What do Friends believe? Do they have a creed?
Quakers do not have a creed as such. No single statement of religious doctrine is accepted by all the regional bodies of Friends that make up the larger Religious Society of Friends. Each of these yearly meetings has its own Book of Discipline or Faith and Practice, which includes statements of belief or doctrine and the uniquely Quaker features: Advices and Queries. There is a link to the Ohio Yearly Meeting Book of Discipline on the home page of this site. The statement on Friends’ beliefs by George Fox, also on a link from the home page, is not a creed as such, but represents a general statement of Friends’ shared beliefs. George Fox, a troubled and searching young man in Seventeenth Century England, underwent a profound religious experience that he described as a voice answering his need: “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition.” The immediacy of Christ became the heart of his message and ministry, the beginning of the Quaker movement. Belief in the Light
