What are the historic and continuing Quaker "testimonies"?
The Quaker testimonies--what Friends have stood for publicly as a form of Christian witness--derive from their central belief in the essential oneness and equality of all persons (women no less than men). This has found expression in simplicity of life style, integrity in personal relations, and at times controversial stands on public issues.
The Peace Testimony is perhaps the most widely known of these. Taken as a whole, the Society of Friends is strongly opposed to war and to conscription. It seeks to remove the causes of war; it tries to reconcile factions and nations; it ministers to suffering on both sides of conflicts; it helps to rebuild at war's end. It witnesses creatively to the power of nonviolence in the movement toward social change.
Another Friends testimony supports social justice. Quaker colonists in America were fair and friendly with their Indian neighbors, and they early advocated the abolition of slavery.
Many Friends today are non-proselytizing, disinclined to witness verbally for their central religious beliefs.
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