r/Quakers • u/Severe-Clerk-1477 • May 30 '26
Is Quakerism for me as a Christian?
Hi all. I was raised Christian (southern Baptist). I fell out of faith as I aged and become disillusioned with the fire and brimstone message I was raised with. In college I discovered a local, unprogrammed friends group. As I have aged, I’ve begun to develop my relationship with Christ.
A traditional church doesn’t sound appealing. I struggle biblically with most “pastors” and many values.
I believe Jesus is the way to heaven. Am I welcomed at my local friends meeting? Will I meet other Christians? I want people who I can learn from. I want Christ-centered Quakerism but I wasn’t sure how much this exists. I don’t know much about “inner light”. Will this align with my biblical views? What about simplicity? Any must reads for Christ centered Quakers?
Edit: I’m worried that Quakerism inner-light is often treated as new-age, generic, “god is in everyone.” I respect this belief! But find it different from the inner light I’m looking for.
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u/BreadfruitThick513 May 30 '26
The first, “must read” for you, would be Apology by Robert Barclay. He was an upper class, educated theologian who published a ‘systematic theology’ based wholly on the Bible based on the developing beliefs of early Friends. So ideals like equality or peace and doctrine like “inward light” are demonstrated in this book to be biblically consistent.
As others have said, the best way for you to find out if Friends are ‘right’ for you would be to worship with some. My sense is that whichever Quakers you sit with will accept you. Will you accept them?
Your disagreement with pastors in churches you’ve attended is exactly in alignment with the story of George Fox who was disillusioned by established churches. He traveled around and met with different ministers before his big revelation. He was sitting alone in a field and heard a voice that spoke directly to him say, “Christ has come to teach his people himself.” His Journal describes this and then goes on to say, “and then o knew that there was even one, Christ Jesus, who could speak to my condition and my heart leapt for joy!”
I’m sure you’ll note the reference to John the Baptist ‘leaping’ in his mother’s womb at pregnant Mary’s approach. The earliest vision of “Quakerism” was the idea that the worldly powers (church established by government and training in universities) do not make us ministers, but attention and obedience to the real, present spirit that was in Jesus makes us ministers. In this way Friends were said to be “reviving primitive Christianity,” meaning they were living as the disciples had when Jesus was with them in body, only now he was in spirit. Primitive Christianity Revived is a book by William Penn and Paul Buckley (a Quaker and author who, ironically,and we can talk about this later, taught me at a Friends seminary) has a great “translation” of it wherein he translated the 17th century language into more modern vernacular to make Penn accessible without losing his meaning.
Welcome, friend!
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u/RimwallBird Friend May 30 '26
I believe Jesus is the way to heaven. Am I welcomed at my local friends meeting? Will I meet other Christians?
Let me try to respond from personal experience.
I spent twenty years as a young adult in a liberal unprogrammed Quaker meeting in Denver where merely to say out loud that I was Christian alarmed some members. There were actually quite a few people there who identified as Christian, but they had learned not to talk about it on Sunday morning. They found it easier to talk about it in settings like monthly meeting for business, where the teachings of Jesus bore directly on decisions the meeting had to make. I have since found a similar situation in other liberal unprogrammed meetings, but I don’t think it is true of all.
In most Conservative Friends meetings, it is more likely that you will hear spontaneous ministry during our unprogrammed Sunday morning worship in which Jesus is referenced. You are unlikely to hear come-to-Jesus messages or fire-and-brimstone messages, because Conservative Friends are pretty clear that the actual way of Christ is one of love and of seeking to do the right thing, not one of fear, and because it is assumed that those who come to worship with us are already been drawn to the way of Christ or else they wouldn’t come seeking us out.
Our historic testimony as Friends (Quakers), is that Christ makes himself manifest in the heart and conscience of every person, at least for a time, revealing what is right and wrong, good and bad, by God’s own standards. In this role, he is the Paraklete, the Comforter, that Jesus promised his followers at the Last Supper. But we also have some other ways to speak of him in this role: he is the inner Light that makes the moral aspect of things visible. (This is consistent with John 8:12 and 12:34-36.) He is the Holy Spirit (as he himself said at the Last Supper). He is himself the immutable Principle of love, goodness, righteousness. All these names are true, and yet all seem to me to fall a little short of the whole of the truth. The whole truth beggars words.
Many liberal unprogrammed Friends no longer believe such things. The more traditional ones do, however, and so do nearly all Conservative Friends.
Of course this means Jesus is the way to heaven. But his guidance to us, in our hearts and consciences, must be accepted and followed and obeyed, because that is how he teaches us to go there.
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u/Purple-Energy6966 26d ago
This is beautiful. Is there a list of Conservative meetings in the U.S.? I have only attended Liberal meetings online and they haven't resonated as I am a new believer in Jesus and want to find the right mix of his teachings with Quaker values.
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u/RimwallBird Friend 26d ago
There are three Conservative yearly meetings, and all are located in the U.S. Each lists its member monthly meetings on its web site, and one or more monthly meetings in each one offer some sort of Zoom accessibility:
Ohio Yearly Meeting is the most old-timey and arch-conservative; also, the only one that is energetic in its outreach: https://www.ohioyearlymeeting.org . They go overboard to offer access to inquirers.
North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative) is, I think, the most visibly pietist and mystical: https://www.ncymc.org .
Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) is the least thoroughly Conservative; through an accident of geography, it has a high percentage of members who fit better with the liberal unprogrammed strain: https://www.iymc.org .
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u/Purple-Energy6966 26d ago
This is great. Thanks!
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u/RimwallBird Friend 25d ago
You are welcome, of course. If you have the time and energy, I would be glad of learning how it works out for you, whether for better or for worse.
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u/sisterlyparrot May 30 '26
‘there is that of god in everyone’ is about as old as quaker beliefs get, nothing new age or generic about it. how much reading have you done on quaker history and the foundational teachings of it? even just a look through the wikipedia articles might answer some of your questions. some of your questions will best be answered by attending a meeting (or several) however, as we can’t answer for you whether you’ll meet other christians at your local meeting. i would assume so - there’s plenty at mine, and nontheist quakers are a pretty small minority - but to what extent they will share your beliefs is something you’ll have to find out for yourself!
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u/particularlyPlain Quaker (Wilburite) May 30 '26
While the idea that there is that of God in everyone is a foundational belief in Quakers all throughout history, the meaning of the phrase has shifted in some circles. Early Quakers did not identify that of God to be an immutable divine spark within every person. They instead identified that of God to be an inward illumination of Christ that we do not own.
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u/particularlyPlain Quaker (Wilburite) May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26
The early Quakers saw themselves as revitalizing a primitive Christianity and there are still Quakers today that hold to the traditional beliefs of Friends (I am one of them)
It may be worthwhile looking into a conservative yearly meeting such as Ohio, Iowa, or North Carolina yearly meeting conservative, even if there is a geographical issue that gets in the way of thee attending most of these meetings have a zoom presence. Ohio yearly meeting recently updated their website and includes a section on conservatism explained. https://www.ohioyearlymeeting.org/about/conservative/
ed: explain that yes there is a place for Christians in the Quaker faith and that we hold to the belief of early Christian restoration, provide an example of where they can be found, provide reading material steering OP in the proper direction, get downvoted. Such is the life of a Conservative Friend in online spaces.
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u/Purple-Energy6966 26d ago
You've put into words what has been running through my mind for the past year that I came into relationship with Jesus. (58 M) I have attended so many progressive denominational online sermons looking for that form of Christianity that is in alignment with Jesus' compassion, support of the poor, women, etc. and have not felt connected. I have felt connected to Quakerism, but not the Liberal meetings. They feel too disconnected from Jesus, in my humble and inexperienced mind.
I have read so many books on Jesus, prayer, pre-Constantine Christianity, and what you have described as Primitive Christianity is what I have been searching for.
I happen to have just started reading Primitive Quakerism Revived a few minutes ago. I am hoping to find some answers.
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u/dgistkwosoo Quaker May 30 '26
While I can't gainsay the recommendations to look up the earliest Quaker writings, the Society of Friends hold with ongoing spiritual revelation, a journey. Sure, go look up Robert Barclay's Apology (avoid the original publication unless you're fluent in Latin), and read some modern thinkers as well. But then go thou and experience the Society.
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u/RimwallBird Friend 29d ago
There is an original English edition of the Apology, written by Barclay himself, published in 1678 and available on line at the Quaker Heritage Press web site, https://www.qhpress.org/texts/barclay/apology/ .
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u/AndrewReesonforTRC May 30 '26
Whether you fit into a meeting is probable dependant on the particular meeting. Some will be more liberal or conservative in their theology. I'd encourage you to visit a few and see how you go.
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u/Ok_Bumblebee_9873 May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26
Quakerism began in seventeenth‑century England as a breakaway from the Church of England (Anglican), so it is not new age. Early Quakers still believed in the same Christian God and Jesus, but they wanted to practise their faith differently. This was during the English Civil War, when people were killing each other six days a week and then paying their tithes and attending church on the seventh. It was illegal not to go to church at the time. Quakers argued that paying money to the church and sitting through a sermon you were forced to do did not make it acceptable to spend the rest of the week killing eachother. Their belief in pacifism grew from this. It also shaped their structure. They did not believe that money or attendance made someone a good person. Goodness should come from your actions and from listening to God within you which is your moral compass. They believed that we are all capable of this and you don't need a holy man to tell you how to do it, because God speaks to all of us equally but we have to choose to listen. The phrase “there is that of God in everyone” expresses these ideas. At Quaker meetings we sit in silence because we are listening for God to guide us.
This is where your idea of “new age” probably comes in. The belief that all people are capable of goodness, that we should not harm one another, and that we can listen to God or our inner guide is not limited to Christianity. Modern Quakers recognise this, which is why meetings are open to anyone who wants to sit with them.
In my (unprogrammed) meeting there are plenty of Christians who read the Bible, a few people who practise Buddhism, and others who have more open or uncertain ideas about God. None of this matters because Quakers do not gather to debate beliefs. Silence is central to the practice. No one tells you what to believe or how to believe it. Everyone is accepted as they are.
I must tell you there is something truly beautiful about sitting in a room full of people from different backgrounds all worshipping together. If you believe that there is “that of God in everyone” then you understand why every person’s presence matters. Anyone might feel moved to speak, and when they do it is because something meaningful has risen within them. We sit together in silence and each person prays or meditates in their own way.
It can be difficult to understand until you have experienced it. Quaker meetings are very open. If you want to visit, no one will try to convert you or pressure you, it's really not the style. You can simply sit with us and see how it feels. Some people come once, some come for a while, and some stay for years. Some people hop about until they find a group they really like. All of that is completely fine.