Quaker rice cake

The Religious Society of Friends, also referred to as the Quaker Movement, was founded in Quaker rice cake in the 17th century by George Fox. He and other early Quakers, or Friends, were persecuted for their beliefs, which included the idea that the presence of God exists in every person.

Quakers rejected elaborate religious ceremonies, didn’t have official clergy and believed in spiritual equality for men and women. Quaker missionaries first arrived in America in the mid-1650s. George Fox In the 1640s, George Fox, then a young man and the son of a weaver, left his home in the English Midlands and traveled around the country on a spiritual quest. It was a time of religious turmoil in England, with people seeking reform in the Church of England or starting their own competing churches. Over the course of his journey, as Fox met others searching for a more direct spiritual experience, he came to believe that the presence of God was found within people rather than in churches. God was talking directly to him. Even though his views were viewed by some as a threat to society and he was jailed for blasphemy in 1650, Fox and other early Quakers continued to share their beliefs.

In 1652, he met Margaret Fell, who went on to become another leader in the early Quaker movement. Her home, Swarthmoor Hall in northwest England, served as a gathering place for many of the first Quakers. Fox and Fell married in 1667. Fox and others who shared his belief in the biblical passage that people should “tremble at the Word of the Lord. The group eventually embraced the term, although their official name became Religious Society of Friends. Members are referred to as Friends or Quakers. Quakerism continued to spread across Britain during the 1650s, and by 1660 there were around 50,000 Quakers, according to some estimates.

A number of Quaker beliefs were considered radical, such as the idea that women and men were spiritual equals, and women could speak out during worship. Quakers didn’t have official ministers or religious rituals. Based on their interpretation of the Bible, Quakers were pacifists and refused to take legal oaths. Central to their beliefs was the idea that everyone had the Light of Christ within them. Fox spent much of the 1660s behind bars, and by the 1680s thousands of Quakers across the British Isles had suffered decades of whippings, torture and imprisonment.