This may range from what you would wear at work in an office to jeans and a t-shirt. You are welcome to join us for worship as you are! Quakers find that attending to the Light Within influences the ways we act in our personal lives, as well as the changes we work for in the wider world. Some commonly recognized testimonies include peace, integrity, equality, simplicity, community, and care for the earth. Peace has always been a very important expression of how Quakers are guided by the Spirit.
We wrestle with our understanding of what God requires of us. We are asked to consider if we are called to be pacifists, but this determination is left to the individual as conscience dictates. For many, it has meant a commitment to nonviolence and conscientious objection to participating in war. Some Quakers, however, have served in the military.
Quaker institutions, such as meetings, generally hold to a pacifist position. Quakers find compatibility in our longing for spiritual understanding and in our desire to understand the workings of the natural world. Many Quakers have been leaders in science, including some who have won the Nobel Prize in a variety of fields.
We understand that people evolved over millennia, and we stand in awe of the creation. Many Quakers feel called to help protect and heal the world that we are blessed to inhabit. There are Quakers of all ages, religious backgrounds, races and ethnicities, education, sexual orientations, gender identities, abilities, and classes.
Quakers try to live and act in ways that are consistent with the divine harmony that we seek in worship. Through this effort come our testimonies of peace, integrity, equality, community, simplicity, and care for the environment. Decisions are made without voting. Instead, the participants discuss the matter and listen deeply for a sense of spiritual unity.
Quakers believe that we are all ministers and responsible for the care of our worship and community. Rather than employing a pastor, Quaker meetings function by appointing members to offices and committees, which take care of things like religious education for adults and children, visiting the sick, planning special events, having the meeting house roof repaired—all the many things that any congregation needs.
The clerk chairs business meetings and handles communications. During a special meeting for worship, the couple stand and face each other, then make very simple promises, giving themselves and taking each other in marriage. They sign a special certificate of marriage containing the words of their promises, then after the close of the meeting for worship, everyone present signs the certificate as a witness.
In modern times, most Quakers celebrate a low-key Christmas, and sometimes Easter, as part of our larger culture. You become a Quaker by joining a meeting. Quakers encourage newcomers to spend some time getting familiar with the Quaker way and with the community before making up their minds to formally join. You may spend anywhere from a few months to a few years as an "attender," participating in worship and other meeting activities before you feel ready to make a commitment.
Some choose to be active attenders for a lifetime. The first step toward membership is to write a letter to the clerk of the meeting expressing your wish to join formally. The clerk or a member of the appropriate meeting committee will be pleased to explain the membership process to you, but they may wait for you to take the first step, since Quakers are often reluctant to make someone feel pressured to join.
Quakers have evolved and diverged into several difference varieties over our three and one-half centuries. The kind of Quaker belief and worship described here represents just one variety. Other branches of Quakers do have pastors and more structured worship, and have a more Bible-centered emphasis in their beliefs.
Some of the biggest names in the British confectionary business were founded by Quakers , including Cadbury, Fry's and Rowntree's. For centuries, only members of the Church of England could attend university, says Healey, so many Quakers pursued a "practical education" in the trades and became successful businessmen.
In the early 19th century, Quakers were strong supporters of the temperance movement and some Quaker tradesmen began promoting drinking chocolate as a tasty yet tame beverage choice. Next came chocolate bars. Quaker-owned chocolate companies earned a reputation for fair dealing and high-quality goods free of contamination.
Firms like Cadbury went the extra mile for its workers, building them an entire village in Bournville with schools and parks and an employee swimming pool. Some other hugely successful Quaker-owned businesses were the British banking giants Barclay's and Lloyd's of London. While the number of Quakers in Europe and the U. By some estimations , more than half of today's Quakers live in Africa, and as many as a third of all Quakers live in Kenya.
Christian Quaker missionaries arrived in Kenya in and found a receptive audience among peace-loving tribes in places like Kaimosi. Because of their evangelical roots, Kenyan Quakers are far more likely to identify as Christian than Quakers in the West.
Kenyan Quakers also have programmed worship services with charismatic pastors, big choirs and worship bands, a far cry from the silence of unprogrammed meetinghouses in New England.
The growth of Quakerism in Kenya and Latin America hasn't been without controversy. There are stark ideological differences between the subdued old-school Quakers and the youthful, so-called "noisy Quakers" in Kenya.
Divisions over same-sex marriage between liberal and conservative Quakers, for example, almost canceled a Quaker gathering in Kenya in William Penn and John Cadbury aren't the only famous Quakers.
Two U. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. Freedom of religion is protected by the First Amendment of the U. Constitution, which prohibits laws establishing a national religion or impeding the free exercise of religion for its citizens. The Louisiana city of New Orleans still retains much of its French-infused heritage, and The Great Awakening was a religious revival that impacted the English colonies in America during the s and s.
The movement came at a time when the idea of secular rationalism was being emphasized, and passion for religion had grown stale. Christian leaders often traveled The United States experienced major waves of immigration during the colonial era, the first part of the 19th century and from the s to Many immigrants came to America seeking greater economic opportunity, while some, such as the Pilgrims in the early s, arrived in Live TV.
This Day In History. History Vault. George Fox In the s, George Fox, then a young man and the son of a weaver, left his home in the English Midlands and traveled around the country on a spiritual quest.
Quaker Beliefs Fox shared his religious beliefs and epiphanies with others, speaking to increasingly larger gatherings. What Is a Quaker? Colonial Quakers Quaker missionaries arrived in North America in the mids. Recommended for you. Immigration Before The Irish in Boston. The Quaker Information Center works on behalf of the Religious Society of Friends to answer questions from Friends and non-Friends alike, directing inquirers to information and resources from and about the Society of Friends.
The Center was located in Philadelphia and under the capable leadership of Chel Avery until July ESR is a Christian graduate theological school in the Quaker tradition. ESR prepares women and men for leadership that empowers and for ministry that serves.
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