Tom Hamm and the Public Ministers: John Woolman, Uncomfortable Truths, and the Urgent Work of Quaker Justice Today

“It’s sort of with fear and trembling I take up John Woolman... If ever an American Quaker qualified as a saint, it would be Woolman.” —Tom Hamm

It’s not every day that a Quaker historian calls someone a saint. But in the case of John Woolman, Tom Hamm might be onto something.

Woolman, the quietly relentless 18th-century Quaker minister, has long held a unique place in the hearts of Friends. He wasn’t flashy. He wasn’t famous in his own time. He didn’t start a revolution exactly. But his deep spiritual consistency, his unshakeable moral clarity, and his lived witness against injustice still speak powerfully to us today—maybe even more powerfully now than ever.

And Tom Hamm, with both reverence and humor, reminds us why in this incredible mini-lecture.

Why Woolman Still Matters (And Why He Should Probably Be On Your Bookshelf)

John Woolman was born in 1720 in Burlington County, New Jersey, into a Quaker family. He became a recorded minister in his early 20s and spent much of his adult life traveling among Friends, ministering wherever he felt led, and writing. His journal and essays—especially Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes—have been in print continuously since his death in 1772.

What made Woolman’s voice so distinctive? It wasn’t just what he said—it was how he lived.

He paid enslaved people for their labor when staying in homes that practiced slavery. He refused to use sugar because he knew how it was produced. He stayed in the lowest quarters of the ship on his journey to England, just to be in solidarity with common sailors. He wrote tenderly about overworked animals and raised spiritual concern about the suffering of fowl on ships. He connected spiritual well-being with the material conditions of the poor. And he did all of it not to prove a point, but to be faithful to the inward Light that guided him.

“He fears doing anything in which he is not led and directed by the Holy Spirit,” says Tom. “Even in his dreams.”

Woolman’s faithfulness was total. And unsettling.

Which is why he matters so much now.

The Ministry of Making Connections (Even the Uncomfortable Ones)

One of Woolman’s greatest gifts—what Tom calls “making unsettling connections”—was his ability to see how everything is related. He didn’t just preach against slavery; he saw how slavery was bound up with wealth, with war, with religious complacency, with every corner of society.

Woolman’s genius wasn’t in his originality—it was in his clarity. He saw that the sugar in your tea, the clothes you wear, the property you inherit, the war your country wages, the silence of your meeting—all of it is connected.

And if we’re honest, it still is.

In 2025, we live in a world where:

• Wars rage and people are murdered and their lives unwholesomely altered over resource division.

• Friends’ meetings feel spiritual malaise while the world cries out for care.

  
  

Woolman’s quiet, dogged persistence calls us to see—and then to act.

He reminds us that spiritual maturity includes moral imagination. It means making the connections between comfort and complicity, between personal choices and systemic harm, and refusing to avert our eyes.

“Wars are often fought over possessions,” he wrote. “And the desire for far more than is necessary plants the seeds of war.”

Still true. Still hard to hear. We would like to think our violence, if we can even look at it, has something to do with principles, not greed.

Near Sympathy, Now and Always

Another one of Woolman’s remarkable qualities was what Tom calls “near sympathy”—a kind of radical empathy that allowed him to draw close to those others feared or avoided.

Tom stands at the grave of John Woolman in the Quaker burial ground at Bishophill in York, England. Though an American, John Woolman died while traveling in the ministry of smallpox in England.

When a Native American man reached for his tomahawk during a tense moment, Woolman didn’t panic. He recognized the gesture not as a threat, but as a readiness. When traveling with coarse, blaspheming sailors, he didn’t retreat in moral horror—he stayed with them, shared their food and space, and eventually held a meeting for worship in the middle of the ship.

He wasn’t interested in judging people. He was interested in loving them.

What would it look like to cultivate that kind of near sympathy today?

It might mean:

• Sitting in solidarity with communities experiencing violence and oppression, even when it’s socially and materially costly.

• Spending less time talking about “those people,” whoever they are, and more time listening to them.

• Opening our meetings—and our hearts—to voices we usually overlook.

• Offering spiritual care to perpetrators as well as victims, while clearly naming harm.

  
  

Woolman reminds us that proximity changes us. And that justice work rooted in love, not superiority, has the power to transform.

Modern Public Ministry Needs Prophetic Tenderness

Woolman’s witness was not about grand gestures. It was about long obedience in the same direction. It was about making consistent, Spirit-led choices that embodied the world he believed God wanted.

Today’s public ministers—whether traveling or grounded in one place, visible or behind the scenes—need that kind of rootedness.

We need:

• Courage to name the systems that bind us.

• Tenderness to love those caught in them.

• Spiritual grounding to withstand burnout and cynicism.

• Communities of accountability that help us stay faithful when it’s hard.

  
  

Public ministry in the 21st century is still the work of unsettling comfort, of pointing out connections, of making ethical choices that speak louder than our words. Of creating environments, the conditions, for justice.

We need ministers who, like Woolman, can say:

“All human beings with the light of God within them are too good to be enslaved. There is no Christian who is good enough ultimately to be an enslaver.”

And who are willing to extend that clarity into every area of life—from racial justice to climate justice to economic justice to how we treat the sparrows in our yard.

What We Can Do Now

If reading about Woolman makes you feel a little itchy in your conscience—good. That’s the point. He didn’t live the way he did to make us feel guilty. He lived that way to invite us into a deeper kind of faithfulness.

So what now?

Consider

• For public ministers: Approach Woolman’s journal not as a relic but as a living companion. Let it challenge your assumptions about faithfulness, simplicity, and justice. Reflect: Where am I being called into discomfort for the sake of Love? What patterns in my life need interrupting? Journal in response. Bring Woolman’s questions into your clearness committee or spiritual accompaniment. Let them shape your traveling minutes, your activism, your rest.

  
  

• For meetings: Hold a Woolman reading circle—not to admire him, but to be changed. Sit with his discomforts. Ask: What does it mean for us, as a body, to be faithful in the way Woolman was? Make space for reflection and conversation across generations. Consider: If Woolman visited our meeting today, what would he notice about how we live our testimonies?

  
  

  Do an Inventory

  
  

• For public ministers: Take a moral inventory of your material life: clothes, food, travel, technology, finances. Where does your lifestyle reinforce systems of harm? Consider what small, Spirit-led changes would be a faithful witness—not performative purity, but integrity that nourishes your ministry. Could your own choices become part of your message?

  
  

• For meetings: As a community, ask: What do we rely on that may be rooted in injustice? From the investments in your meeting’s endowment to the products in your kitchen or the tech platforms you use—what systems are you supporting, knowingly or not? What changes could you experiment with together? Could you divest? Could you source differently? Could you say something publicly about your discernment?

  
  

  Get Curious

  
  

• For public ministers: Lean into the hard questions. Where does your call intersect with things your community might rather not see—racial injustice, environmental devastation, settler colonialism, spiritual abuse? Follow those threads. Speak plainly. Listen plainly. Invite others in. Don’t just address symptoms—name systems and allow others to name systems. Let your ministry be one of truth-telling and truth-hearing, even when it’s tender, even when it’s costly.

  
  

• For meetings: When a public minister brings a “hard” concern into the life of the meeting, don’t flinch. Get curious with them. Ask: What does this concern show us about who we are, how we live, what we fear?  Create space for listening. Create structures of support. Be brave enough to follow where the connections lead, even if they challenge your meeting’s comfort or tradition.

  
  

  Join With a Community

  
  

• For public ministers: Gather with other ministers—not to compare callings, but to share spiritual practice, wrestle with accountability, and pray for clarity. Build relationships with elders and companions who will ask you the hard questions. Don’t confuse visibility with sustainability. You need people who love your soul more than your output.

  
  

• For meetings: See yourselves not just as “supporters” of a minister’s work, but as participants in it. The ministry lives among you. How is the life of the meeting being shaped by this relationship? Form a care committee that holds regular worship and reflection—not just logistics. Consider how your worship, business, and budget might be changing in response to this shared calling.

  
  
  
  

  Listen Inward

  
  

• For public ministers: In all your action, keep space for deep inward listening. Quaker public ministry is not about ambition—it’s about obedience to Spirit. Are you still moving in step with your leading? Has something shifted? Are you weary? Are you hiding? Take time to stop. Let the silence speak. Let the Light search you. Trust that clarity will return.

  
  

• For meetings: Develop spiritual practices that deepen communal listening. How does your meeting discern? Who is included? Who is missing? Make space in worship, in committee life, and even in business meetings for silence that’s not just quiet—but expectant. Practice the discipline of waiting. Listen for what’s not yet being said.

John Woolman’s life wasn’t a performance of goodness. It was a steady, daily turning toward Spirit, again and again. That’s the invitation still—for public ministers, for meetings, for all of us.

As Tom Hamm reminds us, Woolman’s message is just as needed now as it was then:

“Good words to contemplate in the 18th century. Good words to contemplate in the 21st.”

Tom is Emeritus Professor of History and Quaker Scholar in Residence at Earlham College. He is the presenter in an ongoing series of short lectures for Friends Incubator on his personal favorite public ministers in Quaker history. Next month, he will share about 19th-century abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer, Lucretia Mott!

If you enjoyed this lecture and want to support the series with Tom and our new work to support public ministry in the Religious Society of Friends, please consider a gift: here.

Audio for this series edited by Martin Oliver (Baltimore Yearly Meeting and Northern Yearly Meeting).

Next week we will hear from Quaker public minister Kody Hersh about some of his favorite living public ministers, starting with "performance artists ": Peterson Toscano, Amanda Kemp, and Cai Quirk!

Also next week, on Aug 20th, we start our new five-part series on the prophetic imagination. Registration is free, but required (and donations are, again, so very appreciated!)

And it still doesn't stop. We have an info session (on Zoom) about our insanely popular fellowship for ministers and meetings scheduled with Quaker Leadership Center on August 26th. You can choose one of two time slots. Find out more: HERE, ON OUR FACEBOOK PAGE.