The Religious Society of Friends (also known as Quakerism) holds as the basis of its faith the belief that God endows each human being with a measure of the Divine Spirit. The gift of God's presence and the light of God's truth have been available to all people in all ages.
Love, the outworking of the Divine Spirit, is the most potent influence that can be applied in human affairs, and this application of love to the whole of life is seen by the Society of Friends as the core of the Christian gospel.
The immanence of God implies that all persons are children of the Divine and brothers and sisters of one another. All have the capacity to discern spiritual truth, and to hold direct communion with God. No mediator, rite, or outward sacrament is a necessary condition of worship. Inspiration and guidance may be realized through meeting with others in a group worship where vision is made clearer by the shared experience of those present.
The Society of Friends has no formal creed. No one speaks for all Friends or for all times. We are a religious fellowship based on common religious ideals and experiences rather than a creed or liturgy.
Each person must prayerfully seek individual guidance and must follow the Light found within. Each will be helped by studying the developing interpretations of God in the Bible and the ideas of the great spiritual leaders of all faiths.
All seekers who in spirit and in truth try to find and follow the will of God and who are in sympathy with the principles and practices of Friends, we welcome to our fellowship.
(Excerpted from "Faith and Practice" of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting, published August 1988)