"It (Quakerism) is not a creed. It is not a scheme. It is not an organization. It is a life."
– Rufus M. Jones
About Us
The West Knoxville Friends Meeting (WKFM) has been in existence since the 1950′s. We celebrated our fiftieth birthday recently. We have been gathering in today’s meetinghouse, in a wooded lot in West Knoxville, since its construction in the early 1960s.
Like many Quaker organizations, WKFM has no pastor. The meeting’s business is conducted by members and attendees. The clerk, and people with other responsibilities, are chosen when we conduct our business meetings.
Friends in our Quaker organization gather for worship and other purposes at least once a week, yet we are a monthly meeting because we discuss the meeting’s business every month. The monthly meeting is analogous to a church, synagogue, temple, or mosque in other religious traditions. The complete name of our organization is: The West Knoxville Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.
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What We
Believe
Simplicity
Seeking the inner light calls for recognition and removal of distractions and ordering of priorities in order to be more open to the leadings of the Spirit. Simplicity need not mean stark denial but can create joy and beauty in our lives. In the use of time, habits of consumption, sharing of world resources, and indeed every aspect of daily life, simplicity is central for us because it both mirrors and deepens spiritual centeredness.
Peace
Friends affirm that the best way to relate to people is to appeal to that of God within them. Trusting to the leadings of the Spirit and respecting the Inward Light in all others can avert violent conflict. Denying the legitimacy of war, Friends support those led by the Spirit into a conscientious objection to military service, resistance to conscription or a military draft, war tax resistance, or other acts of civil disobedience that witness against war-making.
Friends do not recognize “just” wars since war represents a refusal to pursue other ways of resolving conflict. We work to gain wider support for nonviolent solutions. Friends aid victims of violence, whether from war, crime, community, or family strife out of the belief that each person is uniquely valuable. For the same reason, Friends also reach out to the perpetrators of violence. Support for prisoners, refugees, programs for economic justice, and similar efforts serve not only to remove the causes and aid those touched by violence and oppression but also to encourage nonviolent means of solving problems, locally and globally. We recognize that violence can manifest itself in words as well as deeds. As Friends, we endeavor to bring all aspects of our lives into harmony with this testimony. The peace we seek starts in the individual heart and its relation to God. It is expressed in all our relations.
Integrity
Integrity is wholeness. Integrity requires consistency of action and straightforward and honest speech. “Do all aspects of your life bear the same witness?” From the beginning, Friends have sought unity in their private way of acting, their public stance, and their relation to the natural world, seeking to live under divine guidance.
Community
Friends are bound together in community by a continual process of common seeking and experience of the Light within. The community provides spiritual and emotional nurture. It also stimulates our thinking and challenges us to put into practice our convictions.
Within this fellowship, divergent leadings are often present. Friends seek a balance between the needs of the individual and those of the group. Open recognition of and respect for differences, forthright sharing, and sincere reflection can lead individuals to new insight and strengthen the meeting as a whole. Friends strive to be sensitive to others’ spiritual and material needs. Both requesting and giving assistance are essential aspects of Friends’ life together. Friends also provide spiritual support by holding in the Light those experiencing special hardship or joy.
Equality
Friends reject stereotyping, discrimination, and artificial barriers that separate people from one another. Equality has been the foundation of Friends’ approach to each other and the world.
Friends believe that all people have the capacity to bear and respond to the Light and that all forms of human relations should reflect this spiritual truth. Friends avoid behaviors that grant superiority based on social status or wealth. They reject the use of honorific titles. Friends believe that we are called to work to end prejudice and oppression. In the last two centuries, many Friends have worked and are working toward honoring and expanding the rights of women and people of color. More recently, Friends are beginning our work to expand equal rights regardless of sexual orientation.
Friends have no creed, but when asked about our beliefs, we often point to Quaker Testimonies. Testimonies are not statements of beliefs to be subscribed to, instead, they are recognized values based on the evidence of actions and emphases of Quakers throughout our history. Some commonly recognized testimonies are the acronym SPICE:
Our Spirituality
Although the Religious Society of Friends began as an alternative form of Christianity in the 1600s, many consider themselves spiritual instead of religious. We seek guidance from spiritual leaders and individuals regardless of religious or spiritual affiliation. Quaker thought is both mystical (waiting upon God) and prophetic (speaking truth to power). Modern Friends may or may not align with a specific religious philosophy. It is our understanding that religious knowledge, like the appreciation of beauty, is not attained by a logical process of thought but by experience and feeling.
We look for that of God in ourselves and recognize the Spirit in all others. We believe that seeking to understand in silent, expectant waiting will result in the way opening to a clearer understanding.
When we gain insight it is our obligation to end our silence and act on the revelations brought about through our expectant waiting. We acknowledge we have much work to do concerning social issues within ourselves, our societal structures, and the world.
According to the traditional practice of Friends, most gatherings begin in reverent silence. Although silent waiting appears similar to meditation, out of this silence may come the individual urge to speak, to share with the group some insight or some questioning. In this way, individuals minister to the group. Such words are not an interruption to the silent contemplation: the messages often speak to the hearts of others. It is this tradition of silence and sharing that makes each gathering of Friends unique.