s, leaflets, and publications that explore common interests such as climate change, the progress of volunteer peace workers around the world, political and social issues, and always, always, Quaker poetry.
It is a world-wide religion, practiced in nearly every country, though their numbers are dwindling. Again, I blame the Quaker Oats man. But they too are somewhat responsible for their own diminishing membership. They don’t advertise, baptize, chastise, nor proselytize. It hardly seems like a religion at all. It is easy to understand why so few would venture into a meeting house uninvited.
Though they have a reputation for being puritanical, which really isn’t fair given how poorly the Puritans treated them back in the day, they are actually a very liberal group. They stress moderation in all things but they drink, they dance, and they can sin with the best of us. They do, however, frown on gambling and other than staunch pacifism, this is the only line in the sand that Quakers have drawn as far as I can see.
They refuse to swear legal oaths, with the explanation that they recognize only one standard of truth. A Friend never lies.
The RSOF developed as a nonconformist movement in reaction to materialism. George Fox, one of the early founders of the religion, urged his followers to follow a more simple path of Christianity, one that they felt was based on early Christian communities. And, like the early Christians, the first Quakers were also beaten, imprisoned, and sometimes killed.
In fact, the term “Quaker” was initially used derisively. During a trial an early Friend faced his accusers and “bid them tremble at the word of God,” and then those nasty Puritans turned it all around and gave them the cruel epithet “Quakers.” But Friends simply appropriated the name, thus stripping it of its insult in a very Friend sort of way.
Quakers were radical in their time, and still are to some extent, in that they believe that each person can experience a direct relationship with God. This is why they have no clergy or anyt