The Canon · No. 075
Quakers
Religious Society of Friends
c.1652 CE – present · Abrahamic · Living · UK, US, Kenya, Bolivia, Burundi
VI. REFORMATION & EARLY MODERN — 1500 – 1800
How many
About 380,000 worldwide. Kenya has the largest Quaker population of any country, roughly a third of the total.
Who began it
George Fox (1624–1691), who after years of spiritual searching concluded that Christ could speak directly to a person's condition without clergy, church or sacrament.
What it is for
To live from the direct, immediate guidance of God available to everyone.
What it worships
God, known inwardly. Christ as present teacher rather than only as historical figure.
What it holds
The Inner Light — that of God in every person. This one conviction generates the whole ethic: if God is in everyone, then no one may be enslaved, killed in war, bowed to, or excluded from ministry on grounds of sex. No clergy, no sacraments, no creed. Continuing revelation. Testimonies rather than doctrines, traditionally summarised as simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality and stewardship.
What it does
Unprogrammed meeting for worship — the congregation sits in silence, and anyone moved to speak does so. Meeting for worship for business, which reaches decisions by discerning the sense of the meeting rather than by voting, and will wait months or years rather than override a dissenting conscience. Plain speech and dress historically; refusal of oaths, of hat honour, and of titles. Note that most Quakers worldwide are now programmed — with pastors, hymns and sermons — because the 19th-century evangelical mission to Africa and Latin America took that form.
After death
Deliberately unelaborated. Early Friends emphasised the kingdom realised now; Quakers today hold a wide range of views, including some who are non-theist. There is no orthodoxy to violate.
Its texts
No scripture beyond the Bible, which is read as secondary to the Spirit that produced it. Journal of George Fox; Robert Barclay's Apology (1676); Quaker Faith and Practice, revised by each yearly meeting.
Its branches
Liberal unprogrammed (Britain, much of the US); Evangelical Friends (Kenya, Bolivia, US Midwest); Conservative; Holiness.
Of note
No group in this dossier has a ratio of historical influence to membership like the Quakers. Abolition, prison reform, women's suffrage, conscientious objection, and several large companies founded because Friends were barred from the universities and the professions.
Its timeline
- 1652 CE Fox's vision on Pendle Hill; the movement gathers in northwest England.
- 1650s–1680s CE Around 15,000 Friends prosecuted in England; hundreds die in prison. Four are hanged in Boston, including Mary Dyer in 1660.
- 1681 CE William Penn founds Pennsylvania as a holy experiment with religious liberty and, for seventy years, unusually fair dealing with the Lenape.
- <strong>1688 CE</strong> The Germantown Petition — the first formal protest against slavery in the American colonies, written by four Quakers.
- 1758–1784 CE Quakers become the first religious body in the world to forbid its members to own slaves.
- 1780s–1860s CE Central to British and American abolition; Lucretia Mott co-organises Seneca Falls in 1848.
- 1827 CE The Hicksite-Orthodox separation.
- 1867 onward Evangelical Quaker missions to Kenya and Bolivia produce the majority of today's Friends.
- 1917 CE American Friends Service Committee founded.
- <strong>1947 CE</strong> The AFSC and the British Friends Service Council receive the Nobel Peace Prize for relief work in both world wars.
- 1963 onward Among the earliest religious bodies to accept same-sex relationships.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.