ABSTRACT
Twenty-first-century Friends profess a wide range of perspectives from non-theist to vigorously evangelical. These differing sources of authority may result in divergent Quaker futures that might be summarized as purity and convergence. Purity can take many forms. A more positive dimension of purity is the rejection of those aspects of secular culture that encourage people to amass wealth or to focus their lives on gaining power over others. Friends profess a standard of truth-telling that sets them apart from the culture of lies which seem so prevalent. Convergent Friends are a loose movement rather than an organization, connected by personal relations, blogs, and websites that aggregate Quaker thinking and commentary from multiple perspectives. The implicit goal is dialogue and joint worship rather than agreement; participants distinguish convergence or coming together from consolidation or unification, and some parse the term as combining the “conservative” reinvigoration of traditional Quakerism combined with the “emergence” of new forms of expression and communication.
