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.
Read more about this topic: Quakers
Famous quotes containing the words relations with, relations and/or faiths:
“I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All of life and human relations have become so incomprehensibly complex that, when you think about it, it becomes terrifying and your heart stands still.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;
We have drunken of things Lethean; and fed on the fullness of death.
Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day;
But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May.
Sleep, shall we sleep after all? for the world is not sweet in the
end;
For the old faiths loosen and fall, the new years ruin and rend.”
—A.C. (Algernon Charles)