Christian Brands - Quakers

Origins: England
Began in: Mid-Seventeenth Century
Founder: George Fox (UK), William Penn (USA)
Membership:c. 200,000 worldwide
Bible: It's a good read and can yield some interesting and quite motivational stuff, but it's no more special than any other book out there. It most certainly isn't the inspired Word of God and although it might be found within a Quaker setting, it would still be one of many other books that might inspire or motivate and would be equal to the rest.

Beliefs: To use their own words, "Quakers do not share a fixed set of beliefs." They are essentially another brand of (universalist) Unitarians who meet together and have a 'shared understanding' but no common or unifying creed, concept of God and like the Unitarians find Pagans (of which there seems to be a lot of) rubbing shoulders with atheists and other philosophical and religious thinking. Everyone has something (the light) of God within them and that all are equal regardless of belief, behaviour or practices. This is one of the reasons they are pacifistic (another Unitarian characteristic), because all are right there is no need to defend or push one's views, just a need to protect those of others.

So, God is Love and the light of God shines through us all such that we need no person, creeds or books to guide us for we experience our own redemption from within and live it externally (think I've understood this correctly).

Like other groups, the key is on the outworking and so Quakers seek to make the world a better place (not a bad goal) and engage in human rights (because all choices are valid and all people are equally valid too), social justice, environmental issues, the peace movement and above all, the freedom to act and believe as one feels is right. Conscience is all!

They don't have the Bible, they don't have the Trinity and they don't do anything that would otherwise be considered 'sacramental'. As a bit of a parting shot, I understand that the name 'Friends'derives from John 15:14: where Jesus says,:

"You are smy friends if you do what I command you."

A bit of an enigma doing what someone commands and yet not believing in Him, the One who sent Him, or the third member of the Trinity!

Are they Christian?: Obviously the answer is 'No'.

I would be amazed at the number of people who assume that the Quakers (AKA Religious Society of Friends) are Christians if it were not for the fact that I also (a long time ago) used to assume the same thing!

Listening to a couple of Quakers on the Radio a while back, it appears that they were canvassing the general public regarding what opinions might be popular for the Quakers to have and were commenting on how popular being a Quaker had been last time they updated their attitudes. All very egalitarian and as damning as it might be applause-worthy (I fear)!