Q 01/05

What is the formal name of the body whose members are known as Quakers?

A) The Society of Friends

B) The Society of Seekers

C) The Fellowship of Truth

D) The Church of the Inner Light

Answer · why

A) The Society of Friends

Members call each other Friends; the formal name dates from the 18th century and derives from 'Friends of the Light' and 'Friends of Truth'.

Q 02/05

Who founded the Quaker movement in mid-17th-century England?

A) John Bunyan

B) Roger Williams

C) John Wesley

D) George Fox

Answer · why

D) George Fox

Apprenticed to a shoemaker, he had a revelation in 1647 that Christ could be experienced directly without ordained clergy.

Q 03/05

How did the nickname 'Quaker' originate?

A) It comes from an Old English word for oath-refuser

B) They refused to fight and were derided as cowards

C) A magistrate mocked the founder's call to tremble at God's word

D) Members visibly shook during their silent worship

Answer · why

C) A magistrate mocked the founder's call to tremble at God's word

Fox recorded that Justice Gervase Bennet 'was the first that called us Quakers'; the ridicule stuck and many Friends adopted it.

Q 04/05

Where in Lancashire did the founder have his 1652 vision of 'a great people to be gathered'?

A) Kinder Scout

B) Pendle Hill

C) Helvellyn

D) Ingleborough

Answer · why

B) Pendle Hill

He then travelled around England, the Netherlands and Barbados preaching that Christ had come to teach his people himself.

Q 05/05

What name is given to the travelling preachers who spread Quakerism in the 1650s?

A) The Valiant Sixty

B) The Twelve Publishers

C) The Company of Light

D) The Northern Apostles

Answer · why

A) The Valiant Sixty

Also called the First Publishers of Truth, they actually numbered more than sixty; Edward Burrough, who debated John Bunyan in pamphlets, was one.