Quakers’ Way of Worship Distinctive

While thousands of worshipers around the county filed into churches one recent Sunday, a small group of men and women gathered in Norman Cooper’s Ojai living room.

While the churchgoers launched into opening hymns, the Ojai worshipers formed a circle, then settled into silence.

And while priests or ministers delivered sermons to church congregants exhorting them to keep God in their lives, a speaker told members of the Ojai group how U.S.-imposed sanctions have caused Iraqi children to suffer. The small Ojai group is a local chapter of the 300-year-old Religious Society of Friends, known less formally as the Quakers.

On Sundays, Cooper’s home is turned into a meetinghouse for what Quakers call “unprogrammed” services.

“Unprogrammed” means that no minister leads the congregation, which is why Quakers got into trouble in England more than 300 years ago with the Church of England.

“These new thinkers began to think they could go directly go God, which to me is the keynote to Quakerism,” Cooper said.

Some Friends churches have ministers today, he added, but all Quakers originally believed that in every person there is a spark of goodness; that divine revelation is immediate and individual; and that anyone may perceive the word of God in his or her soul.

The actual numbers of Quakers around the world have never been large--there are about 120,000 Quakers in the United States today, and perhaps 200,000 worldwide.

During the Reformation in England, the word “Quaker” was used as a derogatory term when the Society of Friends first began to coalesce as a religion, Cooper said.

“A judge of the Church of England pronounced that he would make the Friends ‘quake’ with fear,” he said.

In the United States, William Penn started the first Quaker colony in Pennsylvania for those Quakers who were being persecuted in England. The Pennsylvania Quakers accepted anyone who was persecuted for his or her religious beliefs--even the so-called freethinkers, who believe in a predetermined universe.

And although they revere the Bible, Quakers have themselves been somewhat freethinking in comparison to mainstream Christian denominations. They are pacifists who emphasize the goodness in man, Cooper said.

“But it is never enough just to oppose war; you have to do something,” he said.

The belief in action led to the formation of the American Friends Service Committee in 1917 in Philadelphia. Since then, the committee, which won a Nobel Peace Prize after World War II, has devoted itself to the relief of civilian populations distressed by war around the world.

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The small Ojai Quaker group contributes to the committee, which currently has several medical workers in Kosovo assisting civilians.

Local Quakers also support Ojai homeless shelters, visit the elderly in convalescent homes and work for legislation that contributes to the cause of pacifism, such as the Friends Committee on Legislation of California.

And they sponsor “Quaker Dial-a-Thought,” where an inspirational message is available 24 hours a day at 646-0939.

The recent unprogrammed Quaker meeting at Cooper’s house began with perhaps a dozen people seated silently in chairs around a living room. A process called Advices and Queries sometimes prompted someone to break the silence and speak for a short time.

“But out of the silence we always move to service,” Hickman said later.

Member Val Schorre agreed. “We believe in genuine social service, not lip service. The silence at our meetings ties in with meditation in a way--but a very practical meditation. It leads not just to calmness, but action.”

The group also heard from a speaker from the American Friends Service Committee, who talked of the suffering of children in Iraq.

“Friends always try to be equal-handed and caring for each side,” said longtime Quaker Priscilla Hickman, who started the Ojai group in 1981.

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In Ventura, a more conservative, “programmed” service is held each Sunday morning at the Evangelical Friends Church with a minister, Pastor Steve Kaas.

Although the Ventura Friends Church is more traditional in its services, with hymns and a pastor, these Friends also have always been socially active, said Kaas.

The Ventura Friends hold programmed church services Sunday mornings, with a typical attendance of 50 or 60.

“The pastor brings a message, and we also have a silent time during which people are able to speak,” said Kitty Leffler, who directs the large Friends preschool on the premises.

The Ventura Friends also underwrite the private Friends Elementary School in Ventura, which is nondenominational.

FYI

The Ojai Quakers meet at 506 Crestview each Sunday at 10 a.m. For information, call 640-0444. The Evangelical Ventura Friends Church holds services at 9:30 a.m. Sundays at 3100 Preble Ave. Call 642-3774 for more information.