Friends United Meeting (FUM) is an association of twenty-six yearly meetings of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in North America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Its home pages states that it is "a collection of Christ-centered Quakers, embracing 34 yearly meetings and associations, thousands of local gatherings and hundreds of thousands of individuals". In addition there are several individual monthly meetings and organizations that are members of FUM; FUM's headquarters is in Richmond, Indiana, with offices in Kisumu, Kenya. Friends United Meeting is a member of the National Council of Churches in the United States of America, and is a global member of the World Council of Churches.
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.
Inward light, Light of God, Light of Christ, Christ within, That of God, Spirit of God within us, Light within, and inner light are related phrases commonly used within the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) as metaphors for Christ's light shining on or in them. It was propagated by the founder of the Quaker movement, George Fox, who "preached faith in and reliance on 'inward light' ". The first Quakers were known to sit in silence and meditate on the words of the Bible until they felt the inward light of God shining upon them and the Holy Spirit speaking. The concept was highly important to early Quakers, who taught: "God reveals Himself within each individual's conscience and consciousness by the Holy Spirit, Christ Himself being the Light to illuminate man's sinfulness and lead in the way of truth and righteousness. ... this light is in all men by the grace of God to lead them to Christ, and that the same light will give daily guidance to the Christian."
Elias Hicks was a traveling Quaker minister from Long Island, New York. In his ministry he promoted doctrines deemed unorthodox by many which led to lasting controversy, and caused the second major schism within the Religious Society of Friends. Elias Hicks was the older cousin of the painter Edward Hicks.
The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, also known as Britain Yearly Meeting, is a Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It is the national organisation of Quakers living in Britain. Britain Yearly Meeting refers to both the religious gathering and the organisation. "Yearly Meeting", or "Yearly Meeting Gathering" are usually the names given to the annual gathering of British Quakers. Quakers in Britain is the name the organisation is commonly known by.
Evangelical Friends Church International (EFCI) is a branch of the Society of Friends (Quaker) yearly meetings located around the world. This branch makes up most Evangelical Quaker meetings from the Gurneyites.
The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, or simply the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, or PYM, is the central organizing body for Quaker meetings in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States area, including parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. The PYM is primarily affiliated with the Friends General Conference and is a member of the National Council of Churches.
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.
The testimony of simplicity is a shorthand description of the actions generally taken by members of the Religious Society of Friends to testify or bear witness to their beliefs that a person ought to live a simple life in order to focus on what is most important, and ignore what is least important.
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.
The conservative holiness movement is a loosely defined group of theologically conservative Christian denominations with the majority being Methodists whose teachings are rooted in the theology of John Wesley, and a minority being Quakers (Friends) that emphasize the doctrine of George Fox, as well as River Brethren who emerged out of the Radical Pietist revival, and Holiness Restorationists in the tradition of Daniel Sidney Warner. Schisms began to occur in the 19th century and this movement became distinct from parent Holiness bodies in the mid-20th century amid disagreements over modesty in dress, entertainment, and other "old holiness standards". Aligned denominations share a belief in Christian perfection, though they differ on various doctrines, such as the celebration of the sacraments and observance of ordinances, which is related to the denominational tradition of the specific conservative holiness body—Methodist, Quaker, Anabaptist or Restorationist. Many denominations identifying with the conservative holiness movement, though not all, are represented in the Interchurch Holiness Convention; while some denominations have full communion with one another, other bodies choose to be isolationist.
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.
The Richmond Declaration, also known as the Richmond Declaration of Faith is a confession of faith of the Religious Society of Friends, being made by 95 Quakers from around the world in September 1887, at a conference in Richmond, Indiana. It was a declaration of faith, and although Quakers do not subscribe to a creed, the Richmond Declaration of Faith has been used as a doctrinal standard by Orthodox Quakers, Holiness Quakers and Evangelical Quakers, ever since.
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 367,243 adult Quakers, 49% of them in Africa followed by 21% in North America.
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.
A Recorded Minister was originally a male or female Quaker, who was acknowledged to have a gift of spoken ministry.
Indiana Yearly Meeting is a Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers.
Gurneyite is a term assigned to certain members of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. The name originates because of the sympathy of the views of these Friends with the ideas of Joseph John Gurney, an English Quaker minister. In general, Gurneyite Quakers follow evangelical Christian doctrines on Jesus Christ, the Atonement, and the Bible. Orthodox Quakers separated into Gurneyites and Wilburites, beginning in the 1840s in North America. The Richmond Declaration (1887) is a confession of faith upheld by Gurneyite Quakers.
The Quakers have had a presence in Canada since 1670, when Charles Bayly was sent to be the governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. Early Quaker settlements were attempted in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and at Farnham in Quebec in the late 1700s. Permanent communities were realised at Adolphustown on the Bay of Quinte and at the same time at Pelham in the Niagara District before 1800. Quakers immigrated to Canada from New York, the New England States, and Pennsylvania.
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