Читать книгу American Quaker Romances. Building the Myth of the White Christian Nation онлайн

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Despite salient continuities, one should nonetheless note that Quakerism has diverged and splintered since its inception in the seventeenth century. Plain dress and speech have long been abandoned by most Friends, as have the strict rules that determined who was to be disowned, for example, for marrying outside the Quaker Meeting or for disobeying the Elders’ admonitions. Today, there is a Quaker population worldwide of approximately 380,000 (Staff 2017: n.p.) belonging to different branches which, in America, resulted from several nineteenth-century splits, though the separations did not affect British Friends in the same way. In brief, there are three branches of Quakers today (Dandelion 2008: 17-18). First, there are Evangelical Friends Churches which have pastors and give great importance to Scripture. This is the largest group worldwide and “they represent an important and aggressive strand of American Quakerism today” (Hamm 2003: 5). Second, there is a small group of Conservative Friends who still adhere to silent worship and plain dress. Finally, there are Liberal Friends, who are the most doctrinally permissive about matters of belief, and consequently include theist and even non-theist Quakers. They tend to be ideologically more progressive and to involve themselves as activists in various causes like disarmament, anti-racism, or environmental issues, to cite a few examples.