Related Research Articles
The views of Quakers around the world towards homosexuality encompass a range from complete celebration and the practice of same-sex marriage, to the view that homosexuality is sinfully deviant and contrary to God's intentions for sexual expression. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) is a historically Christian religious movement founded in 17th-century England; it has around 350,000 members. In Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, many Quakers are supportive of homosexual relationships, while views are divided among U.S. meetings. Many Conservative Friends and Holiness Friends, both of which have retained traditional Quaker practices such as plain dress, along with Evangelical Friends, view homosexual acts as sinful. 49% of Quakers live in Africa, and though views may differ, the Kenyan Church of Friends does not support homosexual relationships.
Meeting for Sufferings is an executive committee of Britain Yearly Meeting, the body which acts on behalf of members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Great Britain and the Crown Dependencies. It has about 200 members who meet five times a year to make decisions when the Yearly Meeting is not in session.
Quaker weddings are the traditional ceremony of marriage within the Religious Society of Friends. Quaker weddings are conducted in a similar fashion to regular Quaker meetings for worship, primarily in silence and without an officiant or a rigid program of events, and therefore differ greatly from traditional Western weddings. In some respects a Quaker marriage resembles a common-law marriage.
Evangelical Friends Church International (EFCI) is a branch of Quaker yearly meetings located around the world.
The Religious Society of Friends began as a proto-evangelical Christian movement in England in the mid-17th century in Ulverston. Members are informally known as Quakers, as they were said "to tremble in the way of the Lord". The movement in its early days faced strong opposition and persecution, but it continued to expand across the British Isles and then in the Americas and Africa.
Yearly Meeting is an organization composed of constituent meetings or churches of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, within a geographical area. The constituent meetings are called Monthly Meetings in most of the world; in England, local congregations are now called Area Meetings, in Australia Monthly Meetings are called Regional Meetings. "Monthly" and "Yearly" refer to how often the body meets to make decisions. Monthly Meetings may be local congregations that hold regular Meetings for Worship, or may comprise a number of Worship Groups. Depending on the Yearly Meeting organization, there may also be Quarterly Meetings, Half-Yearly Meetings, or Regional Meetings, where a number of local Monthly Meetings come together within a Yearly Meeting.
John Wilbur was a prominent American Quaker minister and religious thinker who was at the forefront of a controversy that led to "the second split" in the Religious Society of Friends in the United States.
Sandy Spring Friends School (SSFS) is a progressive, coeducational, college preparatory Quaker school serving students from preschool through 12th grade. SSFS offers an optional 5- and 7- day boarding program in the Middle School and Upper School. 59% of its student body identifies as students of color, and 19 countries are represented in its boarding program. Founded in 1961, its motto is "Let Your Lives Speak" an old Quaker adage which expresses the school's philosophy of "educating all aspects of a person so that their life—in all of its facets—can reveal the unique strengths within." SSFS sits on a pastoral 140-acre campus in the heart of Montgomery County, Maryland, approximately midway between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. SSFS is under the care of the Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting and the Baltimore Yearly Meeting.
In the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), a monthly meeting or area meeting is the basic governing body, a congregation which holds regular meetings for business for Quakers in a given area. The monthly meeting is responsible for the administration of its congregants, including membership and marriages, and for the meeting's property. A monthly meeting can be a grouping of multiple smaller meetings, usually called preparative meetings, coming together for administrative purposes, while for others it is a single institution. In most countries, multiple monthly meetings form a quarterly meeting, which in turn form yearly meetings. Programmed Quakers may refer to their congregation as a church.
Conservative Friends are members of the Wilburite branch of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). In the United States, Conservative Friends belong to three Yearly Meetings: the Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative), the North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative), and the Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative). Of these, the Ohio Yearly Meeting is the most traditional. English Friends affiliated with the Conservative branch of Quakerism are organized as the Friends in Christ and tend to use the terms Primitive or Plain. There is no single unifying association of Conservative Friends, though a Wider Fellowship of Conservative Friends general gathering is held every two years. The Central Yearly Meeting of Friends is theologically conservative and plain dress-wearing, but since they are part of the Gurneyite branch of Quakers, they are not classed under the designation of Conservative Friends.
New England Yearly Meeting is a body of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) founded in 1661 and headquartered in Worcester, Massachusetts. It includes Friends from the New England region of the United States.
Friends School of Baltimore is a private Quaker school in Baltimore, serving students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after John 15:14 in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers as the founder of the movement, George Fox, told a judge to quake "before the authority of God". The Friends are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to be guided by the inward light to "make the witness of God" known to everyone. Quakers have traditionally professed a priesthood of all believers inspired by the First Epistle of Peter. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity, as well as Nontheist Quakers. To differing extents, the Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2017, there were an estimated 377,557 adult Quakers, 49% of them in Africa.
The Quaker movement began in England in the 17th Century. Small Quaker groups were planted in various places across Europe during this early period. Quakers in Europe outside Britain and Ireland are not very numerous (2023) although new groups have started in the former Soviet Union and successor countries. By far the largest national grouping of Quakers in Europe is in Britain.
A Friends meeting house is a meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where meeting for worship is usually held.
Central Yearly Meeting of Friends is a yearly meeting of Friends (Quaker) churches located in Indiana, North Carolina, Arkansas and Ohio. Central Yearly Meeting of Friends is aligned with the conservative holiness movement, and is a part of the Gurneyite wing of the Orthodox branch of Quakerism. Meeting for worship is programmed and led by pastors.
A Book of Discipline may refer to one of the various books issued by a Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, setting out what it means to be a Quaker in that Yearly Meeting. The common name for this book varies from one Yearly Meeting to another and includes Book of Discipline, Faith and Practice, Christian Faith and Practice, Quaker Faith and Practice, Church Government and Handbook of Practice and Procedure. Each Book of Discipline is updated periodically by each Yearly Meeting according to the usual practice of decision making within the Religious Society of Friends.
The Shrewsbury Monthly Meeting is a monthly meeting in the New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.
Hopewell Friends Meeting House is an 18th-century Quaker meeting house located the northern Frederick County, Virginia one mile west of the community of Clear Brook at 604 Hopewell Road. Clear Brook, VA 22624. This community was the home of Thomas William "Tom" Fox (1951–2006), a Quaker peace activist, affiliated with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) murdered in 2006 in Iraq.
References
- ↑ "History of NEYM". New England Yearly Meeting. Retrieved 7 July 2024.
- ↑ "Baltimore Yearly Meeting Staff and Officers". Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
- ↑ The abbreviation "BYM" is also used by members of Britain Yearly Meeting for their organisation.