Book of Discipline (Quaker)

Each Book of Discipline is updated periodically by each Yearly Meeting according to the usual practice of decision making within the Religious Society of Friends.

Nevertheless, this is thought to be the best way of reflecting the breadth of Quaker theology and practice, and is consistent with an intention that they be based in evolving personal experience and 'inner light' rather than fixed creeds.

The writings are not intended to represent strict rules which followers must agree with or adhere to, but may be used as a source of guidance or discipline.

They survived and flourished largely through the practical wisdom of a young man whose spiritual experiences and insights launched the movement.

Having reached the point of near despair, he had a vivid spiritual experience, as he wrote in his Journal: "When my hopes in all men were gone...then O then I heard a voice which said "There is one, even Christ Jesus that can speak to thy condition".

The term "Quakers", which sometimes appears in brackets after the official name, comes from an insult used by a magistrate in Derby when he was sentencing some Friends for being non-conformist (Fox had bidden him to "tremble at the word of the Lord").

On 13 June 1652 George Fox addressed a crowd of about a thousand people on a hilltop called Firbank Fell in Northern England close to the English Lake District.

Margaret and her husband Thomas (a Justice of the Peace and later Member of Parliament) by the greatest good fortune took George Fox into their home, Swarthmoor Hall, and protected him, while the Valiant Sixty of newly converted Quakers ranged far and wide across England, spreading the good news of a simpler form of Christian faith.

[2] This was a list of twenty advices as to how Friends should conduct themselves, formed following a meeting of prominent Seekers at Balby in Yorkshire, and is seen by many as the defining document founding Quakerism.

It contained general advices and regulations, and was the basis of future books of discipline, although the name was formally disclaimed by Friends in 1675.

This publication adopted a new approach of attempting "to state truth, not by formulating it, but by expressing it through the vital personal and corporate experience of Friends".

A new British revision was worked on from 1985, due to requests "not from the centre but from local meetings and individual Friends, as well as committees".

This edition saw the name change to its current form – Quaker Faith and Practice: The book of Christian discipline of the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain.

The chapters on the structure and organisation of Britain Yearly Meeting have been revised several times since then to reflect organisational changes in Britain Yearly Meeting, and latterly to re-write the Chapter on 'Quaker marriage procedure' in connection with the Quaker approval of same-sex marriage.

Some Quakers in Britain have suggested that future editions revert to having two volumes to the Book of Discipline: Church Government dealing with organisation, structure and government of the Yearly Meeting; and Faith and Practice dealing with the beliefs, testimonies and practices of Quakers in Britain.

The fourth revision (giving rise to the 5th Edition, dated 2013) was in connection with the Quaker approval of same-sex marriage in the UK.

Central and Southern Africa Yearly Meeting's book of discipline is called The Handbook of Practice and Procedure, including chapters on structure, organisation and government of the Society of Friends and Quaker experience and concerns.

English and American Friends organized a Quaker colony in Friedensthal (Peace Valley), which existed from 1792 until 1870 in what is now Bad Pyrmont, a city in the district of Hamelin-Pyrmont, in Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany.

The Germany Yearly Meeting (die Deutsche Jahresversammlung or DJV) resulted from the 1923 mergers of the German Annual Meeting with the Friends of Quakerism (Freunde des Quäkertums) and, in 1925, the Federation of German Friends (Bund der deutschen Freunde) and serves as an umbrella organization for the small liberal Quaker presence in Germany and Austria.

It is an anthology of quotes on Swiss Quakers' lives, beliefs and thoughts, published tri-lingually in English, French and German.

[16] Many of the different yearly meetings in the United States have their own books of discipline, most of which are titled Faith and Practice.