Welcome To Doylestown Friends Meeting!
The central belief of Quakers is that there is a spark of the Divine in every person. From that concept flows the traditional Quaker concerns for nonviolent conflict resolution, respect for each human being, and the belief in everyone’s ability to have a direct, living relationship with the Divine.
At Doylestown Friends we meet for worship on Sunday mornings in the Meeting House at 95 E. Oakland Avenue in Doylestown, PA. We seek to be receptive to the Spirit within ourselves and others. We are an open and inclusive community, and guests are welcome.
- Meeting For Worship: 10 AM Sunday at the Meetinghouse
- Children’s Program: 10:15 AM Sunday at the Meetinghouse
- Meeting For Business: 11:30 AM Second Sunday (Zoom Access Available – Click HERE)
**DUE TO THE SNOW THE MEETINGHOUSE IS CLOSED ON 12/14. PLEASE JOIN US FOR MEETING FOR WORSHIP AT 10 AM (AND BUSINESS AT 11:30 AM) ON ZOOM AT THE LINK ABOVE**
STATEMENT ON THE VIOLENCE IN GAZA AND ISRAEL
As Quakers who worship that of God in every person of all religious and national affiliations, we are heartbroken by the unceasing atrocities and dehumanizing brutality perpetuated in Gaza and in Israel.
We condemn both the violent Hamas attack and the indiscriminate Israeli response, given the large disparity between the resources of both groups. Together we mourn the loss of each child, each civilian, each soldier, and we grieve for those suffering from the trauma inflicted by terror and bombardment. We pray for the safe return of hostages and for the preservation of Palestinian and Israeli families.
No peace can ever be achieved through violence; therefore, we call for an immediate cease-fire and for a more vigorous commitment to productive diplomacy. This enduring conflict bears witness to the world that hostility breeds only displacement, hunger, injury, more hostility, and ever-widening global instability. Immediate humanitarian aid must reach those living in ever-present peril.
We call upon our government to cease supplying arms and to employ every diplomatic effort to ensure the transport of basic human provisions and medical aid for everyone in dire need. We call for Friends to never cease listening to all voices. Recognizing that the underpinnings of this multifaceted conflict lie deeply rooted in past harm, we call upon all governments and international agencies to begin the long, difficult, but essential process of peace-building. We applaud the efforts of both Palestinian and Israeli peace-building groups who continue their efforts amid the most grave circumstances. We are aware of and affirm the process of the South African government in bringing the issues of genocide to the International Court of Justice.
Peace is the highest form of justice, and as Quakers, we answer the call of our testimony to pursue that peace.
Below are links to other Quaker statements:
STATEMENT ON BLACK LIVES MATTER
We, the members of Doylestown Friends Meeting, acknowledge that we are a largely Euro-American white community and we are committed to interrupting the pattern of white privilege we inherited. We stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and embrace the diversity of all peoples and will act to break down institutional racism.
STATEMENT ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE
We advocate for the US, its allies and the United Nations to make avoidance of nuclear conflict its primary goal, to pursue all possible avenues towards a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian conflict and to help both Russia and Ukraine reach an immediate cease-fire. We ask the US government and military representatives to refrain from statements that assert or imply that the use of aid to Ukraine can be a means to fight a war by proxy with Russia, as this will bring us closer to a nuclear war. We ask that the US military and government refrain from the use of good versus evil as a template to engage in war. Such rhetoric can lead to unrelenting escalation of a conflict on both sides with the dehumanization and disregard of civilian populations resulting in war crimes such as death camps and indiscriminate bombing. War is a failure of humanity. It yields only death and unspeakable horror in its execution and multi-generational torment in its aftermath. War never provides lasting Peace. War is not the answer. Here are links to other Quaker statements: FCNL.org and FCNL.org
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is with humble awareness that our Friends Meeting acknowledges that the land on which our meetinghouse stands is the ancestral and unceded land of the Lenape peoples, known as Lenapehoking.
We acknowledge that the Lenape peoples stewarded this land for thousands of years before the arrival of the colonizers. We acknowledge that the Lenape peoples were banished, dispossessed and sometimes murdered by our ancestors.
With this awareness we make a commitment to change our perspective on how we regard this land. It was not our right to merely take these lands and waters with disregard for the peoples who inhabited them, with little to no understanding of their relationship to and stewardship of them. We seek to cultivate gratitude for the privilege to live, work and play on this land and its waterways, knowing that many families of the original inhabitants are still suffering today from those losses. May all that we do on these lands and waterways be done with mindfulness and out of respect for its original stewards, the Lenape.
This awareness also brings an obligation by our Meeting to continue to educate ourselves on the often-unknown truths of our history with Indigenous peoples. We will continue to look for ways to support an awareness of the Lenape in diaspora, who are the federally recognized tribes forced to relocate:
The Delaware Nation (OK)
The Delaware Nation at Moraviantown (ON, Canada)
The Delaware of Six Nations (ON, Canada)
The Delaware Tribe of Indians (OK)
The Delaware Tribe in Stockbridge–Munsee Community in Wisconsin
Doylestown Friends Meeting 