For early Quakers, the testimony to simplicity was about dedicating our lives to the service of God and caring little for the superficial daily concerns of ordinary life that were a distraction from our primary purpose in life. In the centuries since then, Quakers have paid less and less head to this particular testimony and instead have tended to join with everyone else in becoming good little consumers, succumbing to seductive advertising, buying things they didn’t need, amassing wealth and property.
Today, as we face the stark environmental limits of our affluent and profligate lifestyles, the Quaker testimony to simplicity has once again come into relevance. As a Pretheist Quaker, I am committed to living simply and sustainably. This means refusing to buy into the consumer culture that urges us to constantly buy things we don’t need and to discard them when we don’t want them anymore.