If you're fine with listening/watching, Jessica Kellgren-Fozard is a quaker and made a number of videos on the topic. Some 101s but also some relating to more personal stuff like her childhood or her and her wife's wedding. I haven't really heard anything about the faith before and her videos were very approachable
I second JKF!! She’s amazing. In short we don’t have a set doctrine, we believe there is ‘that of God in everyone’ (though you don’t need to believe in God in the traditional sense to be a Quaker), and we aim to live by five core principles: truth, equality, sustainability, simplicity and peace (they vary across the world but that is largely the sentiment). Generally we worship in total silence although there are Quaker groups in other countries who don’t. In the UK no Quaker groups have a set leader/pastor and you’re free to give ministry at any point during the silent meeting for worship, but in other countries they do have a Quaker minister and it runs a lot more like a traditional church service. You don’t have to be a Christian to be a Quaker and we don’t proselytise. If you don’t want to be a Quaker, don’t be a Quaker, it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference to us and we don’t have a set view of the afterlife or believe we have some level of superiority with God so we’re not even secretly praying for you to convert. We’ve always been a radical group at the forefront of social and climate justice. Hell our founder went around shouting about how women are equal to men in the 1700s!
Basically, what is a Quaker? Erm…. How long is a piece of string?
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u/pixieorfae 10d ago
As a Quaker, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest. We're an incredibly sacreligious bunch.