If you’ve been around my office in the last weeks, you may have noticed amidst the chaos a particularly old book. Its brown leather binding is mottled with age and wear, and it has a trio of rubber bands gently holding the cover to the book block. Even to someone who doesn’t know books, this one screams “old.”
That’s because it is. This particular publication happens to have been printed in 1856 — a mere 22 years after our forebears first gathered in an assembly that became Community Baptist Church, as well as five years prior to the American Civil War. The first printing of this tome happened in 1808, and its title is “Christ’s First and Second Appearing.” No author is listed on the title page, though individual sections are “signed” by individuals who wrote them. Instead, the whole work is simply indicated as “Published by the United Society, called SHAKERS.”
For the most part, the Shakers are remembered for their furniture these days; as a religious group there are almost nonexistent (there were reported to be two living Shakers as of August 2025). But Shaker communities have been immensely influential in the American religious landscape.
Emerging out of Quakerism, Shakers were a charismatic movement in England in the mid-1700s. At the time there was a strong spirit of revivalism and eagerness to live out the Kingdom of God here on earth. The Shakers took this literally and radically: they were pacifists, engaged in communal living, modeled equality of the sexes, practiced celibacy, and embraced a simplicity that permeated everything — clothing, architecture, music, etc. Many churches of various denominations still sing the Shaker song, “Simple Gifts.”
Economically, Shaker communities were consistently strong. They grew their own food, and canned and preserved produce for the winter to ensure self-sufficiency. They likewise raised livestock for meat, and they were highly regarded by the general population for their expertise in this and farming. The handicrafts and labor they engaged in were simple but excellent, as Shakers aspired to perfection in all things for Christ. They spun fabric and made clothing and hats, ran a seed company and sold medicinal herbs, produced maple syrup, ran tanneries for their local communities, and of course worked wood into furniture and useful items of all sorts.
The Shakers have long fascinated me for a number of reasons. One is simply that this is a Christian denomination that never had financial struggles yet still effectively died out. Another is that they seemed to get so much right (equality of persons, live now as in Christ’s kingdom, kindness/gentleness to all, humility and simplicity, etc.) and yet they also got so much wrong.
This is a good time to mention that this book — like so many of its era — comes with multiple sub-titles:
- “Testimony of Christ’s Second Appearing, Exemplified by the Principles of the True Church of Christ.”
- “History of the Progressive Work of God, Extending from the Creation of Man to the ‘Harvest,’ — Comprising the Four Great Dispensations Now Consummating in the Millennial Church.”
- “Antichrist’s Kingdom, or Churches, Contrasted with the Church of Christ’s First and Second Appearing, The Kingdom of the God of Heaven.”
Like far too many of the “new” church movements that emerged in the 1700’s to the present, the Shakers basically concluded that most everyone before them got most everything wrong and only they were the true church of Jesus Christ. They point to a handful of heretical groups in history (of which little was actually known at the time) and use their rejection by the majority church as proof that these heretical groups were actually the True Church® — from which the Shakers somehow descend.
Then there’s the celibacy thing. They were so convinced that sex was the root of all evil that all members took (and still must take) a vow of celibacy. Within at least American Christianity, the majority of church growth in the last 150 years has been biological (those within churches having children and those children becoming church members); the membership crisis of the last 50+ years has been a result of that trend trailing off. The Shakers were on the wrong side of that baby boom, and cultural shifts of various sorts led to them no longer being able to gather members from the demographics that had been reliable for them.
But as I said, the Shakers got a lot right too. Thomas Merton was interested in the Shakers, and visited one of their communities in Kentucky occasionally in the late 1950s. The Shakers believed that Jesus would return at any time, and while they did not believe it would be a dramatic, apocalyptic thing like some other millennial movements, they did believe in its imminence. So why, for instance, if they believed the world could end at any time would they build the best buildings in Kentucky? As Merton came to know the Shakers there, he came to learn the answer: “If you know the world could end at any minute, there’s no need to hurry. You can take your time and do the best work you possibly can.”
The old book will continue sitting on my desk and shelf for a while yet. It remains both warning and inspiration for me. Maybe it will for you too.
Remember, we’re all in this together,
Pastor Michael