# In three-four words, what does "Quaker" mean to you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 25, 2018, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-three-four-words-what-does-quaker-mean-to-you/809559 "2018-02-25T18:27:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2018, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-three-four-words-what-does-quaker-mean-to-you/809559/101 "2018-02-27T21:50:50Z")
I do get a kick out of the variety of schools that have made a Quaker their mascot, often using the moniker ‘Fighting Quakers’. It’s like having a team out there called the ‘Impolite Canadians’. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2018, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-three-four-words-what-does-quaker-mean-to-you/809559/102 "2018-02-27T22:05:49Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I must admit that I’m a bit puzzled by the number of folks conflating Quakers with Amish. I honestly wasn’t aware there was a difference. I don’t really pay much attention to such things. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-three-four-words-what-does-quaker-mean-to-you/809559/103 "2018-02-28T02:26:33Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I do get a kick out of the variety of schools that have made a Quaker their mascot, often using the moniker ‘Fighting Quakers’. It’s like having a team out there called the ‘Impolite Canadians’. I suppose they’d have a very strong defense. . . 😛 ---
**Author:** ![betterlifethroughchemistry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/betterlifethroughchemistry/32/3094_2.png) [@betterlifethroughchemistry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betterlifethroughchemistry)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-three-four-words-what-does-quaker-mean-to-you/809559/104 "2018-02-28T03:37:47Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > I was raised in the Friends church, and I’m constantly amazed by how many people have such inaccurate ideas about Quakers, like the ones already posted above. > > Go to a Friends service and you’ll find it quite similar to any other mainstream protestant denomination, with the exception of fewer physical symbols. You’ll even see the same sort of differences depending on location: A church in a small rural town may have a congregation that skews older and seems more old-fashioned while one in a city may have more younger members and a pastor who plays bass in a jazz combo. (Yes, I do know a Friends pastor who plays upright bass in jazz combo. He also sometimes plays it in church services.) I even know a Quaker who played bass in a bar band for a number of years. He’s here in the room I’m in, and I’m the only one here. > > If you want to look at some of the specifics, part one of [Faith & Practice](http://www.efcmaym.org/faith-and-practice/) is a good place to start. > > Each Yearly Meeting has its own Faith & Practice, but they are pretty similar: > > [Eastern Division](http://efcer.org/media/1/9/Faith-and-Practice-2013.pdf) > [Rocky Mountain Yearly Meeting](https://kaceycom.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/faith_and_practice.pdf) As soon as I saw the thread title, I immediately associated the word ‘Quaker’ with “meeting for worship”. I was not raised in the Friends Society, but I attended a Friends School from 6th grade through HS graduation… ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-three-four-words-what-does-quaker-mean-to-you/809559/105 "2018-02-28T05:49:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I must admit that I’m a bit puzzled by the number of folks conflating Quakers with Amish. I am now picturing Richard Nixon sporting an Amish beard while saying, “I am not a crook.” ---
**Author:** ![jerseymule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jerseymule/32/3155_2.png) [@jerseymule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jerseymule)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-three-four-words-what-does-quaker-mean-to-you/809559/106 "2018-02-28T19:31:13Z")
Peace-nik, Nixon. ---
**Author:** ![naguere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@naguere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naguere)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-three-four-words-what-does-quaker-mean-to-you/809559/107 "2018-03-01T14:54:36Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Oats. Followed by Pilgrims. > > For a year, I actually attended a Quaker congregation so I don’t feel too bad about my mental associations. I even took a weekly class that delved into the history. I learned a lot about the faith. > > The people were really nice and friendly. My local congregation is very crunchy granola liberal, which is fine with me. But also very very very white, and I felt kind of fake trying to blend in. > > I grew up in a Pentacostal church, the opposite extreme. While I don’t dig watching people fall out in the aisles shouting gibberish, sitting in silence of an hour was uncomfortable for me. While sitting there, I would always think to myself that I could be doing the same thing in the comfort of my bedroom, in my pajamas. Yes, sometimes people had interesting testimonies. But they did not occur frequently enough to take away the awkwardness > > My stint with Quakerism was my last ditch attempt to find a connection to Christianity. I didn’t really want to admit to myself that I no longer had any belief in Jesus. But when the Quaker stuff failed to stick with me, I knew I had to. \ Just now it is an important time of year for us. Saturday March 31 2018 all over the world nine million Jehovah’s Witnesses will commemorate the death of Jesus Christ. \ ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-three-four-words-what-does-quaker-mean-to-you/809559/108 "2018-03-01T15:15:37Z")
> [@naguere](#): > > Just now it is an important time of year for us. Saturday March 31 2018 all over the world nine million Jehovah’s Witnesses will commemorate the death of Jesus Christ. **naguere** , the forum for witnessing is Great Debates. This thread is not about that religion or about trying to promote any particular religion. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-three-four-words-what-does-quaker-mean-to-you/809559/109 "2018-03-03T06:23:03Z")
First the oats, of course. But, from there, it’s just “old-timey, US colonial era Christian, ala pilgrims.” I also think of the word “Friends.” I’m not sure why I would not think of them as Christian. I’m vaguely aware that they still exist, but it’s not something I’ve looked into, or know what makes them different. After reading the thread, I remember their pacifism, but that’s it. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-three-four-words-what-does-quaker-mean-to-you/809559/110 "2018-03-03T21:04:23Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I do get a kick out of the variety of schools that have made a Quaker their mascot, often using the moniker ‘Fighting Quakers’. It’s like having a team out there called the ‘Impolite Canadians’. My son attended a Friends school from grades 7 through 12. Their athletic teams’ cheer was Fight, fight, inner light! Kill, Quakers, kill! It raised eyebrows among the competing teams at cross country meets, I will assure you. As for the OP; in 3-4 words: Member, Society of Friends. Which I don’t suppose is especially helpful. Here, in the Northeast-but-not-Philadelphia, it means “outsider-ish religious group whose members are politically very very liberal and work very very hard for peace and tend to be white and well off and well educated and pontificate a lot.” I do have a lot of respect for what the Friends do both today and in the past. The ones I’ve met, some but by no means all through the school (actually the school had very few Quakers among the faculty or student body), are, well, friendly, and thoughtful, and committed to what they do in a way that I find admirable. And I like the emphasis on simplicity. I have attended an Epsicopal church throughout my adult life, and there are many wonderful things about it…but the emphasis on Pomp and Circumstance gets very tiring for me after a while: processions and vestments and stained glass windows and organ music and there just isn’t much room left over for that “still small voice of calm.” So I have visited Sunday Friends services (apart from the school), and I appreciate the no-robes, bare-bones room, listen for the spirit ethos. But it sometimes seems like when people speak up they all too often deliver entire academic papers… So it doesn’t quite do it for me either. Oh well! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-three-four-words-what-does-quaker-mean-to-you/809559.md?page=5)