What do people mean by “Pastoral” and “unprogrammed?”
The original Friends believed that God was accessible to all people without the need for intercessory priests, or in fact, any clergy at all. They were especially disdainful of clergy who made a living by preaching for money, because they saw first-hand that the paycheck often influenced the preaching. For the first two hundred years, the Society maintained a unified testimony against a paid professional clergy, but in the mid-19th century the new Othodox Christian branch divided. It had manage to stay unified for twenty years only by a joint interest in opposing the Hicksites. The Conservatives (or Wilburites) maintained the original witness that God was willing and able to minister to His people unassisted, while the new Pastorals (or Gurneyites) soon began hiring professional clergy. Over time the two groups have also diverged, with the Pastoral bodies now often indistinguishable from modern non-denominational Protestant churches. The vast majority of modern Friends worldwide are Pa
