Is religion about acting a certain way, believing a certain thing or having a relationship with a Higher Power? James and Paul clearly disagreed, one saying faith without works is dead, the other saying works is what matters.

Jesus tells many stories highlighting hypocrisy, with people not acting according to the tenets of their faith, such as when the story of the Good Samaritan and of the woman being stoned. As he said in that last story, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her”.

The hypocrisy of church leaders today makes headlines, such as what happened when explicit pictures were discovered on Ravi Zacharias devices after his death, despite his previous messages about sexual purity. I guess he thought it didn’t apply to himself.   

Hypocrisy was at the core of the development of Quakerism. Quakerism emerged in 17th-century England from the Puritan movement, who held the Calvinist belief that people in predestination, that people could not earn their way to heaven; salvation was granted only to the elect. What confused many people was that those who were successful in this life often believed they were among the elect, even when some had gained success through cheating and deceit.

Quaker founder George Fox was searching for how he could connect with God and found himself continually running into people he called “professors” – those who claimed to profess faith in God but didn’t act like it. 

Quakers developed an answer to that problem, that one needed to be perfected by the Seed of God in each person.  Marcelle Martin has written a book (Our Life is Love) detailing the process that early Quakers went through to get to the point where they wouldn’t be hypocrites. Today’s Quakers call that the Testimony of Integrity, acting in such a way that is consistent with your faith. It’s not easy to do, and it involves going through a Dark Night of the Soul, as Marcelle talks about in her book.

So Quakers come down on the side of faith without works are dead.