I am not religious and have no desire to start being now but sometimes I just want the community people get with church. I am craving connection with the community and feel it’s very healthy for families and neighbors as well. The United States is seriously lacking in third spaces and communities. It’s leading to a serious loneliness epidemic… Just wondering if there is anything that can fill that need for non-religious folks?
Interesting thought experiment. The thing is, Puritanism is older than Quakerism, I think. Oldest long term English Settlement in the region is Jamestown from 1607, but quakerism is 1657’-52. The Puritans had a head start.
I also get the feeling Catholics and the other protestant groups, who later settled in the USA in huge numbers, would have hated the hypothetical Quaker majority and done violence against them or driven them out.
Fun fact: Quakers were important advocates against slavery in the UK (presumably in the USA too), from its very inception.
Oh I know, and I understand why it didn’t work out that way. But imagine if it did.
Also yes, the quakers were also very anti slavery in the US. The quakers seem to be (from what I’ve read) on the right side of almost every issue the capitalist imperialist west has faced for as long as they’ve been around.