Crazy Like A Fox - Elizabeth Hooton

1600–72

At the age of sixty, Elizabeth Hooton traveled with a friend from England to America, but this was no luxury cruise. They had a message for those Puritans who were running Massachusetts: Stop persecuting Quakers! The governor heard the message from Hooton and her friend and . . . persecuted them. The two women were imprisoned, beaten, and placed in the stocks. Then they were taken out into the wilderness and left there.

Amazingly, they found their way to safety in Rhode Island and caught a ship back home. There, Hooton decided to tell the king about her mistreatment in Massachusetts. She found him playing tennis and pleaded her case. The king gave her a document allowing her to buy land in Massachusetts as a safe haven for Quakers. But on her next visit to America, that document was pretty much ignored, and the persecution continued.

The Quaker faith began with the teaching of George Fox in the 1640s. Hooton, previously a Baptist, was one of his first converts; some reports suggest that she helped Fox develop his teaching. Fox’s focus on the “inner light” guiding the believer seemed mystical and dangerous to the established churches, which found their authority in Scripture and tradition. The equality of all believers was also seen as a threat. Fox and his followers—including Elizabeth Hooton—were often arrested and imprisoned.

Hooton passed away on yet another missions trip, this one to Jamaica. In a published eulogy, Fox called her “a serious, upright-hearted woman,” and he added, “receiving the Truth she never turned her back on it, but was fervent and faithful for it until death.”

This woman had guts and tenacity. Undaunted by kings or governors, she scored low in meekness but high in faith. No doubt she rubbed some people the wrong way, but Elizabeth Hooton kept going and going in the cause of truth and freedom.

What’s your personality style? Don’t ever think that God can’t use you because you’re too . . . what? Quiet? Loud? Abrupt? Antisocial? Shallow? Impulsive? God has crafted you! Put yourself in his service—no matter how crazy that might seem.

If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit. Either way, Christ’s love controls us.

2 Corinthians 5:13-14