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Quaker Culture: Clerks and Committees

• Authored by:
• Rebecca Henderson

For Friends . . . “A lot of work happens in Quaker committees. A lot of work is done by appointed individuals. (We hesitate to call them Officers, as that sounds quite corporate or military.) A lot of work is carried out by those who know how to do it. . . Committees are appointed for action, not for stalling or burying an issue. Quaker individuals work as best they can; they are not figure-heads and do not have honorific titles. For example, the Meeting has a Clerk. In old English that meant a secretary, a servant. The Clerk and others serve the Meeting as workers, as servants, not as high-handed administrators.”

On Bosses (July 2018)

Quaker Culture: Transparency

• Authored by:
• Diana Forsythe

Perhaps because unprogrammed Friends have neither ministers nor formal worship services, people who are new to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) sometimes have the impression that our worship has no structure at all.  This impression is incorrect.  We Friends see ourselves as led by the Spirit, and we have quite a few customs, rules, and procedures that are important to us because they help us to “hear” both the Spirit and each other.  We seldom explain why we do things the way we do, nor what is appropriate behavior in and around our meetings for worship and business.  To help newcomers become aware of our procedures, and to remind older Friends of these ways that unite us, Western Friend will offer a little nugget of “Quaker Culture” in each issue.

On War (January 2013)

Quaker Culture: Children

• Authored by:
• Quakers In The World

In the Puritan and Calvinist cultures prevalent in 17th century Britain and America, children were believed to be born corrupted by “original sin”. Quakers rejected this doctrine, and Robert Barclay called it “an invented and unscriptural barbarism”. . . In an age when harsh punishments for children were the norm, Quaker parents rejected corporal punishment and used reason to appeal to their children. Today, the Quaker Peace Centre in South Africa conducts training for teachers on alternatives to corporal punishment in schools.

On Children (September 2018)

Quaker Culture: Wealth

• Authored by:
• Mike King

[In seventeenth century England], nonconformists like Quakers were barred from universities, professions and public office, and so turned to trading and industry instead. . . The work ethic of the Quakers and their simplicity of speech and life quickly led to prosperity and property, and that property soon included ownership of the industrial base of factories and transport and their financial underpinnings through banking. In other words, despite the almost otherworldliness of their conscience and spiritual practices, the Quakers were instinctive capitalists. . .  The ethics of this are clear: once it is impossible for a family to own their immediate means of production, the owners of such means have various ethical obligations to their workers. The history of Quaker businesses demonstrates [their] keen sense of that obligation.

On Wealth (May 2020)

Quaker Culture: Testimonies

• Authored by:
• Diana Forsythe

Friends’ testimonies are descriptions of actions and behaviors that have characteristically sprung from the very foundation of shared Quaker beliefs. They are neither proscriptive nor prescriptive, but descriptive of Friends’ lives. They are not creedal; they may change or develop over time; they sometimes help define our faith in a society hostile or blind to our beliefs, and they may become invisible when their need vanishes. Thus a testimony against slavery, although well known, is not now visibly practiced in America. Testimonies against taking of judicial oaths and against gambling, although often not practiced by modern Friends, still have the same basis in our faith and beliefs as they did in prior generations.

On Needs (May 2015)

Quaker Culture: Discovery

• Authored by:
• Elise Boulding

“What is Quaker Faith? It is not a tidy package of words, which you capture at any given time and then repeat weekly at a worship service. It is an experience of discovery, which starts the discoverer on a journey, which is lifelong. The discovery in itself is not uniquely a property of Quakerism. . . What is unique to the Religious Society of Friends is its insistence that the discovery must be made by each of us individually. No one is allowed to get it secondhand by accepting a ready-made creed. Furthe

On Play (September 2015)

Quaker Culture: Brevity

• Authored by:
• Baltimore Yearly Meeting

Brevity is an under-appreciated virtue. If you speak [during Quaker worship], do not feel compelled to explore all the implications of your insight. Rather, leave room for the Spirit to work through the next person, building on your words and possibly extending them in an unexpected direction.

On Limits (May 2016)

Quaker Culture: Accordance

• Authored by:
• Douglas V. Steere

We do not come alone to the meeting. For the needs of those within and without the meeting sit down with us . . . in the person of our bodies which connect us with the whole of the natural creation and every exchange of breath reveals our profound dependence on the rest of nature and discloses to us our responsibility for it. They sit down with us in the persons of those who actually sit with us, each of whom is the center of a world . . . and who yearns as I do for the great tendering, the new angle of vision, the regrouping within, that would respond to the deepest thing we know. They sit down with us, the wretched and the poor of the earth, both in spirit and in body, and a new feeling sense of our unity with them may be opened in that sitting.

On Mediation (January 2020)

Quaker Culture: Income

• Authored by:
• London Yearly Meeting

In earning income by work or by investment, Friends try to keep in mind the good of the community at large, not simply themselves. They strive to be strictly honest and truthful in their business dealings, refuse to manufacture or deal in commodities that are hurtful to society, and guard against gaining undue profit at the expense of the community. In spending their income also, Friends strive to consider how their actions affect society. They try to live within their income, are wary of incurring debts, and avoid entangling themselves in heavy financial commitments. That they may be well acquainted with their annual income and expenditures, they strive to keep clear and correct accounts.

On Money (November 2015)

Quaker Culture: Hospitality

• Authored by:
• William Caton

And hence came the worthy family [of Judge Thomas and Margaret Fell] to be so renowned in the nation, the fame of which spread so much among Friends. And the power and the presence of the Lord being so much there with us, it was a means to induce many, even from far, to come thither, so that at one time there would have been Friends out of five or six counties . . . I was cherished and encouraged in the way of life by my entirely beloved friend Margaret Fell, who as a tender-hearted nursing-mother cared for me and was tender of me as if I had been one of her own children . . .

On Neighbors (September 2019)