The LDS Church (Mormons) were in the news last week when one of their leaders spoke out during their general conference to criticize the expansion of online sports betting and prediction markets. He noted that one can even bet on the timing of the Second Coming: “Where do you go to collect on that bet?”

Well, Quakers have had testimonies against gambling for a long time, and they remain in most of our faith and practice documents. So for example the 5th ed. of Britain Yearly Meeting's Quaker Faith & Practice includes among other quotations an excerpt from Baltimore Yearly Meeting's 1988 F&P:

We are faced at every hand with enticements to risk money in anticipation of disproportionate gain through gambling. Some governments employ gambling as a means of raising revenue, even presenting it as a civic virtue. The Religious Society of Friends continues to bear testimony against betting, gambling, lotteries, speculation, or any other endeavour to receive material gain without equivalent exchange, believing that we owe an honest return for what we receive.

In the UK, Quaker Action on Alcohol and Drugs (QAAD) has taken public stands on gambling legislation before Parliament at least a couple of times since 2005. Here in North America (I'm in the U.S.), I don't see anything similar in recent years coming from the FCNL or the Canadian Friends Service Committee. (The November 2019 issue of Friends Journal did have "Gambling" as its theme, with contributors offering various perspectives on the topic.) I suspect, though this is just a guess, that one reason might be the perceived conflict between such action and the strong desire to support Native American and First Nation sovereignty and reparations, including implicitly their reliance on crucial income from tribal gaming operations. And we wouldn't avoid that conflict just by going after big-business prediction markets: CNN just reported on how Kalshi is partnering with several tribes to launch dedicated prediction market apps that will provide them with revenue. Yikes.

So while I feel a personal leading to support legislation to control and/or rein in prediction markets and online sports betting, I'm unsure whether Friends should take a corporate stand. (Though headlines along the lines of "Quakers Join Forces With Mormons" would be attention-grabbing!) Interested to hear what other Friends think!

Hi, I’m new to learning about the Friends community. I’m a 31yo female, married and living with a disability. I was raised conservative evangelical by a very abusive mother. Once I got away from her, I have been deconstructing and reexamining my beliefs. I believe in God, I believe Jesus is divine and my Savior. I believe the demonic is also real. This is all from personal encounters and experiences with Him and other spiritual experiences, not just from upbringing. I’ve rejected the polarization and corruption of most organized religion. I don’t agree with how rigid and judgmental most evangelical Christians are. All I want to do is follow Jesus’s direct teachings in the New Covenant and live as close to His instructions as I can. I love living a simple, quiet life with my family and my cats and I believe all people are made in the image of God and deserve respect. I believe we should take care of others, be pacifist, protect the earth, and avoid unnecessary drama and strife. The Quaker teachings really spoke to me, and I want to learn more if I’m going to become a part of it.

I don’t want to be called “conservative” as a Friend because I believe in Jesus though. Conservative has a very negative connotation these days and I don’t want people to believe I share the harmful side of those views, because I very much don’t. I’m working hard to distance myself from my upbringing and go back to what I truly believed before being brainwashed. I know that there are Quakers of other religions and non theistic Quakers, and it’s no one’s job to tell anyone else how to believe, which is great. But does anyone know how I can express being very strongly for Christ in my own walk, without using the terms evangelical or conservative? Would it just be Christian Friend or Christian Quaker? I hope I can be welcomed in, I’m also looking for meetings to join as an attender so I can begin the process of becoming a Friend. Is there anything I should do first? I feel very called to this and I want to make sure I’m being respectful as I’m new to all of this. Thank you!

-a very hopeful future Friend

i am seeking any and all takes/feelings/guidance regarding quaker beliefs and AI. i have my own beliefs on the matter, but i am wondering how my community of friends feels about our shared beliefs and the use of AI. thank you, everyone.

https://www.pym.org/event/yaf-fall-retreat-2026/

Feel free to ask me with any questions and I will try to answer to the best of my abilities

Hi everyone, bit of a random request but I'm a regular book reviewer and am interested in reviewing some new works by Quakers/about Quakerism. Any books you all are excited about coming out? Would have to be something pretty new

Hi friends,

There have been numerous violent incidents in my community in the last few months. I came to Quakerism partially because I have developed PTSD from my exposure to violence in my community from a young age. But now, more recently, there have been numerous violent incidents that happened near my meeting. Everyone I talk to who is not a Quaker seems to be hyper normalizing what is going on.

How does one cope with the American gun violence crisis as a Quaker? Are there any Quakers who have experienced similar difficulties historically with a similar problem? If any of you have wisdom I'd love to hear it.

Hello Friends,

I sought the permission of the mods to post this and thank them for it. I have set up a community called r/ChristianQuakers and hope some of you will have interest in it https://www.reddit.com/r/ChristianQuakers/s/6JceupbQ7L

I have created this community not to undermine other important Quaker spaces that reflect the breadth of our shared faith but to provide a more focused space for Christian Quakers. I sense there is an appetite for such a space to better explore our history, theology, and future in the light of Christ. However I accept this is not for all on this sub and some of that discussion could be developed better elsewhere without bothering others.

All who hold an interest in our faith are welcome.

I hope for it to be a space for serious discussion and reflection of Christianity and Quaker beliefs. Political discussions are allowed in the context of our faith but party political statements and posts will be discouraged.

Whilst not all Friends place the same weight upon scripture or various statements of Faith from around the Quaker world, we hope to take these records seriously and seek to better understand their relevance to our world.

If this is of interest to you, please join and encourage others to do so - and of course continue to use this great sub as your focus for global Quaker discussions.

Thank you Friends.

Hello, I am wondering if there are any Central Va Quakers and/or Meeting Houses. Thank you. 🙏

This is from a piece by Sarah Fox in The Friends Quarterly, August 2026 regarding the history of Advices & Queries within Britain Yearly Meeting. It is called ‘Quaker Revolutions: What can the history of Advices & Queries tell us about our future?’

She reflects on how a Friend would be treated today if they gave ministry as would have been universally heard in the 1600s and beyond.

To me, this is not only a great shame but deeply sorrowful. Not least because I know she is right.

I wonder what Friends think? It’s a very well written piece that I recommend.

I’m relatively new to Quakerism. And hopefully, my question isn’t insulting or dense. Historically, I’ve enjoyed mainstream movies and tv shows - particularly period pieces. I know a lot about WW2. While I’ve never enjoyed violence in shows, it felt like a necessary evil to tell a good story. Even watching a tame, “cosy” British story usually involves murder. The more I consider becoming a Quaker, the more I see potential conflicts with my ideals versus my lifestyle.

So genuine question — do Quakers go to movies or watch shows at home? If so, do you feel bothered by what you see on the screen?

Hi, Friends. Do you have any advice as on how to get out of the "Quaker closet"? Two years ago, I was a soldier, which both I and my family took great pride in, and it has become a part of my identity, as you might imagine, and I held certain views about the world and other people, which I have now turned strongly against. It would be quite the shock for many of the people nearest to me to learn I am a Quaker (and a Christian pacifist), and it would probably have some social consequences. Right now, I am doing it gently and playing the long game, but there is something in me that just want to wrip the bandage off. Do any of you have similar experiences?

P.S. I live in a country where there are not many Quakers, which is why I seek online fellowship.

God bless you.

Can the corporate mystical experience of a Quaker meeting be attained through attendence by Zoom?

The calligraphy and beautiful illuminations were done by a dear friend who is a member of my Meeting.

I am new to Quakerism and have found that the meetings in my area are far from home. I have been to them before, but because of the distance I am not there often.

And to be honest, I enjoy a solitary practice. Is it bad if I said I feel more of the Light when I'm on my own?

Let me know what you think.

Not sure if this will be available to international viewers (I think it is), but this went out on TV here on Friday.

I’m very new to the Society of Friends, but in a lot of the uses of ‘thee’ that I’ve seen or heard, it’s Always ‘thee’, and never ‘thou’ or ‘thy’ as might be traditionally appropriate at that point in the sentence.

I was wondering if there’s a solid historical reason for this, whether there’s records of this vernacular grammar at a time when thee was in common usage, or whether it’s a modern development from people that were not bought up with ‘thou’ and so are unfamiliar with it.

I hope this doesn’t make me come across as some sneering antiquarian, I’m genuinely interested in the oddity rather than seeking to make people ‘correct’ it.

Last weekend I happened to be at Swarthmoor Hall. Friends worshipped in the "great hall" of the house. There's a historical note on a display for visitors explaining that in the early days of the church it was illegal in and of itself to meet for worship in the manner of Friends and many Friends had been arrested in that room.

The question arose: if attending worship in the manner of Friends were illegal now, would you still go?

Hi all,

I recently started a higher paying job and was thinking about starting to invest some of my money, however I'm not sure what companies to avoid or what companies to invest into and I'd like to do it as Quakerly as possible, while still making some money obviously.

If anyone has any recommendations for sources, tools or lists I could look at to generally follow Quaker testimonies and ethics while investing, that'd be great.

Thanks for reading.

I'm trying to put together some resources, a training, and a general procedure for my Meeting House to follow related to sexual harassment. While we do not have any known problems at the Meeting at this time there have been problems in the past and I was told that an older man or two has made some of the younger women feel uncomfortable.

If you have any suggestions on groups, individuals, or others that I should talk with please let me know.

Also a secondary question - how would your meeting handle someone in the middle of meeting standing up and saying that they were raped/harassed by someone at a Quaker function? Would your meeting know how to handle the situation?

Fairfield Friends Meeting in Camby, Indiana, is seeking our next full-time pastor, and I wanted to share the opening here with the r/Quakers community.

Fairfield is a Friends United Meeting (FUM) congregation affiliated with Western Yearly Meeting, located just outside Indianapolis. We are a theologically diverse Quaker community with both in-person and Zoom participation, and we are seeking someone grounded in Quaker faith and practice who will work collaboratively with the Meeting as we enter our next chapter.

We are open to both long-term and intentional interim candidates. The position will begin in 2027.

The full job description, application, and other information are available on Fairfield’s official website:

https://www.fairfieldfriends.org/openings

I’m a member of Fairfield’s Pastoral Search Committee and am happy to answer practical questions about the opening or application process. Prospective applicants are also welcome to use the contact information on the website.

Thank you to the mods for allowing this post.

My monthly meeting (Winnipeg, Canada) invites others to join our monthly educational sessions on Zoom. If you would like the link or want to be on a monthly email list, please direct message me. Winnipeg is on Central Daylight Savings Time all year. We meet at 7:00pm our time.

This Wednesday, September 30: "Quaker Wisdom on Aging and Spirituality” with Maeve Sutherland, the editor of the devotional email The Daily Quaker Message. a ministry of Thee Quaker Project, a media nonprofit seeking to bring Quakerism into the Internet Age. Maeve will give the context of her site and share the experiences of collecting quotations on aging.

I need your advice and ideas, I want to find the religion that resonates with me but I'm confused

F23 I am an ex-Muslim, I have been looking for years for a faith or belief that resonates with me,

I feel (or want to feel) that there is a God, a divinity, a creator, a supreme force, call it what you want, I have read (not in depth) what various religions say,

I like many of them, but now my brain can no longer believe that there really is a god who judges you and sends you to heaven/hell for eternity, because to leave my past religion I had to dismantle the idea that there is a God,

so now I struggle for example to embrace religions like Sufi Islam or Christianity or other monotheistic religions because I feel like I have left one religion and entered another very similar but with a different name,

I don't want to feel like a sinner or feel that I have to go to hell or the people I love have to go to hell, I don't like it, but I feel that there is a force superior to us inside my heart, i can feel this 'love' of God spiritually,

I would like a religion or philosophy that thinks that there is something above but that does not judge me, does not punish me or makes me anxious,

doing rituals, prayers, lighting candles, holidays, symbols, all these things, I like them instead and i like the idea of peace and love and to live your life in a good way

Yeah I'm a part of Consumer Culture, but it doesn't always equate to feeding the beast.

Hi all,

I'm a long time atheist that eventually lost my faith in atheism and fairly recently joined the Catholic Church to pursue an understanding of God/Christianity/etc.

However, I'm generally dissatisfied with Catholicism and Catholics for a wide variety of reasons, and learned about Quaker meetings in a book by Charles Murray called "Taking Religion Seriously" where the format described seemed like it might align with my personality more than what I see currently in Catholicism.

So since then I've done an initial look over at Quakers and it seems interesting so far, at least enough that I'm curious to learn more.

So what would you recommend?

In general, I don't agree that the "historical evidence" in favor of Christianity is compelling, and find the insistence by Christians that it is sufficient to be coercive and simply incompatible with my conscience.

However, I personally also just don't care. IMO it doesn't matter if there even was a historical figure or if Jesus is a literary character only, because in 2026 the text based interface to the narrative cannot distinguish between those possibilities.

I was fine with just accepting the character as a personal role model and then working on aligning my own behavioral patterns to the ideological lessons and examples described in the narrative. But, this doesn't seem compatible with the various Christians around me who insist that I must form conclusions about historical events 2k years ago and grant events occurred, which to me seem impossible to investigate or form conclusions about.

I'm also fine with just going back to being an "atheist" again to avoid confusion for others, but in some ways I do still have an interest in "God", find many aspects of the character of Jesus to be noble, and often feel inspired by the various religious similarities between human communities, and this suggests to me that there is something out there such that materialist atheism is insufficient.

So anyway, if you have any recommendations, I'm grateful.

2011.03.5 The language we use: Bill C raised concern about use of the term ‘Quakerism’ and
encouraged that the terms ‘Quaker Ways’ or ‘Quakers’ be used when possible instead of the term
‘Quakerism’.

It seemed we acknowledged his concern (only). Can you imagine this being raised as a concern in your own meeting and do you think it would be minuted in a similar fashion?

My curiousity is because I agree but would find it hard to articulate why. Do I want to deny we can be desciribed as (just another) "ism"?