Introduction

There are about 240,000 Quakers or members of the Religious Society of Friends world-wide. We differ in language and culture, in the form of their worship. and even in some of their beliefs. What they have in common is their search for a real experience of God’s love and power in the everyday world.

 

In Britain and Ireland there are 18,000 Quakers and some 8,000 attenders, that is, people who worship with Friends (as Quakers call themselves) but who have not yet become members. This information refers to the beliefs and practices of British Quakers and those of similar traditions.

 

Quakers believe that everyone may have direct experience of God, that there is that of God in everyone. Friends try to follow Jesus in a loving response to God and to those around them. They emphasise daily life and experience rather than festivals and creeds. Friends do not have a church calendar and while we meet on a Sunday, it is for convenience rather than because they consider Sunday a holier day than any other.

 

 

Worship

Meeting for Worship is at the centre of Quaker life. It begins as Quakers sit in the meeting room, gathering together in a silence that grows deeper as it progresses. Here we open ourselves to the love of God and to that of God in each other. The meeting house is simple. There are no ornaments or religious symbols. Neither is there an appointed minister or pastor. The responsibility for the meeting belongs to all. Anyone may speak when he or she feels inspired to do so; this is known as vocal ministry. These meetings for worship are open to all and visitors are particularly welcome. The word “meeting” refers both to the activity and to the group of worshipers.

 

Business Meetings

Quaker business meetings, known as “meetings for church affairs” , are open to all members and often to attenders. They are meetings for worship and everyone present has a part to play in the decision-making process. Quakers do not vote. The “clerk”, who conducts the meeting, listens to what is said and takes account of the general feeling. A minute is then made, read and approved during the meeting and so records the united decision. At its most profound. this method enables Quakers to sense God’ s leading in the decision made and in the work they will undertake.

 

Origins

Quakerism began in the seventeenth century in a deeply divided society where religion was of passionate interest. It was then that a group of men and women, including George Fox (1624-1691), came together to revive what they saw as “primitive Christianity” . They could not accept that the forms of Christianity they observed around them were in keeping with the teachings of Jesus.

 

After a long and painful search for truth, Fox had a sudden conviction that God was immediately accessible to everyone. At the point of despair he writes, “Then, oh then, I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition’ and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy.”

 

This was the seed of Quakerism. The soil was ready in the Midlands, Yorkshire and north-west England, where there were groups seeking a way to live the Christian life more simply and truly. The message then spread across the Atlantic, and then around the world.

 

Freedom of Conscience

Many early Quakers were persecuted. Meetings for worship were broken up. Thousands were heavily fined and many were imprisoned before the right to freedom of worship was finally won for dissenters.

 

When William Penn founded the colony of Pennsylvania, tolerance was extended to many from a variety of religious backgrounds who had suffered persecution for their beliefs and ways of worshipping. Respect was given not simply to other Christians but to other people also. Penn's treaty with the native American Indians in 1683, for example, was seen as an ideal of peace and fair dealing. This respect for diversity is crucial to the Quaker witness today.

 

Peace

Many early Quakers were persecuted. Meetings for worship were broken up. Thousands were heavily fined and many were imprisoned before the right to freedom of worship was finally won for dissenters.

 

When William Penn founded the colony of Pennsylvania, tolerance was extended to many from a variety of religious backgrounds who had suffered persecution for their beliefs and ways of worshipping. Respect was given not simply to other Christians but to other people also. Penn's treaty with the native American Indians in 1683, for example, was seen as an ideal of peace and fair dealing. This respect for diversity is crucial to the Quaker witness today.

 

"I told them that I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars" George Fox

 

Early Quakers took to heart the revolution begun by Jesus with its emphasis on loving relationships. They soon concluded that taking up arms for any cause whatsoever was incompatible with this way of life.

 

This led Quakers in the eighteenth century Pennsylvania legislature to refuse to defend their province by force of arms. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries most British Quakers opposed the Crimean, Boer and other colonial wars, as well as the two World Wars. In recent times they have also witnessed against the wars in the Falkland Islands/ Malvinas and in the Gulf.

 

As well as opposing war, Quakers have tried to bring about peaceful solutions by mediation and reconciliation. They have struggled to relieve poverty and combat injustice which are both causes and the results of warfare. When conflict occurred however, they were active in ambulance, relief and rehabilitation work both during hostilities and in the following periods of reconstruction. Quakers today are working with refugees in Latin America, Croatia and Sri Lanka.

 

Today many Quakers are exploring the connection between peace, justice and reconciliation and are active in campaigns on these issues at local, national and international levels. The Quaker presences at the United Nations offices in New York and Geneva and at Quaker House, Brussels, are examples of these concerns.

 

Some Quakers in Britain, using non-violent techniques. are engaged in civil disobedience in their campaign for disarmament and others hold vigils in protest against weapons of mass destruction and the waste of resources caused by the arms race.

 

Quaker Work

"True godliness don't turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavours to mend it." William Penn

 

Their belief in "that of God" in everyone has led Quakers to take up those causes which support people rejected or neglected by society. Within the Society itself women have always played an important part and spiritual equality is a cornerstone of Quaker belief. Further afield, Quakers played an active part in the anti-slavery movement and in prison reform. They founded the Retreat in York, the first hospital to treat mentally ill people who would otherwise have been consigned to the madhouse.

 

Barred from universities like other nonconformist groups. Quakers chose to enter industry and trade. Some became famous, for example. as manufacturers of biscuits, chocolate and shoes. Others were involved in the natural sciences, the building of railways and in banking. Often the wealth they created was used for purposes of philanthropy.

 

Today Friends are more involved with the rehabilitation of released prisoners, work with young offenders, improved race relations and in seeking alternatives to prison.

 

Friends have always had an interest in education too; the large number of Quaker teachers all over the country is one way this interest is expressed. There are eight Quaker schools, though most of the children at these schools now come  from non-Quaker families.