What Do We Believe?

Quaker Essentials

What do Quakers believe?

We have a rich and unique tradition that’s now 375 years old, so this is just an extremely short outline. We would love to unpack these essentials in a personal conversation. 

The light within

We each can commune directly with God (however you understand the Divine) without any go-betweens.

The “gathered meeting”

The worshipping community also can commune directly with the Divine, collectively as a community; we call this the gathered meeting.

Continuing revelation

The spirit of God is always revealing itself to us, continually present to heal us, forgive us, renew us, inspire us, correct us, guide us, strengthen us, comfort us, and fulfill us, both as individuals and as a community.

“Let your life speak.”

We are called to live our outward lives according to the truths that have been inwardly given to us about how to live. These include settled “testimonies,” principles for right living and our efforts to mend the world that are grounded in our experience of the Spirit’s guidance.

The commandment of love

We are to love God and to love one another, even to love our enemies. Love ought to be the first motion of all our action.

Direct experience

We seek to base our beliefs and our religious lives on what we have actually experienced ourselves, while respecting the testimony of others and the legacy of our tradition. We won't tell you what to believe, only help you be faithful to your own experience.

All the rest

These foundational principles can be unpacked to offer all the other distinctive elements of the Quaker way. The first four are like the foundation walls upon which the rest of Quakerism is built. Love is the mortar that holds the whole thing together. And it’s all established on the bedrock of our direct experience. So the Quaker way begins at the center within us, then leads us out through community and into the world.

Quaker Terms and Phrases

Click this link to download Quaker Terms and Phrases, a pdf file with a Quaker glossary.