Lancaster he sang out again. In the course of being banished under guard from a town in Scotland, his comrade James Lancaster was moved to sing too.

We might also ask what Fox did when he “sounded the Day of the Lord” atop Pendle Hill in 1652. He was probably channelling Joel 2 which speaks of a trumpet being blown on a holy mountain. Since Fox didn’t play the trumpet, it’s fair to think that whatever he did, he did with his voice.

Fox advised Friends to “sing in the Spirit”. In Ireland Fox records that Friends “broke out into singing, even with audible voices, making melody in their hearts.” Back in England we can read of Friends engaging in “serious sighing” and “sensible groaning” as well as “reverent singing” during worship. Call me old fashioned, but I’m glad it’s mostly the singing that has endured.

Early Christians sang

William Penn said that Friends sought to be “Primitive Christianity revived”, and early Quaker attitudes reflected those of their forbears. Church fathers warned against use of musical instruments in worship. In the earliest detailed description of a church service, music isn’t mentioned.

There is no New Testament reference to musical instruments in use in worship either. Where they are mentioned it is usually as metaphor. While there may have been a concern that instruments could prompt responses misunderstood as the Holy Spirit, they aren’t prohibited either.

Singing, however, is mentioned multiple times. On learning she is pregnant, Mary sings. Jesus and his followers sing following the last supper. Paul and Silas sing in jail. Both Paul and James encourage their hearers to sing. Some have suggested that Paul’s letters include song fragments.

In the Hebrew Scriptures there is much more to go on, including at least one songbook, the Psalms, plus other shorter sets of lyrics. We also find David playing the harp described as “prophesying”, which suggests a calming form of musical prayer without words.

Most Quakers sing

Most Friends around the world today sing, especially in Africa where most of the world’s Friends are. The first Friends Church in Africa I visited was the largest congregation in Burundi, where nine choirs combine on a Sunday morning.

Friends in unprogrammed meetings sing too. The silent meeting in Nairobi closes with a song. In Tokyo there is a monthly singing session after meeting. AFSC General Secretary Joyce Ajlouny once told me that at home in Ramallah, hymns would be called mid-worship, invariably including A Song of Peace.

Peter Blood-Patterson recalls regularly singing at meeting in Michigan in the 1950s, as well as at residentials and gatherings. This helped weave together the community, and was part of what led to the group-singing songbook Rise Up Singing, compiled with his wife, Annie Blood-Patterson.

Friends General Conference has had hymnals since 1919. Friends United Meeting has had them since since 1902. In rural Kenya, many Friends bind together the Swahili hymnbook Injili with the Luhya collection Tsinyimbo Tsya Nyasaye ready to pull from their pockets.   

Folk and word  

To my surprise I’ve also found myself setting lines from scripture to the tunes of well-known folk songs. Usually it begins by arising in me, then I sit down with different translations seeking words that fit both the tune and which prompt an inward peace as to the meaning of the passage.

Psalm 131 references a parent calming child, so I sang it to a lullaby, All Through the Night, and found myself feeling rather than thinking the text. Singing John 1:10 in the minor key of Scarborough Fair helps me feel the words too: “He was in the world…and the world knew him not”.

Putting the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) to the protest tune Bella Ciao drew out the radicalism of the words, in a way much obscured by Latin choir versions. Love is Patient, Love is Kind fits well to Aura Lee (better known with different words as Love me Tender) raising it from a human to a divine love song.

Sometimes I play them with a ukulele. I have prayerfully questioned whether God minds being worshipped in this way. In this I’ve received an uncharacteristically prompt response: “Relax: it’s the sincerity in your heart which is the point.” 

I imagine my Welsh dissenter chapel-going ancestors smiling at this Quaker descendant of theirs unable to keep from singing. Perhaps that’s part of it. But song has long been a part of Quaker life. I’m glad to be part of sustaining it.

A video recording of the lecture is hoped to be uploaded on the aforementioned website soon after. Printed copies will also be available from Australia Yearly Meeting on completion of the lecture, as well as an epilogue containing a selection of scripture passages set to well-known tunes.

Quakers from Burundi singing at the 2024 World Plenary Meeting in South Africa.