Five (Kind of Surprising) Things to Know About Quakers

#5. In general, Quakers don’t swear or take oaths.

By swear I mean swear on the Bible or on your mother’s grave or any other form of making what you say more truthful at this time than at any other time. Quakers highly value integrity, or simply put, telling the truth. To make a show of telling the truth by swearing an oath calls into question whether or not you have told lies at other times. Quakers don’t swear because they don’t purposely tell lies. Friends might be misinformed, but when they have better information, they tend to correct their previous statements. This is a remarkably widely shared tradition. In England, Quaker business people and bankers were trusted because of it. Barclay’s and Lloyd’s are two banks founded by Friends, and there is always Cadbury chocolates.

So if you ever wondered why in legal settings in the US you are asked, “Do you swear or affirm?” — now you know.

If you have questions about Quakers, please ask, and I will do my best to answer them.

Peace.

Further reading:
http://www.quakerinfo.org/resources/statistics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers_in_Africa
http://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/166
http://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/187

Photo credits:Hands credit: pixabay; Quaker woman speaking credit: Wikipedia Commons