The Friends Committee on National Legislation is another Quaker organization working to make positive changes in the world.

Their website describes FCNL as “a national, nonpartisan Quaker organization that lobbies Congress and the administration to advance peace, justice, and environmental stewardship.”

FCNL was founded by Quakers in 1943. They work with lobbyists on Capitol Hill and thousands of people across the country to advance policies they believe are necessary for society. They describe these policies as being “informed by our belief that there is that of God in every person and that all creation has worth and dignity.”

It’s not surprising to see that the work they are doing is consistent with Quaker testimonies of peace, equality, justice, and the protection of the earth.

Some of the areas FCNL has been working on include the Middle East & Iran, nuclear weapons, U.S. militarism, gun violence prevention, immigration, justice reform, and Native American rights.

And they’ve been successful!

FCNL has been pivotal in the creation of the Peace Corps, the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

In concert with their legislative work, the FCNL Education Fund promotes civic engagement through education and training.

FCNL describes their approach this way: “Grounded by faith and morality, we combine a pragmatic and results-driven strategy with a clear-eyed, ambitious vision of the world we seek.”

For more information, visit their website at fcnl.org.

The Religious Society of Friends is small in number compared to many other religions, and might be considered to be a quiet group. We worship in silence. It doesn’t get any quieter than that.

But there are several Quaker organizations actively making noise to try to create a better world.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is one such group. Since 1917, AFSC has been pursuing their goal to “challenge injustice and build peace around the globe”.

AFSC started that year as a way for conscientious objectors to have alternatives to serving in the active military, which goes against the Quaker Peace testimony. In 1919, after World War I ended, they started a program to feed children in Austria, Germany, and Poland. As their website described it, “AFSC was willing to do what others would not—to house, feed, and train people scorned as enemies.”

Through the years the Committee has tackled poverty and racism, provided support for refugees, and opportunities for youth to participate in service projects. They have worked for prison reform, supported farmworkers, and brought to light the abuses of the Military Industrial Complex.

In 1947, AFSC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the British Friends Service Council for their work to heal the damage from World War II, and to prevent future wars.

AFSC is still very active today. In 2022, they were involved with the successful fight to prevent the lethal use of police robots in San Francisco, provided legal assistance to more than 2,000 immigrants in New Jersey, and worked internationally in Burundi and El Salvador. Closer to home, they helped homeowners in Atlanta’s historic Peoplestown community against the City which was using eminent domain to displace them.

For more information about AFSC, go to their website at AFSC.org.

This is the sixth in a series of Reflections posts about Quaker testimonies.

Like the other Quaker testimonies, the Equality testimony has its foundation in the belief that there is that of God in everyone.

On their website, the Lincoln Quaker Meeting in England says “Equality is the acceptance that everyone is equal and every person has the right to be respected.”

Friends believe this means equality for everyone, regardless of their religion, race, nationality, gender, sexuality, age, or ability.

Another aspect of equality that has long been important to Quakers is the fair and humane treatment of prisoners. Early Quakers were often imprisoned for their beliefs. They knew from firsthand experience that conditions in jails were frequently terrible.

Friends Elizabeth Fry and Richard Wiston were two of the early Quakers who started working for prison reforms. That is a mission that continues today for many Quaker organizations, including the Alternatives to Violence Project, which was started by Quakers.

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting sums up equality this way:
treating everyone, everywhere, as equally precious to God; recognizing that everyone has gifts to share.

This is the fifth in a series of Reflections posts about Quaker testimonies.

There are several definitions of the word “society”, and almost all of them contain the word “community”. So it makes sense that the Community testimony is an integral part of the Religious Society of Friends.

On their page about Community, the American Friends Service Committee website says “While the Quaker faith is founded on the principle that every person can have a direct relationship with God, an equally central tenet lies in the power of the ‘gathered community’. When Friends gather in silence to worship, they are collectively seeking the will of God, rather than meditating individually. Shared worship signifies unity and trust.”

But Friends’ concept of community extends far beyond meetings for worship. Quakers have a long history of helping people and building relationships outside of their meetings.

Many Quaker queries ask us to look for ways to extend our faith – through our actions – into ways that benefit our communities.

In that regard, we don’t just mean people who live near us. As Friend Parker Palmer said, “Community does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other.”

The other Quaker testimonies such as simplicity, peace, integrity, equality, and stewardship are founded on not only what is good for Quakers, but what is good for others outside our meetings – in other words, what is good for our community.

Author Ursula Jane O’Shea said it this way:

“Living out the immanent and transcendent aspects of spirituality as a Friend has never been a private matter. Quaker structures depend on the shared inward experiences of members as the basis for worship, the ordering of business, and social and humanitarian action. The Quaker way takes on faith the seemingly irrational proposition that the inspirations of individuals can lead a community to unity and spiritual power, not to chaos and dismemberment.”

This is the fourth in a series of Reflections posts about Quaker testimonies.

The Quaker testimony of integrity forms a foundation not only for all the other testimonies, but for how Quakers want to live their entire lives. The Quaker.org website says “The testimony of integrity is not simply telling the truth; it is speaking and acting in and from the divine in each situation.”

Matthew 5:37 is considered to be the Biblical basis for the integrity testimony: “But let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these comes from the evil one.”

It’s the basis of why many Quakers do not “swear” to tell the truth. They believe swearing that you’ll tell the truth in a specific situation, such as for a court testimony, means there are times you will not tell the truth. And they even expand that to include not making statements that are misleading, even if they are technically true.

Early Quakers became known for their integrity in business dealings. Years ago, it was common for shopkeepers to not put prices on their products. They would negotiate with their customers to get the highest price they could on each transaction. Quaker shopkeepers thought it was unethical to charge different prices to different people for the same product. They would set a fair price and charge everyone the same amount. This approach gave them a reputation for honest dealings, and usually led to profitable businesses.

Anita Lucia Roddick DBE (1942 – 2007) was a British businesswoman and the founder of the British version of The Body Shop, a cosmetics company based on ethical consumerism. Roddick admired “those Quakers who ran successful businesses, and made money because they offered honest products and treated their people decently.”

The QuakerWiki website says, “The Testimony of Integrity also means refusing to place things other than God at the center of one’s life – whether it be one’s own self, possessions, the regard of others, belief in principles (such as rationality, progress or justice) or something else. It is the understanding that even good things are no longer good when they supplant God as one’s center.”

The integrity testimony is a difficult one to live up to, but our lives and our society will be better if we try.

If there’s one thing you can definitively say about all Quakers, it’s that there’s almost nothing you can definitively say about all Quakers.

There are Conservative Friends, Evangelical Friends, Holiness Friends, Liberals, Universalists, Gurneyites, and even Non-theists Friends. They have different ways of worship and different ways they relate to God and the Bible.  

But if there is one thing that most Friends do agree on, it might be the Quaker testimonies.

In their 2021 ‘Guide to Our Faith and Practice’, the Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association (SAYMA) says that testimonies “help mold our conscience and outward behavior.”

But the testimonies are not commandments or rules or measuring sticks for judging people. They are spiritually-based principles that we can use to guide our lives. How Friends manifest the testimonies in their own lives is for each individual to decide.

The Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) website said this:

“They arise from an inner conviction and challenge our normal ways of living. They exist in spiritually-led actions rather than in rigid written forms. They are not imposed in any way and they require us to search for ways in which we can live them out for ourselves.”

Not suprisingly, different Quakers have different lists of the specific testimonies, although there are more similarities than differences between them. In the United States, many meetings refer to the testimonies of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship. These testimonies are frequently referred to by the acronym SPICES.

We’ll take a look at each of the SPICES testimonies in upcoming Reflections.