Quakers
Christian denominational family (1652–)
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, originally known as simply the Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after John 15:14 in the Bible. Originally, others referred to them as Quakers because the founder of the movement, George Fox, told a judge to "quake before the authority of God" along with their critics stating that they would shake or tremble while preaching.
The Friends are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to be guided by the inward light to "make the witness of God" known to everyone. Quakers have traditionally professed a priesthood of all believers inspired by the First Epistle of Peter. To differing extents, the Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, orthodox, independent, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity. In 2017, there were an estimated 377,557 adult Quakers, 49% of them in Africa followed by 22% in North America.
Some 11% of Quakers worldwide practice waiting worship or unprogrammed worship (commonly Meeting for Worship), where the unplanned order of service is mainly silent and may include unprepared vocal ministry from those present. This form of worship originated with the practices of George Fox and the early Friends, and is the dominant form in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Southern Africa and parts of the United States.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q170208. VIAF identifies the subject as 167782622. The Library of Congress control number is n79066083. 4 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2017.
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This entry incorporates text from “Quakers” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.