19. Second Friends Church.
Having repented of my sins, I have called upon the name of the Lord and He has pardoned one and all. Henceforth I will trust Him and strive to please Him, becoming a disciple in the school of Christ.
—Membership Pledge
Sherwood Friends Church Minutes, February 22, 1913
This is the sanctuary of the Sherwood Friends after their church building on 2nd and Washington burned down. They are arguably Sherwood's oldest church body, although Saint Paul Lutheran, established in 1878, also makes that claim. The Friends' influence on Sherwood was as profound as the organization's influence on Oregon and America. The Society of Friends was the third largest denomination in America during Colonial times. If we fail to see anything at all unusual about the Friends, it is for a very simple reason. Americans have been imitating Quaker traditions for hundreds of years. The Society was the first institution in recorded history to take a stand against slavery. Americans see little glory in war because of Quaker pacifism. We welcome people of every race, religion and creed to America because of the Quaker tradition of tolerance. Americans tend to admire inventors more than philosophers because of the Quaker distrust of books. Sherwood probably doesn't have a stately City Hall because of the Quaker distrust of government. It is difficult to distinguish rich Americans from poor Americans because of the Quaker tradition of wearing clothes that are at least a hundred years out of fashion (Levi Strauss blue jeans, anyone?). In the Sherwood area, the influence of the Friends will be experienced more and more as you journey South, beginning with Newberg, where a great university is dedicated to the memory of the Society's founder, George Fox. (Travel North, and you experience the influence of the Congregationalist milieu. Portland is named after Portland Maine, and would be named after Boston, Massachusetts but for the flip of a coin. The difference between Portland and Newberg is like the difference between Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. The Oregon Trail skewed this pattern of course, as noted above.)
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