We are approaching the 200th anniversary of a pivotal moment in our history as Friends: five of the eight yearly meetings in North American Quakerism split into rival bodies. As those bodies have further diverged, it can feel like each has lost a critical portion of the original Quaker message.

Jerry "didn’t name the light... didn’t brand it... didn’t push it, hawk it, or sell it," Sean Crane recalls. "He simply peeled back layer upon layer of his own human frailty until the finest core piece of him was exposed, and he left it there for us to see, to hear, to feel, to play music with."

"What does the future hold for Jesus that God’s angels should be concerned for his well-being? Why has he been given into my care? I have nothing to offer him to help him on his way other than my love. Will that be enough?" John Andrew Gallery revisits the Christmas story from Joseph's perspective.

Earlier this year, one of the most powerful men in the world began musing about what would happen after he died. “I want to try and get to heaven if possible,” he said. Well, just about everybody had an opinion about THAT. Even some Quakers, though we don't all agree about whether heaven exists.

Ellen Swallow and Ruth Patrick were environmental scientists and pioneers in their fields. Two new books for younger readers tell their stories—and according to chemistry teacher Laura Barrosse-Antle, "both deserve a place of pride on the shelves of the young Friends and scientists in your life."

If Quaker discernment leads to the revealing of Truth and living the Quaker way means following Truth, then how did Friends end up enslaving people, settling on stolen land, and contributing to an abusive carceral system? Consider the ways Friends let their own thinking get in the way of Spirit.

"In my experience," hospital chaplain Becky Jones writes, "the effectiveness of prayer isn’t measured by whether we get what we ask for; rather, it is by how much we are opened up in the process."

I am a former Evangelical. For this episode, I spoke with Jasson Arevelo, an Evangelical Quaker from El Salvador. We explore the differences between Unprogrammed Quaker Meetings in North America and Evangelical Friends Churches in Central America. #Quakerbeliefs

Although Washington, D.C.-based poet Paige Towler never uses the term “grounding technique," that’s what each page of Mindful Nature teaches young readers: to pay attention to the sights, sounds, smells, and textures around you, while also engaging the imagination.

Some Quakers may feel drawn to activism because of the ways it fulfills secular philosophies of justice or morality. Yet the core testimonies that have informed Friends' actions for nearly four centuries derive from something far weightier than political judgment. quaker.org/2025/12/15/s...

Defense counsel for Jacob Hoopes, the young Quaker charged earlier this year by federal prosecutors with assaulting an ICE agent, have been granted a continuance for his trial, scheduled to begin this week. The new trial date is February 17, 2026. Friends Journal continues to monitor this story.

In this month's Quakers Today podcast, Sweet Miche and Peterson tackle a question that seems simple but is actually quite complex: What do Quakers believe? Join us as we explore the wide theological spectrum of the Religious Society of Friends.

Springtime Storks is a heartfelt narrative based on a real-life story about a female stork wounded by a hunter and nursed back to health. Though she remained unable to travel long distances, she found a lifelong mate in a stork who followed normal migratory patterns, returning to her each year.

Quakers' understanding of pastoral ministry has set them apart from other Christian denominations for nearly 400 years. As he considers how these views have shifted, Jasson Arevalo wonders: Will there be Friends willing to carry forward the legacy of faithfulness and obedience of past generations?

Quakers believe every day is sacred, and that those of us with a Christ-centered faith celebrate Jesus's birth, death, and resurrection all the time, not just at Christmas and Easter. Still, as QuakerSpeak viewers learned in 2020, many Friends take comfort in the year-end focus on the Nativity.

The challenge facing Quakers today is how to feel and share the experience described by George Fox: “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition.” How can that experience be described and shared in new ways, using contemporary language?

What if instead of asking what #Quakers believe, we talked about what Quakers love? I talked with Tom Gates this morning about Quaker beliefs and his article in this month’s @friendsjournal.org

The award-winning Chooch Helped is a charming story of sibling rivalry in a present-day Cherokee family living in the United States. Both the author and the illustrator are citizens of the Cherokee Nation, and the book includes words and imagery from Cherokee language and culture.

What drew audiences to John the Baptist? Quite simply, they came because he had a message that, to borrow a turn of phrase from George Fox, spoke to their condition. They chafed under the rule of a foreign oppressor, and John declared God would soon come to liberate them. quaker.org/2025/12/08/w...

"If we keep silent as a people, the half-believing, the lukewarm… ones who should come forward but stay in the mountains’ shadows, the coolness of caves, silent as if they had no tongues, then even the rocks will cry out, which have no tongues." —from "Even the Rocks Will Cry Out," Cynthia Gallaher

Ten months ago, the Trump administration deported two planeloads of asylum seekers—including 81 children—to Costa Rica, where they were put into a de facto prison. A group of Quakers in Monteverde was led to confront the Costa Rican government—and welcome some of these refugees into their community.

Benjamin Lay became one of the first Quakers to take up the cause of abolition, well before most other Friends saw its spiritual necessity. Historian Marcus Rediker has spent nearly a decade telling Lay's story to as many audiences as possible—with a new biography for children joining the portfolio.

"If meetings exist only to comfort us, they will not sustain us," Tom Rockwell warns. "They certainly will not make us models of an entirely different way of living from secular culture." Let's choose connection over isolation, and testify to our belief no one is outside the reach of God’s love.

"I know from my own experience that the more I say something, the harder it is to listen to what I’m saying, and the less it means," Pamela Haines writes. "So I’m skeptical about putting a lot of weight on the value of saying what we believe." So how DO Friends figure out our shared vision, then?

In The Littlest Drop, a hummingbird is building her nest in preparation for laying eggs when, not far away, a small spark lands on a leaf and grows into a raging inferno. As other animals shelter near the river, the hummingbird begins to carry water in her beak, one drop at a time, to the fire.

"From my cavern of envy, I present to you Rant #42. My wife has each one numbered, you see. This one concerns the barren cupboard of my life—self-pity at how we can’t even dream of buying a parking space in the neighborhoods where we once lived…" —from "Real Estate Blues" by Alexander Levering Kern

Like John the Baptist, George Fox could sense the ax at the root of the trees, ready to cut everything down. He was convinced that the Spirit of Christ was already moving through this world—and he wanted to help others recognize and embrace that presence among them. quaker.org/2025/12/01/e...

John Allen built a one-room cabin with a loft in Snow Camp, North Carolina, around 1780. His descendant, Marjorie Allen, was the last child born in the cabin, and narrates a story from her childhood (as told to her daughter, Jean Parvin Bordewich) in The Lost Book.

There is a prominent strain in Christian spirituality that teaches that we do not become better persons by obtaining more knowledge or different beliefs but by acquiring better loves. Hence, early Quakers exhorted one another to “love the Light”—even when it shows us things we would rather not see.

"Advent isn’t only about waiting for something to happen in the future. It’s about noticing what’s already holy now. The Christ who is coming has already come—and keeps coming still."—Teri McDowell Ott, @presoutlook.bsky.social. That advice would surely have resonated with the earliest Quakers.

"Making a knife for me is sort of like meeting for worship," Henry Freeman told us in 2024. As you get settled in, he explained, "there are parts of making that knife that are very routine... The place I really get to feel centered is when I get to the part of making the knife that really matters."

Some people look at the beloved community as a purely human endeavor, where everybody treats each other well because it makes sense to live that way. Others see God’s hand in its creation: “See,” God told the ancient Israelites, “I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.”

"On the platform of the Lexington Avenue and 96th Street station, a tall man was bent over a trash container. His body was folded at the waist, and his long, thrashing arms banged against the sides of the container, tipping it from side to side..." A Thanksgiving story from Jeanine M. Dell’Olio.

“Contemplation," Pico Iyer writes, "does not in any case mean closing your eyes so much as opening them, to the glory of everything around you. Coming to your senses, by getting out of your head.”

Have you sat in silent worship and had your mind spin out of control? I can totally relate. Centering is not always peaceful; sticking with it has enriched me. Listen to Quakers Today podcast as we demystify the internal experience of "waiting worship." www.quakerstoday.org @friendsjournal.org

Throughout history, people have tried to frighten the masses into believing the world will end, plunging us all into eternal torment. In Christian circles, this is often associated with "the Rapture." Quakers (usually) don't get caught up in these panics—why not? quaker.org/2025/11/24/y...

From the spring day in 1652 when Margaret Fell met George Fox and became convinced of the truth of Quaker ways, she threw herself wholeheartedly into the young movement. Shulamith Clearbridge takes a fresh look at one of Margaret's many letters, finding much wisdom in her words for us today.

Can Mary Magdalene be an example for Quakers? Jennifer Powell McNutt's The Mary We Forgot suggests the Magdalene’s apostleship (commissioned by God, outside of any formal office and despite cultural barriers) can—and should—challenge the church to cultivate women's gifts for faith and ministry.

“What brings you out on this cold night, Robert and Silas?” Jacob asked. “We’ve come for your gun, Jacob," Silas said. "We know you won’t join us, and we respect that, but we need more weapons to fight the British.” Vickie Aldrich's "A Quaker's Gun" is a brief but compelling historical drama.

What does the Quaker practice of listening for Spirit look like in our day-to-day lives? How does it shape our relationship to the prophetic wisdom of the Hebrew Bible & the New Testament? Over the last few months, we’ve asked several Friends to discuss their understanding of continuing revelation.

FJ staff writer Sharlee DiMenichi spoke with leaders at some of the eight Quaker organizations that issued a joint statement a few months ago expressing their belief that the Israeli government has been committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza to learn how the statement was discerned.

"Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day of mourning and is a call to action. Too many of our siblings face danger, rejection, and loneliness simply for being who God created them to be. Today, we say clearly: You are loved. You belong. We will walk with you."

Max Carter has lived, worked, and traveled in Palestine–Israel for decades. His latest book offers detailed reflections on the annual service learning trips that he and his wife, Jane Carter, co-led from 2006 through 2019 for Guiiford College students and for Friends United Meeting.

"I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, [and] I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall no longer fear or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord." (Jeremiah 23:3-4) quaker.org/2025/11/17/i...

Gumby as a Quaker icon? Hear us out.
 Curiosity + kindness + imaginative compassion = a surprisingly perfect combo.
 Catch this short clip from “Quakers and the Mystery of Worship.”
 www.friendsjournal.org/podcast/quak... @friendsjournal.org

Oooh, this sounds like it might be in our wheelhouse. “A mode of religious practice that willingly disregards scripture, creeds, & confessions when they fail to suit the needs of the moment" seems like it might have much in common with Christ-centered Quakerism. We shall have to investigate further!

Whether you’re a long-time Friend or someone who has never stepped into a mostly silent meeting, the latest Quakers Today podcast is pulling back the curtain to explore what happens in our hearts, minds, and bodies when we sit together in worship.

David R. Haines is one of the leading collectors of Quaker books and manuscripts. Two new books, based on documents of the early eighteenth-century Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, reflect David’s interest in Quaker history—and are a model of both painstaking investigation and careful editing.

"A Fine Showing for the Court of Owls," imagines 18th-century Friend Benjamin Lay telling, in his own words, how he confronted "those haughty so-called Quakers... wrapped up tight and respectable within the softest shoe leather and finest cloth" for their participation in the enslavement of others.

In 2021, we asked Johanna Jackson and JT Dorr-Bremme to share some of their thoughts after spending 18 months talking to Friends about what makes for healthy spiritual communities. What did they see for the future of the Religious Society of Friends?