In three-four words, what does "Quaker" mean to you?

In My Humble Opinion
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Thanks, everyone for your answers. I am pleasantly surprised by the number who didn’t say “oats” LOL! (No real connection, btw.)

The Christian question is a philosophical one. I have known atheist, Hindu and Buddhist Quakers. Or rather, I have known Quakers whose basic theology and ethics were rooted in those frameworks. Most Quakers I have known agree with and even revere the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, but differ on subjects like divinity and miracles and baptism.

All have been very accepting of alternate modes of thought. In fact, diversity of thought is cherished and supported in the Meetings I have visited.

I have only met one Quaker who dresses in the old way, and I suspect that she does so only on Sunday. She always wears a plain dress and adds the bonnet for Holidays and large gatherings.

I have never met anyone who used “Thee” and “Thou.” It’s my understanding that the practice was dropped a long time ago, although significantly after the rest of the English speaking world did so. And yes, as someone above stated, it was because “You” had been a word of reverence, used to address an authority. Equality is a basic tenet of the Quaker faith. For the same reason the pagan roots of the day names were objected to, and most Quakers I know do still refer to Sunday as “First Day.” The which can be amusing when scheduling something for “the third First Day of the month.”

As a group we skew intellectual, open-minded, activist, and kind. I was surprised at the number of born Quakers who are also born Republicans (in the US political sense.) I suspect that goes back a long way, and is changing quickly.

There is a basic emphasis upon acting on the voice of conscience. And although I’ve never seen it written anywhere, Moral Courage is an important part of the faith. Quakers aren’t just pacifists, avoiding violent action. The Testimony of Peace is more about actively carrying peace into situations of conflict.

Why are Quakers so bad at singing hymns?

Because we’re always reading ahead to make sure we agree with the lyrics. :smiley:

I am not questioning your experience, but it does not correlate with mine. I make an effort to visit other Meetings whenever I travel, and I’ve never happened upon a programmed Meeting, or one with paid clergy. It has always been my understanding that they were the minority. It would definitely not be my choice to join a programmed Meeting.

We are members of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting.

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My wife and kids belong to a programmed Meeting. It has silent worship once a month. The program is pretty slim, there’s no full time pastor anymore, guests or members do the job a quick prayer, a brief talk on some subject, those who are so moved will speak, then a quick song. That’s my only direct experience with programmed meetings, across Pennsylania, New York, and Rhode Island. But I do know the programmed meetings are in the majority in the middle of the country. As I understand it, as the country was being settled the first groups into town would set up a church in their faith, and the people that followed would attend that one as well. I’m not sure but I think the Friends were better established in this country early and set up many of these Meetings before other American Protestant religions became solidly established.

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I’m not talking about my experience. If I were, I’d probably think all Friends churches have programmed services. I’m talking about actual statistics.

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I’ll sit tight then.

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Off the top of my head: as a non-Quaker (non-Christian as well).

Quakers are Christians that are generally peaceful, egalitarian, and have a worship service characterized my silent meditation and internal call to speak.

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Quaker “churches” are a modern aberration from when some meetings got caught up in the evangelical movement and kept the name. Despite becoming indistinguishable from modern evangelical churches. Then they started recruiting, mostly in Africa. Something the rest of us don’t do. So Nixon was a Quaker only in the sense that he used that label but not recognizable in a pre- Richmond Declaration sense. Richmond Declaration - Wikipedia

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Yes, that would make sense. Programmed worship certainly isn’t the norm in British Quakerism. You can see an outline of Quaker meeting practices on the Quaker UK website here

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I think you have to distinguish between Programmed Meetings and Evangelical Meetings being discussed here. As I mentioned, my wife and kids belong to a local meeting that is programmed except for one Sunday a month. They are otherwise quite in line with the eastern Quaker meetings, very liberal, Inner Light oriented. As I understand it, the Evangelical Meetings are not just programmed but they have a concept of Christianity more in line with mainstream Protestant religions, and including proselytizing.

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Quakers are historically Christian. Their big difference from other Christians is the idea that God speaks to everyone individually and specifically. As such, they don’t have as strict a hierarchy as other Christian groups, nor do they have as concrete a doctrine as other Christian groups. Practically, this means that Quakers are all over the board. So you have very conservative Quaker groups that are practically Amish and you also have very liberal Quaker groups that are atheists (Yep, there are Quaker atheists, I was never able to make the logic match together as to how a God that doesn’t exist can communicate with you directly to tell you he doesn’t exist, but it is what it is.) They are one of the peace churches, so universally they tend to be very pacifist. They typically emphasize pure living (no alcohol, smoking or drugs) and anti-materialism (live simply and give generously.) The majority of Quakers are programmed Quakers which means that they do in fact have someone functioning as a ‘pastor’ who gives Bible lessons and the services are very similar to many other Christian churches. Evangelical and Holiness Quakers especially have services pretty much just like any other Evangelical Church you would go to. There are a significant minority (particularly in the West) who still do unprogrammed services which means you go to a church at an appropriate time and you sit until someone feels like speaking whereupon they speak and the everyone reflects upon what they said until the next person speaks. There is no reason or rhyme to who speaks and anyone who feels that God wishes them to deliver a particular message is welcome to do so. They are an interesting sect and generally nice people who care about the world. I’m sorry this exceeded your 4 word request though.

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I must admit that I’m a bit puzzled by the number of folks conflating Quakers with Amish. They’re both relatively small Christian sects, and that’s about it. Most of the Quakers I’ve known have been urban and have no objection to technology. And they actively encourage engagement with the community as a whole, which is the opposite of Amish practice (Amish rejection of technology is actually about avoiding entanglements with non-Amish).

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Abolitionist, pacifist, Friends, oats. In that order.

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Sorry, I didn’t read the thread! :smiley:

In my defense, I had oats for breakfast.

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I have to wonder how much of that is the garb of the Quaker Oats mascot.

(Fun fact: he has a name. Internally at Quaker, he’s referred to as Larry.)

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Probably a big part of it. The two religions are also associated with Pennsylvania. But I think a lot of people just lump together both as old fashioned religions.

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Non-violent, kind of Christian.

Now off to read the thread and see how right/wrong I am

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Great Makers of Oatmeal.

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There is a Friends University in Wichita KS. I always wished they were located more in the middle of the state, because I think it would be awesome to have a sweatshirt that says Friends University of Central Kansas.

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I went to a Quaker boarding school for high school so when you say Quaker I think mostly of English class, smoking pot, and having sex.

But…shout out to Teacher Tom, Teacher Ann, the Meeting House, and the Inner Light.

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This reminds me of the Unitarian church located in the town of Kensington, California. They call it the First Unitarian Church of Berkeley.

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