Are You a Liberal or Orthodox Quaker?

Many seekers have discovered Quakers through online quizzes like Beliefnet, but what do they mean by “Liberal” and “Orthodox” Quakers?

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Transcript:

Max Carter: One of my favorite experiences when I was teaching at Guilford College and working in campus ministry was an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi from Israel came to speak to our Jewish students and came into the campus ministry center and said, “Does Guilford have a religious affiliation?” And I said, “Yeah, we’re Quaker.” and he said, “Quaker! Do you know, I took a Beliefnet quiz and I came out Quaker!”

Are You a Liberal or Orthodox Quaker?

There are a number of online quizzes that people can take these days that can determine everything from “Were you born in the 1950’s/60’s”, “What music do you remember” to “What’s your religion?” Many people have taken these quizzes and have learned that they are Quaker. But there are two kinds of Quaker that are offered by some of these quizzes—which displays whoever has written these quizzes doesn’t really know their Quaker history.

The Great Quaker Separation of 1820

It’s important for a person who is exploring Quakerism to understand that there are a variety of Quakerisms, and they go back to social and theological historical movements in the late 1700s and early 1800s, especially here in the United States. There was a huge separation of the Quaker body in the 1820s into Orthodox and Hicksite Quakers. I won’t go into the sordid history of this, but Orthodox Quakers essentially represented an Evangelical Christian faith. They believed that Quakers ought to embrace the wider Christian world—especially the Evangelical Christian world—be engaged in missions, be engaged in social movements, reforming society in cooperation with other evangelical Christian groups.

Hicksite Quakers tended to take a more conservative (small “c”) approach to “we’re a remnant people. We need to protect our social boundaries as a distinctive, peculiar people and keep the world at arm’s length.”

The Branches of Modern Quakerism

In the oddity of how Quakerism has evolved, Orthodox Friends—who were the liberals of their time—became conservative (small “c”) Christians: theologically evangelical; socially and politically more conservative; adopted standard Protestant practices of settled, pastoral ministry, programmed worship, hymns, choirs, sermons; and look fairly Protestant by the end of the 20th century.

Hicksite Friends became liberal from their conservative beginnings, because they maintained unprogrammed worship, emphasis on the inward light, so they became more universalist, more politically progressive, socially progressive, more liberal.

What Do Online Quizzes Mean By “Liberal” and “Orthodox” Quaker?

So if you come out “liberal” Quaker, which is one of the options on these quizzes, you have probably said that you’re open to other denominations, other religious expressions, you’re ok with Muslims and Buddhists and Jews, you’re fairly politically active, you’re probably liberal in your political leanings, and that will—whatever the algorithms are for these things—identify you as a liberal Quaker.

Another option is “orthodox” Quaker and that would indicate that you’ve answered questions like you read the Bible regularly, you believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, you are conservative socially, perhaps even politically, you ascribe to the standard orthodoxies of mainstream Christianity.

Those are the only two options they give you, essentially, on those quizzes, but there are many other variations of Friends.

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The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.

[ianjohnson]

I am now a convinced Quaker and have been for about a year now, but man would my life been so different if I was raised Quaker! I’m so at peace now that I’ve finally found a space I feel comfortable in :)

[shelby]

I am one of those people who found "Liberal Quakerism" through the beliefnet denomination quiz :) And it turns out that it was extremely accurate.

[dramalovesme]

As someone who is currently doing a lot of reading on Quaker beginnings and traditional Quaker theology, I would love a video on the Great Separation, even though I know it's a difficult subject but I feel like it is really meaningful and important for anyone who was not raised Quaker and is trying to find their place within Quaker history.

[SuzanneGillespie]

"The Valhalla of Quakerism."  Picturing this made me chuckle!  X-D

[douglasclarkson]

Max is such a skilled communicator, this ended up being a pleasure to watch in addition to informative!

[MrCanigou]

I was raised in an orthodox evangelical environment which I fled lately at age 21, followed by two decades of tough inner reconstruction.
I recently happily discovered your channel of which I love (and maybe selectively only notice ?) its liberal - as it seems ? - spirituality which reminds me of the local Buddhist / Mindfulness group I joined two years ago : Mutual attention and weighed words interspersed with a refreshing silence.

[grannyapple]

I am finding these sessions easy to understand and enjoyable to follow. Thank-you from London!

[RyMicTheKing]

Dang, man. I was having a tough time deciding a denomination. I found Quaker and it fit my beliefs. Then I find out that it's split in half and I like half of one side and half of the other side lol.

On one end, I like the accepting of different beliefs and the not having rituals that the liberal quakers have.

[eh]

In my case I think I ended up with the Liberal Quaker answer because my own personal opinion is that doing good things matters more than who is or is not going to heaven.

[pollyrg]

I started attending my local Quaker meeting in New Zealand about a year ago, and I think we must be a bit different here.
I know we're a small community - about 500 Members throughout the country, plus Attenders (like me), out of a total New Zealand population of roughly 4 million people. From what I've learned, Quakers in New Zealand:
- are more closely aligned to British than American quakerism (goes back to our origins)
- meet in unprogrammed worship exclusively or almost exclusively
- are socially active and progressive on a range of issues, including peace, biculturalism and reconciliation with indigenous Maori people, and environmentalism
- tend to be universalists and would not, in many if not most cases, identify as Christian or would say "yes, but..."
So I don't know if I'd be a liberal or a conservative Quaker by any of the standards discussed!

[jenna]

Who are the Quakers who believe that "Jesus" (not his name until 400 years ago) taught and upheld the Torah? (Acts 15:20-21) Most of Christianity believes that he brought a "new" religion. But he was actually more Quaker in an emphasis on a continuing relationship that evolves.

[valeriesmith]

My ancestors fled England, then Ireland, as Friends to establish a meeting in western Virginia in1734, My father, then, was raised in a Quakerism that fell somewhere between the two: Meetings were silent but I can't say these Friends were liberal at all. The Bible was read often and my father took me to another Meeting often (my father and mother settled on her Methodist upbringing and so he was split in his beliefs). I felt as a child that there was something so special about the quiet though my father said nothing about "centering" or "looking for the light within". He did practice trying to see the good in everyone and encouraged us to do the same. I had, until recently, begun going to a Unitarian Universalist Congregation but didn't like the "political" infighting. I wanted PEACE, so I found a Meeting that brings me peace and I am making connections with people and seeking to be of service to the Meeting in some small way. My terror is that I will be told that I have to "take Jesus for my Lord and Savior" or...well, you know the rest. I feel God's presence and am comforted by it. I believe there was an historic Jesus and a movement grew from his teachings. I believe that the gnostics wrote just as much as the mainstream Jesus Movement and that in translation through many different languages (the Torah and Qu'ran are always copied word-for-word) and that in the 4th century "the Church" decided what THEY wanted the Holy Bible to say, and that it would remain in Latin so that there would be no question of the Church's authority. I want to become a Quaker, but I don't know if I am able to accept that Jesus was the Son of God just because it is written in a book written by people who may have been as flawed as am I. So what am I? Will I simply remain a "visitor" or "seeker"? If someone has an answer, I would greatly appreciate a response.

[ggshes]

I discovered the Quakers by taking one of those quizzes. I was too conservative for the FGC Quakers and too liberal for the Evangelical Quakers, so I ended up becoming an affiliate member of a far-away Conservative Quaker meeting, which no quiz addresses, since there are so few Conservative Quakers left. Like the Liberal Quakers, they hold their meetings in silence, but like the Evangelical Quakers, they still hold Christianity at the center of their theology.

[kevin-douglasolive]

This is great. I'm glad that Max states that 1) these two variations are imperfect (I don't even know many Friends who are "orthodox" who even use the term) and 2) it's important to do research. It's especially important that Friends meetings state explicitly that they are welcoming congregations. There are evangelical Friends Churches who are (and most aren't) and unprogrammed meetings who aren't (but most are).

[pe]

Valhalla of quakerism ...oh what an image. I love it.

[metsfan]

I'm a lay American Reform Jew, and I took the same Beliefnet quiz, and it said I was a Quaker too. Actually I scored a tie between "Reform Jewish" and "Liberal Quaker" which confirms your assessment of the quiz. Other quizzes have resulted similarly. No surprise that an Israeli Orthodox Rabbi would score as "Quaker" too.

Obviously neither of us answered "yes" to most of the "Jesus" questions. Speaking as a programmer that probably means that they don't score very heavily on the quiz algorithm's "Quaker rating" scale. It probably takes all the answers and compares them to "standard" answers from each group to see which ones you most line up with. Probably the various Judaisms and the various Quakerisms look pretty similar to the algorithm.

If we put Jesus and NT to one side, and if we put Jewish ritual ways to one side (in Quaker jargon, our "peculiar ways") you'll find enormous overlap - the focus on the here and now, this world behavior and righteous behavior; the certainty that regardless of one's beliefs or affiliation the Creator is open to everybody, even "the Spark of the Divine" corresponds closely (I think?) to your "That of God" in everybody.

Attend an Orthodox Jewish service... there is a programmed service led from the front BUT not everybody is following it. There's a guy standing to one side with a prayerbook, doing his own thing and ignoring everybody else entirely. On the other side, two guys are chatting about politics and their grandchildren.

Attend a Reform Jewish service.... there is a programmed service led from the front BUT not everybody is following it. There's a guy in a middle row with his jaw set, insisting on NOT saying some of the prayers and there's a woman on the other side inserting phrases that aren't in the book. At some point everybody stands and recites something together... well they start off together, but two sentences later they are reciting different words at the same time.

Don't worry, they'll have a snack together afterwards.

It may well be that y'all are very close to the religion OF Jesus, as distinct from the religion ABOUT Jesus.

Ask me about the joke about standing for Shema....

[micheledarby-reid]

My family was Hicksite. Didn’t know about the other folks until I was in my 20s. I called a meeting close to my new home in Ohio. The minister’s wife answered!!! She said their meeting was a church! Goose Creek Friends Meeting (my home) was great convergence of the two traditions. We included a short weekly bible reading in silent worship and we had first day school. That’s about as close to mainstream Christianity as I can get.

[DotheImpossible-nt]

Ha. I took the same quiz and also came out Quaker. Funny thing, I was just introduced to the Friends and do like them.

[andrecustodio-]

I'm wondering if there is a place for me in Quakerism. I'm not a modern liberal politically, but I'm into the idea of silent prayer and vocal ministry in a group setting. I would like to feel safe in my vocal admissions of goodness without the prospect of political persecution. Is there a middle-ground somewhere between Liberal and Orthodox Quakerism for someone like myself? Can anyone speak to this? I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Happy to meet online. At the moment, I'm a newbie still considering the leap of faith. For the past ten years, I have been an agnostic. Peace to you.

[kevin-douglasolive]

If you go to the "other meeting" just go with an open mind and realize you may have experienced more diversity in Quakerism than many Friends ever will have.