What I Learned About Quakers

I attended a Quaker church last Sunday. He's what I think of when I think Quakers:
1. Underground railroad
2. Old-fashioned clothes, like the the oatmeal guy.
3. Pacifism
4. Mysticism
Pretty good list. I've always thought Quakers were awesome, even though I didn't know much about them.

Well it turns out Quaker meetings are boring as hell. Seriously, this may have been the most boring church service I have ever attended in my life. But not in a bad way. I mean, I can imagine it being good if I was a different person. Basically it was 45 minutes of silence, followed by a brief open sharing time. People just talked about what they'd been thinking about; none of it was overtly "spiritual".

So I'm not likely to attend their meetings on a regular basis, but I am pretty much in love with them. Specifically their beliefs and values. Their big thing is that each of us individually is guided by God, and that this guidance, not the Bible, is our ultimate authority. They don't believe in creeds, religious hierarchies, or church rituals. Sometimes I wonder if Christians really believe we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and what we might look like if we did. Maybe we'd look like the Quakers.

So they're radically individualistic, and also really into experiencing God, in a low key, mystical kind of way, but they're also big on community. That's why they come together to sit quietly for an hour: apparently they're actually seeking some kind of communal mystical experience with God. They get awesome points for putting the words "communal" and "mystical" in the same sentence.

They're so serious about this that they make decisions by consensus. They have no church leadership of any kind. Instead they have business meetings were they each listen to what they feel is God's leading and then they talk about it until the all agree.

Also, they're extremely egalitarian, and have been since the beginning. Not only did they oppose slavery, but since their conception in the 17th century Quakers have refused to acknowledge class distinctions and have treated women as social and spiritual equals. (Who would have guessed the Quaker Oats guy was a feminist?)

Other cool things: they dress plainly, they've never been anti-intellectual, they don't distinguish between the sacred and the secular, they don't believe in telling lies or attempting to deceive in any way, they'd sooner go to jail than fight in a war, and they welcome non-Christians as full members of their communities. You can be a Muslim, a Buddhist, or an Atheist and also be a Quaker.

(Apparently there's a more conservative branch of Quakers which places more emphasis on the Bible and conducts slightly more conventional meetings. The statements above are generalities, and are probably more accurate for liberal Quakers.)

I know not all of you will be as impressed by this stuff as I am, but whatever you think about their beliefs (or however boring you find their meetings) you have to respect these people for the way they live their convictions. Besides the anti-slavery stuff, Quakers won the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize, and have been involved in the founding of organizations like Greenpeace, Oxfam, and Amnesty International.