Wilmer A. Cooper (–2008)

Wil Cooper grew up among Plain Friends in Ohio Yearly Meeting in the 1920s and 1930s. Eventually he became dean of Earlham School of Religion, the first Quaker seminary. This well-written story illuminates the principles guiding Wilburite life and the adaptations Wil Cooper saw happen in a lifetime of Quaker public service.

A cogent, insightful description of the central testimony among Friends, from which all other testimonies evolve.

I found this pamphlet a pretty slim offering. Most probably because he was recapping talks he had given elsewhere on the history of the testimony rather than wrestling with it himself.

In this solid clear pamphlet, Cooper maintains that the testimony of integrity undergirds all our other Friends testimonies, since it expresses our concern that our outward lives bear witness to the Truth discerned inwardly. Integrity needs to be both at the center of our consciousness and the center of our outward witness. The testimonies are not just Quaker "values," but derive from spiritual faith and experience, spiritual discernment and commitment. Nor are they outward codes of ethics show more or rules, but arise from the inward leading of the spirit of Truth and the Light. Cooper cites Quakers extensively to show the roots of integrity in early Quaker practice. show less