Why am I a Quaker?

Linda Murgatroyd takes up the challenge and considers the question ‘What can you say?’

by Linda Murgatroyd 28th September 2012

Isn’t it interesting how controversial the ‘I’m a Quaker: ask me why?’ badges seem to be! Some of us seem to find it so difficult to give a positive response to the question. More generally we often make negative, rather than positive, statements when asked what Quakers believe, or how the Society is run (‘We don’t all believe …’, ‘We have no paid priests’, and so on).  The important question that came to George Fox in Ulverston in 1652 was ‘What canst thou say?’ not ‘What canst thou not say?’ Early Friends clearly felt that they had a responsibility to tell others about the Way they had found and I’m sure that this helped them clarify what they could say.