History of Quakerism (Religious Society of Friends)

History & overview · every faith gets one

Silence, until the Light speaks.

The Friends: worship as expectant silence, that of God in everyone, and a peace testimony kept at the price of prison in every century since George Fox. No clergy, no liturgy, no creed — the Inner Light needs no intermediary.

The founding

A restless seeker climbed Pendle Hill and saw "a great people to be gathered" — and began preaching that Christ speaks directly, inwardly, to anyone who will sit still enough to listen.

Its founding is bound to George Fox — 1652 CE.

What it holds

Reality. Creation shot through with the Light, accessible inwardly.

The divine. God known experimentally — through the Inner Light.

Death and after. Held lightly — the Light is now.

The line

descent is public here — where it came from, what left it

Judaism — c. 1000 BCE Christianity — 30 CE Catholicism Protestantism — 1517 CE Quakerism (Religious Society of Friends) — 1652 CE

Branches:

Ordinary Time — Nothing special is happening. Attend to it.

Keep going

Back to the overview — the living page: elements, discussion, the web The Belief room — the claims themselves, with sources and context Branch Quakerism (Religious Society of Friends) — inherit everything, change what you must