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P=Poetry, N=Nonfiction, F=Fiction
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N – Friends Journal Seeking Submissions on the Theme: What do we believe?
Fast Facts
- Features run 1200-2500 words.
- Questions? Email editors@friendsjournal.org
- Learn more general information at Friendsjournal.org/submissions.
One of the most googled searches about Friends is “What do Quakers believe?” It’s the theme of our upcoming December 2025 issue and a very reasonable question that is surprisingly hard to answer both simply and accurately. We try, only to find ourselves devolving into history lessons or hedging our answers with weak phrases like “for me…” or “for my type of Friend…” Once upon a time, not so long ago really, a certain kind of confident Friend might give answers that applied to one’s own yearly meeting’s Quaker experience, but in an age of instant communication and easy world travel, it seems rather arrogant to claim any one of us can actually speak for the global diversity of Friends.
On the other hand, is it its own kind of tyranny to demand we find commonalities? What’s wrong with having a subset of Friends that holds a clearly defined identity? The many schisms among Friends, past and present, attest to strong, well-articulated beliefs that their adherents felt were essential to Quakerism as they understood it.
Quakers began with a critique of creeds—those succinct, easily memorized statements of faith that make most churches’ doctrine clear and tidy. What we believe has always been a slippery question, made more so by divisions and conflict within our religious society. Is this history all that ties us together today?
How do you answer this question? Have you found a way to describe our beliefs that covers most if not all Quakers? Do you answer with classic principles of Quakerism or with the varied practices of actual Friends in your area? All of us have different influences. How do we know which are part of our Quaker identity and which aren’t? Is it even a question to ask? And how in all this do we take into account those Friends whose beliefs differ from our own?