Quakers - Relations With Other Faiths

Relations With Other Faiths

Relationships between Quakers and non-Christians vary considerably, according to sect, geography and history.

Early Quakers distanced themselves from practices that they saw as pagan, such as refusing to use the usual names of days of the week, since they derive from names of pagan deities. They refused to celebrate Christmas because of its basis on pagan festivities.

Early Friends attempted to convert adherents of other faiths to Christianity, for example George Fox wrote a number of open letters to Muslims and Jews, in which he encouraged them to turn to Christ as the only path to salvation (e.g. A Visitation to the Jews, To The Turk, and all that are under his authority, to read this over, which concerns their salvation and To the Great Turk and King of Algiers in Algeria. Mary Fisher attempted to convert the Muslim Mehmed IV (the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire) in 1658.

In 1870, Richard Price Hallowell argued that the logical extension of Quakerism is a universal Church, which demands a religion which embraces Jew, Pagan and Christian, and which cannot be limited by the dogmas of one or the other.

From the late 20th century onwards some attenders at liberal Quaker meetings actively identify with faiths other than Christianity, such as Judaism, Islam, Buddhism or Paganism.