Short answer to the question: What do Quakers believe?
British Quakers have no creed. In the book "Quaker Faith &
Practice" (QF&P) section 11.48 includes:
"Membership, therefore, we see primarily in terms of discipleship,
and
so impose no clear-cut tests of doctrine or outward observance.
Nevertheless those wishing to join the Society should recognise its
Christian basis."
Among 21st century British
Quakers there are many who, while acknowledging the Christian origins
of Quakerism, now express interest in input from other faith
traditions, and some question the existence and relevance of the
supernatural. The majority of
African
Quakers
and many North
American Quakers are
explicit Evangelical Christians.
The fundamental elements of being a Quaker are summarised in
QF&P section 11.01:
the understanding of divine guidance, the manner of corporate
worship and ordering of the meeting's business, the practical
expression of inward convictions, and the equality of all before God.
The key common ground among the whole
world family of
Friends has recently
been set out as:
(1) the centrality of inward encounter with God and revelation, and
forms of
worship
that allow this to be
experienced
(2) a way of doing
church business
based on the idea of corporate
direct guidance
rather than voting
(3) the spiritual
equality of
everyone
(4) the preference for
peace and
pacificism rather than war, and the
commitment to
other forms of social witness
(from Dandelion: The Quakers
- A Very Short Introduction, Oxford
University Press 2008)
You will find this question considered on many Quaker websites.
British Yearly Meeting has an answer
here.
There are more reflections on this question taken from the book
Quaker
Faith
&
Practice below.
QF&P Introduction (page 13)
Words must not become barriers between us, for no one of us can
ever
adequately understand or express the truth about God. Yet words are our
tools and we must not be afraid to express the truth we know in the
best words we can. It is this conviction which has prompted the
selection of a wide variety of extracts for inclusion in this book
[i.e.
Quaker Faith & Practice]
confirming our testimony that truth cannot be confined within a creed.
QF&P 27.25
The Quaker objection to credal statements is not to
beliefs as such but
to the use of an officially sanctioned selection of them to impose a
uniformity in things where the gospel proclaims freedom. 'Credo' is the
Latin for 'I believe'. The meaning of the word is debased if you
confine it to an act of the will giving intellectual assent to articles
of faith. It is much better translated as 'I commit myself to...' in
the sense that one is prepared to take the full consequences of the
beliefs one has adopted. One adopts not so much a set of propositions
as the discipline of working out in one's life and experience the
consequences of the truth one has espoused. The value of the beliefs
lies solely in their outworking. This I take to be the heart of the
original Quaker message.
John Punshon, 1978
QF&P 23.11
We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government, nor are we for
this party nor against the other ... but we are for justice and mercy
and truth and peace and true freedom, that these may be exalted in our
nation, and that goodness, righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace
and unity with God, and with one another, that these things may abound.
Edward Burrough, 1659
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