Part 4: The Quakers

Many of my friends have heard Quakers, but most don't know its history or philosophy.

Some are surprised when I mention that they probably know one or two organizations founded by Quakers. Some of the familiar ones are Amnesty International, Barclays Bank, Cadbury, Greenpeace, Johns Hopkins University, Lloyds Bank, Nike, Oxfam, and Friends School Kamusinga.

Quakers also won the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize.

Quakers are a religious movement that has its roots in 17th Century England.

The word "Quakers" is a derogatory term coined by its early critics. They noticed its followers trembled as they worshipped, so they called them Quakers (as in an earthquake).

Its proper name is The Religious Society of Friends, and George Fox (1624 - 1691) is its founder.

Fox grew up during the English Civil War, and he was troubled by the chaos, strife, and suffering he witnessed.

He travelled around England looking for answers, but he was dismayed by the shallowness of those he sought guidance.

"I did not find even one priest who could speak to my condition," he writes in his memoirs.

"However," he adds, "when I was about to give up, a voice appeared to me and told me that in my search, I had left out the only one who could: Jesus Christ. If you seek him directly, he can speak to any of your conditions."

Fox believed this to mean that it is possible to have a direct conversation with Jesus without the involvement of ordained clergy. He began travelling around England preaching this religious testimony.

He taught that there is a light of God in every person and that it's through it that God speaks to everyone. For someone to find his or her light (hear what God is telling him or her), he or she had to keep quiet and listen to Him.

Out of Fox's teaching, a religious movement was born whose followers worshipped in silence.

Although there have been several splits in the Quaker movement since the 17th Century, most Quakers still worship the way George Fox and early Quakers did: in silence.

Quakers refer to the buildings where worship as meeting rooms. They are the equivalent of what other Christian groups call churches.

However, unlike churches, where everyone sits facing the pulpit, where a priest delivers a message, worshipers in a Quakers meeting room face one another. Quakers don't have priests or pastors, so they don't need a pulpit.

The congregation in a Quakers' meeting are referred to as friends, and they consider their worship sessions as a meeting of friends. There is no hierarchy, so everyone is equal.

The walls of a Quakers meeting room are plain. They contain no writing, art, or symbols.

A typical Quakers' worship session comprises about an hour of complete silence by those present. There is no bible reading, preaching, or singing of hymns.

As they sit quietly, each one of them engages his or her mind in the search for God's light, a special message that God has for him or her individually or for the friends present in the meeting room. If any of them finds his or her light, he or she stands up and shares it.

The 17th Century was a period of religious intolerance in England. Anyone who held views contrary to those of the established Church of England was considered blasphemous.

The Quaker faith caught on quickly and became very popular in England and Wales, but some people thought their style of worship was strange. Because of it, thousands of Quakers were persecuted. George Fox, the founder, was jailed eight times in ten years.

However, it is not just for their style of worship that Quakers were persecuted. Fox and other early Quakers held views that were considered out of tune with the religious and political thinking of the time.

Quakers opposed war and refused to serve in the army. They opposed slavery when the Church of England preached that slavery was Biblical. They taught that women are were equal to men before God's eyes when the Church of England did not allow women to speak in church.

Because of persecution, many Quakers moved to North America, where they thought their beliefs would be tolerated. However, even in America, they did not find accommodation.

Their relief, however, came in 1681, when King Charles II of England granted William Penn a charter to establish a colony in North America where Quakers could settle and practice their faith.

Penn was from a prominent Quaker family in England. King Charles II owed money to the family, and he was unable to repay. He, therefore, gave them the colony as compensation.

That colony was named after William Penn, and it is what we refer to today as Pennsylvania.

It is from here that Quaker faith spread to other parts of the world.

In Kenya, it arrived in 1902, when three Quaker missionaries, Willis Hotchkiss, Arthur Chilson, and Edgar Hole, came to Kenya. The colonial government gave them 1000 acres in Kaimosi where they wanted to set up a mission.

The mission of the Quaker faith is to create a better world. They are mainly concerned with human rights, equality of all human beings, social justice, peace, and environmental protection.

Quakers view the Bible as an essential inspirational book, but they don't consider it the only one. They also read other books to guide their daily lives.

Quakers don't celebrate Christian festivals such as Christmas or Easter, and they don't practice rites that are common in other Christian faiths, such as baptism or sacrament.

Like other faiths, Quakers have suffered splits and divisions.

Today, we have Evangelical Quakers, whose practices are similar to other Christian churches.

However, mainstream Quakers faith still worships in silence.