Religious Society of Friends
- Grew from
- Anglican
- From
- 1652 AD
- Origin
- England
- Confession
- Richmond Declaration 1887 AD
Founded by George Fox around the inward light given to every person, with no clergy and no sacraments in the usual sense.
What marks it out
Meeting for worship in silence, with anyone speaking only as moved — no liturgy, no sermon, no clergy and no sacraments, since the whole of life is held to be sacramental. Business decided by discerning the sense of the meeting rather than by voting. Plain speech and refusal of hat-honour, which was a deliberate refusal of social rank. The peace testimony, stated to Charles II in 1660 and unbroken since, and early and costly leadership in the abolition of slavery and in prison reform.
Figures
- George Fox
1624–1691
The inward light, and the founding of the Quakers
Alongside it
Also from Anglican.
In the record
-
1607–1750 AD Migration
Migration to the Americas
Puritans, Quakers, Catholics and Anabaptists carried their divisions across the Atlantic, where the absence of an established church let them multiply.
This body appears in the history but does not carry recorded doctrinal positions here, so it is absent from the comparison panels.