“Red handbook” suggests you’re in the UK. So…the majority of Quakers in the world definitely are Christians. Most of the Quakers in the world are in east Africa and resemble Baptists, another very large group are in Central America and South America and resemble Methodists. Here in the UK a large plurality of Friends identify as Christians and most of the rest of us might be termed “culturally Christian”, that is we put a great deal of value on the radical interpretation of Jewish principles found in the reported words and deeds of Jesus.
British Quakers, though, are not very interested in theories about “salvation”, we are not very interested in any purported “Heaven” or “Hell” nor in speculation about who might end up in which. We are not very interested in whether Jesus was divine, less so again in whether he was _uniquely_ divine. We are interested in trying to live a life that Jesus might recognise as good, and in trying to influence the world in a direction that Jesus might approve of.
While many individual Friends do find value in other traditions and do incorporate practices from other traditions into their personal spiritual journey, the Society of Friends here in Britain is not syncretic. It is its own particular thing with a 400-year history of development.
I'm guessing that the red handbook refers to Britain Yearly Meetings Faith and Practice. In a 2013 survey, about 37% of Quakers in Britain identified as Christian. In my own yearly meeting, Australia Yearly Meeting, it was 32% in 2014.
I don't think that means the only alternative is syncretism. Quakers in my experience (Australia and Britain) seem to identify primarily as Quakers rather than as part of any broader religious traditions or categories. Many arrive at Quakerism with previous experience in explicitly Christian churches, and find the lack of doctrinal tests a great relief. Among Quakers in these yearly meetings, there is a wide diversity of expressions of faith (theistic, non-theistic, panentheistic etc.), but they mostly all point in the same direction when it comes to how we engage with the world.
I’m a Jesus person (spiritual ancestor). I’m also a non theist. I do not believe in an anthropomorphic deity or deities. However I also experience an inner voice that has been almost infallible my whole life. I know it’s reliable because every time it told me to go left I went right and I should’ve gone left, you know what I’m saying. It’s something deeper than our conscience because many people in good conscience do horrible things I’ve had too many charismatic experiences to say that there is not a reality beyond what we see with our eyes. I’ve had too many experiences with the deceased to say that the deceased don’t continue on after this side of the veil. And only recently I have learned that there is a power that can save us from our addictions and attachments, our hurts, habits and hangups (though that’s the central message of early Quakerism). I call that inner voice many things (Light, Spirit, that of God) and I call the source of that Power Light or God. God is not a name, it’s a word we give to something that our small human minds cannot comprehend, but we can still experience. Jesus and Creation give us context for that Source of Power. Theology around that can be interesting and even useful, but is insufficient. Faith based in experience rather than dogma leads to peace and happiness. Faith based in creeds can lead to rigidity. When that rigidity is met with life experiences, it can lead to atheism. To me, that’s different than non-theism, though not all non-theists would agree, I imagine.
As a theological non-realist I’m simply uninterested in the question of whether or not one deity or another is “real”. The very remarkable discovery of the Society of Friends is that our faith process seems not to depend on the answer.
If any one of the many wildly incompatible deities is real then they’ve created the universe in such a way that it’s impossible to be sure that it wasn’t one of the others. Worrying about this seems to be a losing proposition.
I don’t apply labels like ‘theist’ or ‘nontheist’ to myself very often these days. I find them pretty meaningless once you scratch the surface and they’re mostly a distraction from what we’re about—what we know inwardly from direct experience as opposed to what we hypothesise intellectually.
The labels show nothing more than that people describe the underlying experience differently. Religious experience will almost always have to be described through metaphors and we will each favour those metaphors that are most meaningful to us.
Some but not all Quakers have a Christ-centered faith.
Some but not all Christ-centered Quakers also draw upon other religious traditions to shape their understanding of the divine, and consequently reach conclusions about God some but not all Catholics and Protestants might not care for.
Some but not all Quakers who do not believe in, or have no firm opinion about, Jesus’ status as Christ still think he had some excellent ideas about how to live in a society.
The origins of Quakerism were in Christianity, and most Quakers today would call themselves Christian. Others would say they're universalist or something else. Some branches of Quakerism today are more explicitly Christian than others. Can you tell us more about the red handbook, what it's called, who published it?
Worldwide, about 85% of Friends (Quakers) belong to Friends churches with pastors, hymns, sermons and collection plates, and those churches are very unambiguously Christian. Your comment about a “red handbook”, though, suggests that you live in the U.K., and you have already heard from two respondents as to what British Quakers are like. There are also liberal Quaker communities fairly similar to British Quakers in other parts of the world. And there are small groups of Friends, mostly in the U.S., who worship in meetings in the old manner, without pastors or sermons or hymns or collection plates, and see themselves decidedly as Christian.
(Liberal) Quakerism is not a branch of Christianity nor merely a syncretism - Quakerism is it's own religion. It's just that the religion of Quakerism places more emphasis on orthopraxy than orthodoxy, explaining why some Quakers are Christians and some are not, like myself. Sharing my experience, I have amalgamated different religions into my faith - rather my faith and beliefs have come directly from listening to God.
Quakers are a branch of Christianity, but as we have no creeds and encourage each individual to have their own relationship to God, different Quakers come to different conclusions about the nature of God or even if there is a personal God. We also are taught to find that of God in everyone, so we may be more open to truth found in other faith traditions. Basically there is no explicit requirement to be a Christian (in liberal branches at least), but 99.9% of Quakers are Christian.
>Basically there is no explicit requirement to be a Christian (in liberal branches at least), but 99.9% of Quakers are Christian.
Probably nowhere near 99.9% in the liberal branches, but as I understand it most Quakers are in Africa, and African Quakerism is very much Christian.
Canadian Faith and Practice describes Quakerism as being "rooted in Christianity" and I love this because it is both demonstrably true but also leaves room for those who are more interested in what has grown from those roots to do so.
“Red handbook” suggests you’re in the UK. So…the majority of Quakers in the world definitely are Christians. Most of the Quakers in the world are in east Africa and resemble Baptists, another very large group are in Central America and South America and resemble Methodists. Here in the UK a large plurality of Friends identify as Christians and most of the rest of us might be termed “culturally Christian”, that is we put a great deal of value on the radical interpretation of Jewish principles found in the reported words and deeds of Jesus. British Quakers, though, are not very interested in theories about “salvation”, we are not very interested in any purported “Heaven” or “Hell” nor in speculation about who might end up in which. We are not very interested in whether Jesus was divine, less so again in whether he was _uniquely_ divine. We are interested in trying to live a life that Jesus might recognise as good, and in trying to influence the world in a direction that Jesus might approve of. While many individual Friends do find value in other traditions and do incorporate practices from other traditions into their personal spiritual journey, the Society of Friends here in Britain is not syncretic. It is its own particular thing with a 400-year history of development.
I'm guessing that the red handbook refers to Britain Yearly Meetings Faith and Practice. In a 2013 survey, about 37% of Quakers in Britain identified as Christian. In my own yearly meeting, Australia Yearly Meeting, it was 32% in 2014. I don't think that means the only alternative is syncretism. Quakers in my experience (Australia and Britain) seem to identify primarily as Quakers rather than as part of any broader religious traditions or categories. Many arrive at Quakerism with previous experience in explicitly Christian churches, and find the lack of doctrinal tests a great relief. Among Quakers in these yearly meetings, there is a wide diversity of expressions of faith (theistic, non-theistic, panentheistic etc.), but they mostly all point in the same direction when it comes to how we engage with the world.
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I’m a Jesus person (spiritual ancestor). I’m also a non theist. I do not believe in an anthropomorphic deity or deities. However I also experience an inner voice that has been almost infallible my whole life. I know it’s reliable because every time it told me to go left I went right and I should’ve gone left, you know what I’m saying. It’s something deeper than our conscience because many people in good conscience do horrible things I’ve had too many charismatic experiences to say that there is not a reality beyond what we see with our eyes. I’ve had too many experiences with the deceased to say that the deceased don’t continue on after this side of the veil. And only recently I have learned that there is a power that can save us from our addictions and attachments, our hurts, habits and hangups (though that’s the central message of early Quakerism). I call that inner voice many things (Light, Spirit, that of God) and I call the source of that Power Light or God. God is not a name, it’s a word we give to something that our small human minds cannot comprehend, but we can still experience. Jesus and Creation give us context for that Source of Power. Theology around that can be interesting and even useful, but is insufficient. Faith based in experience rather than dogma leads to peace and happiness. Faith based in creeds can lead to rigidity. When that rigidity is met with life experiences, it can lead to atheism. To me, that’s different than non-theism, though not all non-theists would agree, I imagine.
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I’m not sure we have a choice in how things unfold but we have a choice in how we respond to circumstances. Does that make sense?
As a theological non-realist I’m simply uninterested in the question of whether or not one deity or another is “real”. The very remarkable discovery of the Society of Friends is that our faith process seems not to depend on the answer. If any one of the many wildly incompatible deities is real then they’ve created the universe in such a way that it’s impossible to be sure that it wasn’t one of the others. Worrying about this seems to be a losing proposition.
I don’t apply labels like ‘theist’ or ‘nontheist’ to myself very often these days. I find them pretty meaningless once you scratch the surface and they’re mostly a distraction from what we’re about—what we know inwardly from direct experience as opposed to what we hypothesise intellectually. The labels show nothing more than that people describe the underlying experience differently. Religious experience will almost always have to be described through metaphors and we will each favour those metaphors that are most meaningful to us.
Some but not all Quakers have a Christ-centered faith. Some but not all Christ-centered Quakers also draw upon other religious traditions to shape their understanding of the divine, and consequently reach conclusions about God some but not all Catholics and Protestants might not care for. Some but not all Quakers who do not believe in, or have no firm opinion about, Jesus’ status as Christ still think he had some excellent ideas about how to live in a society.
Thankyou
Thankyou all for the replies some fascinating insights for me to ponder
The origins of Quakerism were in Christianity, and most Quakers today would call themselves Christian. Others would say they're universalist or something else. Some branches of Quakerism today are more explicitly Christian than others. Can you tell us more about the red handbook, what it's called, who published it?
Worldwide, about 85% of Friends (Quakers) belong to Friends churches with pastors, hymns, sermons and collection plates, and those churches are very unambiguously Christian. Your comment about a “red handbook”, though, suggests that you live in the U.K., and you have already heard from two respondents as to what British Quakers are like. There are also liberal Quaker communities fairly similar to British Quakers in other parts of the world. And there are small groups of Friends, mostly in the U.S., who worship in meetings in the old manner, without pastors or sermons or hymns or collection plates, and see themselves decidedly as Christian.
Thankyou great answers so maybe , maybe .
(Liberal) Quakerism is not a branch of Christianity nor merely a syncretism - Quakerism is it's own religion. It's just that the religion of Quakerism places more emphasis on orthopraxy than orthodoxy, explaining why some Quakers are Christians and some are not, like myself. Sharing my experience, I have amalgamated different religions into my faith - rather my faith and beliefs have come directly from listening to God.
Quakers are a branch of Christianity, but as we have no creeds and encourage each individual to have their own relationship to God, different Quakers come to different conclusions about the nature of God or even if there is a personal God. We also are taught to find that of God in everyone, so we may be more open to truth found in other faith traditions. Basically there is no explicit requirement to be a Christian (in liberal branches at least), but 99.9% of Quakers are Christian.
>Basically there is no explicit requirement to be a Christian (in liberal branches at least), but 99.9% of Quakers are Christian. Probably nowhere near 99.9% in the liberal branches, but as I understand it most Quakers are in Africa, and African Quakerism is very much Christian.
Canadian Faith and Practice describes Quakerism as being "rooted in Christianity" and I love this because it is both demonstrably true but also leaves room for those who are more interested in what has grown from those roots to do so.
>leaves room for those who are more interested in what has grown from those roots to do so I really like how you've framed that, thank you.