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Robyn Lebron

God or Gods
Because the Quakers teach that each person develops his own
understanding of the truth, the teachings about God and Jesus also vary
from one group to another. The conservative groups believe “there is
a Trinity of the Father (God), the Son (Christ), and the Holy Spirit
that comprises ‘‡  God; personal and incorporeal. Jesus Christ is
God’s only ‹…ƒ”ƒ–‹‘Ǥ God is manifest within all as the light.
Jesus possessed the light to the highest degree and is “–Š‡ ‹‰Š–
™‹–Š‹ .” But the more liberal teachings vary from belief in a
personal God as an incorporeal spirit to questioning the belief in a
personal God. Beliefs vary from the literal to the symbolic belief in
Jesus Christ as God’s incarnation. Most believe we are all sons and
daughters of God, with the main focus on experiencing and listening
to God, the Light within, accessible to all. Friends generally believe
that firsthand knowledge of God is only possible through that
which is experienced or inwardly revealed to the individual human
being through the working of God’s quickening Spirit.4

Christ
Seventeenth-century Friends shared with other Christians a firm belief
in the unique, messianic nature of Jesus of Nazareth. They teach that
the word of God is not the Bible, but Jesus Christ Himself. For George
Fox it was central to the people of God to let everyone know, whether
Jews, Turks, Christians, or heathens, that there is no salvation in any
other name under heaven, whereby they must be saved but in the
name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, crucified and raised from the dead.
As with their other teachings, diverse personal beliefs have
developed over time. Some Quakers believe that Jesus Christ was just
a great religious leader who was sent by God to show us the example

of the kind of life we should live. And some Quakers do see Christ as
a source of our salvation. You will, in general, find some
disagreement among Friends about whether there was a virgin
birth, whether various miracles were supernatural occurrences or
religious embellishments, whether Jesus was the Son of God or just
one of God’s children, etc. You will however find agreement that
those differences are ‘–‹’‘”–ƒ– Ǥ5

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