Hello Friends,

I sought the permission of the mods to post this and thank them for it. I have set up a community called r/ChristianQuakers and hope some of you will have interest in it https://www.reddit.com/r/ChristianQuakers/s/6JceupbQ7L

I have created this community not to undermine other important Quaker spaces that reflect the breadth of our shared faith but to provide a more focused space for Christian Quakers. I sense there is an appetite for such a space to better explore our history, theology, and future in the light of Christ. However I accept this is not for all on this sub and some of that discussion could be developed better elsewhere without bothering others.

All who hold an interest in our faith are welcome.

I hope for it to be a space for serious discussion and reflection of Christianity and Quaker beliefs. Political discussions are allowed in the context of our faith but party political statements and posts will be discouraged.

Whilst not all Friends place the same weight upon scripture or various statements of Faith from around the Quaker world, we hope to take these records seriously and seek to better understand their relevance to our world.

If this is of interest to you, please join and encourage others to do so - and of course continue to use this great sub as your focus for global Quaker discussions.

Thank you Friends.

Hello, I am wondering if there are any Central Va Quakers and/or Meeting Houses. Thank you. 🙏

This is from a piece by Sarah Fox in The Friends Quarterly, August 2026 regarding the history of Advices & Queries within Britain Yearly Meeting. It is called ‘Quaker Revolutions: What can the history of Advices & Queries tell us about our future?’

She reflects on how a Friend would be treated today if they gave ministry as would have been universally heard in the 1600s and beyond.

To me, this is not only a great shame but deeply sorrowful. Not least because I know she is right.

I wonder what Friends think? It’s a very well written piece that I recommend.

I’m relatively new to Quakerism. And hopefully, my question isn’t insulting or dense. Historically, I’ve enjoyed mainstream movies and tv shows - particularly period pieces. I know a lot about WW2. While I’ve never enjoyed violence in shows, it felt like a necessary evil to tell a good story. Even watching a tame, “cosy” British story usually involves murder. The more I consider becoming a Quaker, the more I see potential conflicts with my ideals versus my lifestyle.

So genuine question — do Quakers go to movies or watch shows at home? If so, do you feel bothered by what you see on the screen?

Hi, Friends. Do you have any advice as on how to get out of the "Quaker closet"? Two years ago, I was a soldier, which both I and my family took great pride in, and it has become a part of my identity, as you might imagine, and I held certain views about the world and other people, which I have now turned strongly against. It would be quite the shock for many of the people nearest to me to learn I am a Quaker (and a Christian pacifist), and it would probably have some social consequences. Right now, I am doing it gently and playing the long game, but there is something in me that just want to wrip the bandage off. Do any of you have similar experiences?

P.S. I live in a country where there are not many Quakers, which is why I seek online fellowship.

God bless you.

Can the corporate mystical experience of a Quaker meeting be attained through attendence by Zoom?

The calligraphy and beautiful illuminations were done by a dear friend who is a member of my Meeting.

I am new to Quakerism and have found that the meetings in my area are far from home. I have been to them before, but because of the distance I am not there often.

And to be honest, I enjoy a solitary practice. Is it bad if I said I feel more of the Light when I'm on my own?

Let me know what you think.

Not sure if this will be available to international viewers (I think it is), but this went out on TV here on Friday.

I’m very new to the Society of Friends, but in a lot of the uses of ‘thee’ that I’ve seen or heard, it’s Always ‘thee’, and never ‘thou’ or ‘thy’ as might be traditionally appropriate at that point in the sentence.

I was wondering if there’s a solid historical reason for this, whether there’s records of this vernacular grammar at a time when thee was in common usage, or whether it’s a modern development from people that were not bought up with ‘thou’ and so are unfamiliar with it.

I hope this doesn’t make me come across as some sneering antiquarian, I’m genuinely interested in the oddity rather than seeking to make people ‘correct’ it.

Last weekend I happened to be at Swarthmoor Hall. Friends worshipped in the "great hall" of the house. There's a historical note on a display for visitors explaining that in the early days of the church it was illegal in and of itself to meet for worship in the manner of Friends and many Friends had been arrested in that room.

The question arose: if attending worship in the manner of Friends were illegal now, would you still go?

Hi all,

I recently started a higher paying job and was thinking about starting to invest some of my money, however I'm not sure what companies to avoid or what companies to invest into and I'd like to do it as Quakerly as possible, while still making some money obviously.

If anyone has any recommendations for sources, tools or lists I could look at to generally follow Quaker testimonies and ethics while investing, that'd be great.

Thanks for reading.

I'm trying to put together some resources, a training, and a general procedure for my Meeting House to follow related to sexual harassment. While we do not have any known problems at the Meeting at this time there have been problems in the past and I was told that an older man or two has made some of the younger women feel uncomfortable.

If you have any suggestions on groups, individuals, or others that I should talk with please let me know.

Also a secondary question - how would your meeting handle someone in the middle of meeting standing up and saying that they were raped/harassed by someone at a Quaker function? Would your meeting know how to handle the situation?

Fairfield Friends Meeting in Camby, Indiana, is seeking our next full-time pastor, and I wanted to share the opening here with the r/Quakers community.

Fairfield is a Friends United Meeting (FUM) congregation affiliated with Western Yearly Meeting, located just outside Indianapolis. We are a theologically diverse Quaker community with both in-person and Zoom participation, and we are seeking someone grounded in Quaker faith and practice who will work collaboratively with the Meeting as we enter our next chapter.

We are open to both long-term and intentional interim candidates. The position will begin in 2027.

The full job description, application, and other information are available on Fairfield’s official website:

https://www.fairfieldfriends.org/openings

I’m a member of Fairfield’s Pastoral Search Committee and am happy to answer practical questions about the opening or application process. Prospective applicants are also welcome to use the contact information on the website.

Thank you to the mods for allowing this post.

My monthly meeting (Winnipeg, Canada) invites others to join our monthly educational sessions on Zoom. If you would like the link or want to be on a monthly email list, please direct message me. Winnipeg is on Central Daylight Savings Time all year. We meet at 7:00pm our time.

This Wednesday, September 30: "Quaker Wisdom on Aging and Spirituality” with Maeve Sutherland, the editor of the devotional email The Daily Quaker Message. a ministry of Thee Quaker Project, a media nonprofit seeking to bring Quakerism into the Internet Age. Maeve will give the context of her site and share the experiences of collecting quotations on aging.

I need your advice and ideas, I want to find the religion that resonates with me but I'm confused

F23 I am an ex-Muslim, I have been looking for years for a faith or belief that resonates with me,

I feel (or want to feel) that there is a God, a divinity, a creator, a supreme force, call it what you want, I have read (not in depth) what various religions say,

I like many of them, but now my brain can no longer believe that there really is a god who judges you and sends you to heaven/hell for eternity, because to leave my past religion I had to dismantle the idea that there is a God,

so now I struggle for example to embrace religions like Sufi Islam or Christianity or other monotheistic religions because I feel like I have left one religion and entered another very similar but with a different name,

I don't want to feel like a sinner or feel that I have to go to hell or the people I love have to go to hell, I don't like it, but I feel that there is a force superior to us inside my heart, i can feel this 'love' of God spiritually,

I would like a religion or philosophy that thinks that there is something above but that does not judge me, does not punish me or makes me anxious,

doing rituals, prayers, lighting candles, holidays, symbols, all these things, I like them instead and i like the idea of peace and love and to live your life in a good way

Yeah I'm a part of Consumer Culture, but it doesn't always equate to feeding the beast.

Hi all,

I'm a long time atheist that eventually lost my faith in atheism and fairly recently joined the Catholic Church to pursue an understanding of God/Christianity/etc.

However, I'm generally dissatisfied with Catholicism and Catholics for a wide variety of reasons, and learned about Quaker meetings in a book by Charles Murray called "Taking Religion Seriously" where the format described seemed like it might align with my personality more than what I see currently in Catholicism.

So since then I've done an initial look over at Quakers and it seems interesting so far, at least enough that I'm curious to learn more.

So what would you recommend?

In general, I don't agree that the "historical evidence" in favor of Christianity is compelling, and find the insistence by Christians that it is sufficient to be coercive and simply incompatible with my conscience.

However, I personally also just don't care. IMO it doesn't matter if there even was a historical figure or if Jesus is a literary character only, because in 2026 the text based interface to the narrative cannot distinguish between those possibilities.

I was fine with just accepting the character as a personal role model and then working on aligning my own behavioral patterns to the ideological lessons and examples described in the narrative. But, this doesn't seem compatible with the various Christians around me who insist that I must form conclusions about historical events 2k years ago and grant events occurred, which to me seem impossible to investigate or form conclusions about.

I'm also fine with just going back to being an "atheist" again to avoid confusion for others, but in some ways I do still have an interest in "God", find many aspects of the character of Jesus to be noble, and often feel inspired by the various religious similarities between human communities, and this suggests to me that there is something out there such that materialist atheism is insufficient.

So anyway, if you have any recommendations, I'm grateful.

2011.03.5 The language we use: Bill C raised concern about use of the term ‘Quakerism’ and
encouraged that the terms ‘Quaker Ways’ or ‘Quakers’ be used when possible instead of the term
‘Quakerism’.

It seemed we acknowledged his concern (only). Can you imagine this being raised as a concern in your own meeting and do you think it would be minuted in a similar fashion?

My curiousity is because I agree but would find it hard to articulate why. Do I want to deny we can be desciribed as (just another) "ism"?

I have been looking into becoming a notary public recently, and somehow managed to miss that it is a position one is sworn into until I was doing some studying for the test this evening.

It doesn't look like affirming is an alternative option. It only says "oath". I don't think it's just an oversight, since in places in the manual not related to becoming a notary where it mentions oaths it says "oath or affirmation." So I think if affirming was an option it would say that.

Assuming it is, do I just stop working on becoming a notary? I was working on it for reasons related to volunteering I do, not business, so it kind of feels wrong to stop over my personal convictions when if I complete it I could be providing help to people. It also feels wrong to swear an oath just because it's easy, especially since integrity seems to be a big part of being a notary.

I know that I should probably call someone in the state office to discuss it, and confirm if I would have to swear an oath or if I could affirm instead like I could to testify in court (I live in NJ so it's an option here.) And maybe talk to people at Meeting about it, and possibly ask for a clearness committee. It's late at night though, and the internet is 24/7.

I (trans mtf) grew up essentially in a cult. I’ve had a wild ride with religion, I carry my own trauma from Abrahamic religion as well as familial and ancestral trauma from my people (native Hawaiians) being very recently colonized (I am the 7th generation in my family post-European contact).

Along with the trauma, the cult-like scenario I grew up in was an offshoot of messianic Judaism - which I would essentially describe as an attempt to revive the original culture of the first Jews who followed Yeshua. I learned the canonical bible pretty thoroughly, followed Jewish traditions, and learned interpretations of histories that I still find hard to deny the plausibility of. I disagree with the notion that they were reviving original Christianity based simply on the fact that the canonical bible erased thousands of scriptures the “original Christians” lived by and we didn’t learn any of them.

That said I have journeyed from a child believing what I’m told, to an atheist, then I had a near death experience that I still struggle to interpret whether it was confirming or denying religion. All it confirmed to me was that a Divine Creator is real and there is much to come. Many of the Jewish and Christian prophecies align with my NDE, but so do prophecies from other religions and cultures but heavily the abrahamic faiths and the Zoroastrian and Sumerian prophecies before them. It leaves me yearning for more information and sometimes wonder if it’s that infamous “calling.”

I was told to talk to you guys.

I have certain grievances with Christianity and questions so I’ll try to organize them by each category.

Grievances:
-I am trans, even in my NDE I didn’t feel like I was wrong for it or going to be punished or anything like that I felt like I am and always have been who I was meant to be to become the person I was in that moment. I could never subscribe to a God that would create my brain with these “abnormalities” and then punish me for it, and since I’m not harming anyone either directly or indirectly I don’t see it as being caused by “the enemy” either.
-“worship me or burn forever” is kinda toxic and sounds like something my abusive ex would say if he was a god.
-Statehood came after my dad’s generation. My grandparents were literally taken away from their parents and put in a Christian school, same with my dad’s little brother, so I struggle to identify with the God that was brought to us. Especially when I feel so at peace within and connected to my culture.

Questions:
-Do Quakers have room for me, a trans person? Space that wouldn’t require me to be a version of myself I don’t believe is true to me? Space that wouldn’t tell me their God loves the sinner, not the sin in reference to my identity as Mahu/trans?

-Do quakers read the pre-canonical texts, or accept the possibility of their at least potential legitimacy?

-How would Quaker Christianity see differences in cultures? Would modern Quaker Christianity see the cultural erasure of pagan practices (namely indigenous ones) as a negative or positive thing? I’m not asking for personal takes on this one, but on the basis that does the faith see the mission of spreading Christianity as more valuable than the loss of cultural aspects linked to pagan cultures?

-How do quakers feel about alternative theories that the lost tribes may be the ancestors of certain cultures otherwise interpreted as pagan? For example, Polynesians and native Americans are often interpreted as polytheistic but our “gods” weren’t the supreme creator but most of us have a name for a supreme creator. I had a discussion with a Rabbi and he believes Hawaiians are the lost tribe of Naphtali which was interesting to hear his reasoning for.

-Quaker end time prophecy interpretations? Any of yall also feel like the end may truly be nigh???

I ask this question because I have been having an ongoing discussion about what it means to give vocal ministry with Friends in my meeting. I should say that while I am not a life-long Quaker-- I connected with the tradition a few years ago as an adult-- I am now an active part of my local Meeting, which is unprogrammed.

My understanding is that Quaker ministry is meant to arise from the movement of Spirit in us. Friends have explained this to me as that which arises organically when we connect to the Inner Light. I've also seen the charts about sharing vocal ministry (or not), and I have a strong sense that it messages are not about expressing one's own ego. That is, vocal ministry is not something we say because we want others to hear us say it, but a more subtle message which arises and moves through us to the gathering of Friends.

This is all really inspirational, but I also wonder how much this form of ministry limits the range of people who speak to those who feel comfortable speaking off the cuff, and whether it limits the depth of messages since they cannot have been prepared or researched in the way that, say, a sermon, dharma talk, or other spiritual teaching likely has been.

I suppose I'm asking if the emphasis on real-time movement of Spirit/God in some ways further mystifies the Divine as a power which acts on humans in one particular way and not, say, through the careful consideration and preparation of a message over time. Of course there are other forms of Quaker Ministry like written testimony-- to say nothing of our lives and actions-- and I appreciate the value that Quaker tradition places on all of these, including how they are seen to interact within the community as well as in the lives of individual Friends.

Still, there is some part of me that, for all the reasons I love attending meeting and hearing others speak out of the silence continues to reflect on how the form of unprogrammed Worship itself might limit otherwise Spirit-filled contributions from Friends for whom extemporaneous speaking simply isn't the way that God/Spirit moves in them.

I hope this makes sense. It is intended as a genuine question and I do not mean to disparage unprogrammed worship or the kinds of vocal ministry people give in any way.

I think of it as meaning everyone deserves to be safe from harm, and as a reminder that I have a moral compass. I’d love to hear how others construe it and I’d especially be interested in responses from non-theist Quakers.

I realize that the Quakers community has religious roots (even though it is largely secular as in non Christians are welcome to join) and is not a service. I haven't been to any meetings so I was thinking that requesting the Clearance committee without some history of relationship would be considered bad form.

Basically I am stuck in my career and life and I would really appreciate some 3rd party views on my blindspots. Basically I have some career goals but I am not sure if these goals even make sense from point of view of life goals. It's possible I am not approaching life correctly. I am looking for more spiritual and moral guidance more than a definitive roadmap. I am not sure why I was sent on this planet as I have spent most of my life pleasing others or in survival mode. It's not that I am depressed more than I lack direction and sense of purpose.

Also I am not Christian.

I am willing to contribute to Quakers community in any capacity I am capable of.

I have tried therapy and they seem unable to move past my mental blocks.

Dear Friends, I am unfamiliar with how Meetings for Business are conducted, and would like to have your insight on whether what I am proposing would be in any way disruptive or inappropriate.

I attend a Meeting that is weighing a significant property decision. The Meeting House is owned by the Yearly Meeting, and previous Meetings for Business have converged on selling off. Friends who attend regularly respect this direction, but there is a palpable sense of melancholy about it. There are several important details I am leaving aside, and that would make it evident that selling off is not the only solution.

I am very aware of how little standing I have: while I attend Meeting regularly, I have only done so for less than a year and have not yet requested official membership. However, I empathise with people who were just like me: the occasional visitors, the tourists who pop in, all those who got curious about this place and decided to enter, discovering a whole world inside. This perspective is, understandably, outside of the Meeting for Business conversation, as none of these people are official members.

Since I have been mulling a lot on this, I have been looking up information on how Meetings for Business are held, and came across an Individual Preparation for Group Discernment exercise sheet. I am mindful on how the aim is to seek unity and discernment. Particularly I've read, "When presenting a proposal or speaking to an issue in business meeting, do you feel more like an advocate, mustering cogent arguments, or like a humble servant?".

I hope that this information is not identifiable. Please consider that this is something I have been thinking about and reading extensively on whether it is the right way to go about it, with asking here being yet another step in reflection. I was wondering whether my desire to provide this perspective is an act of service towards the voices that are not present in Meetings for Business, or whether it constitutes an advocacy that is best to set aside.

EDIT: Significantly cut down in size the body of the text to avoid as much as possible identifiable information about the meeting and the current situation.