Quakers?

CF tends to have conservative Christians, partly because of tradition and partly because of CF rules. But the Quakers that do post would be in the Anabaptist forum.

sparkle123 said:

I haven't seen anyone talk about Quakers on this forum. I know only a little of them because I had a self-uniting, Quaker-style wedding (was not a Christian, did not want to get married in the court, my state has this option for marriage license). I am also reading a book about Paul (Paul Among the People) by a scholar who happens to be a Quaker, so I am curious if there is any presence here on the forum. Doesn't seem like it...

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Hi sparkle123, I live in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. In 1652, George Fox, one of the founders of the Religious Society of Friends, preached for several hours under a walnut tree at Balby, where his disciple Thomas Aldham was instrumental in setting up the first meeting in the Doncaster area.

I'm currently writing a history of the Quakers in Doncaster, with focus on the Clark family who was instrumental in social and political reform in the 19th and 20th centuries. In particular, I am preparing to write a history of the Doncaster Temperance Society, of which Joseph Firth Clark was its secretary, and its central place in the Gospel Temperance Movement. Joseph was also secretary of the Blue Ribbon Movement, which had its origins in America. He was also secretary of the Doncaster & District Liberal Association and rose through its ranks to become Mayor of Doncaster in 1890. He proposed the Local Option whereby town and city councils could choose if they wanted to abolish the sale of intoxicating liquor in their town or city - it never entered into law. However, did you know that the Quakers were not always teetotallers? Itwasonly from the middle of the 19th century that they moved towards abstinence?

Quakers started the Ragged School in Doncaster several years before the Education Act of 1870, which made elementary education compulsory and free for all children. The Ragged School was situated in Factory Lane, Doncaster, in the 19th Century, near the town jail, in a poor part of the town, and provided free education to children of poor parents by day and acted as a Night School, providing education to the parents of those children in the evenings.

The Clark family were fruiterers, they had a small fruit shop on Baxter Gate, in Doncaster town centre, during the 1800s. They lived in Warmsworth and were an educated family, with connections across the country, in particular York, also Saffron Walden.

This is just a very brief history. I'm currently analysing archive material at Doncaster Archives of the Minute Book of the Doncaster Temperance Society, as well as the members register, and the diaries of the individual Clark family members.

I love the fact that the Religious Society of Friends was influential and respected within the Christian Church, and also within Doncaster society. Their temperate and hard-working lifestyle was a model for society. I enjoy studying the Quakers, although I don't think I could live such a disciplined life.

I have been a Quaker attender for a few years now. In the United States, Quaker theology can vary a lot. Liberal Quakers have heavy theological diversity, while evangelical Quakers (from what I have studied) tend to be similar to other American evangelical protestant denominations in many ways. The Friends United Meeting association may be said to be somewhere between the two (YMMV based on region and a variety of other factors. Some FUM meetings have alliances with liberals/FGC, while others are far more similar to evangelical meetings).

In Pennsylvania, you may find that Philadelphia is like a liberal Quaker capital of the world. Pittsburgh is similarly liberal. Throughout the state, that pattern does not necessarily hold up. In fact, go a little further west--Ohio--and evangelical meetings appear to thrive, and might even be the norm for Quakerism.

I am not a member of The Society of Friends. I did object to the Vietnam War on ethical grounds. I declined to lie and say those grounds were based on a belief in God. Still The Society nof Friends gave me aid and guidance through the maze of Government regulations. I still have a copy of their handbook.

So unlike so many groups, Christian and not, who only help their own.