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Thanks, Dan, for the info. Having grown up in eastern PA, I have a passing knowledge of Christian pacifist movements. It has always been my understanding that "conscientious objector" used to have very strict requirements. You had to have established credentials (being a practicing Amishman or Quaker, for example, would have done it) but since the Mohammed Ali fiasco the whole practice has gone downhill.

It is also my understanding that CO's can be pressed into non-combat roles. I could be wrong about that, however. I do know that many genuine pacifists performed much homeland humanitarian assistance during WWII in particular.

I am very interested in your assessment of madprof98's assertion that some Quaker sects have gone to calling themselves non-Christian. My understanding of Unitarianism, for example, is that it varies widely from church to church. Have Quakers gone that route? Have you visited other Quaker churches?

My understanding of the conscientious objector status during WWI & WWII is similar to yours- that the requirements were stricter (you needed to have strong credentials, such as being Quaker, Mennonite, or Amish), but that claiming CO was a lot less controversial- once you were registered you simply served in a non-combat role, without the hullabaloo that surrounded CO in the Vietnam era.

As for the "Christian" issue, that's a tough question, and I think that Quakers are not of one mind about it. Certainly, Quakers are Christian in a historical sense; they arose as a heretical Christian movement in 1600's England, along with the Puritans, Shakers, and many others (and like the Puritans, were persecuted and many were chased to Holland and the colonies).

However, Quakers are notoriously non-doctrinal, so there's no official Quaker creed which states that they are or are not Christian. There are a few core beliefs (that the "Spirit" or "Light" lives in everyone, adherence to pacifism, along with a few others), but nothing like a Nicene Creed that lays out exactly what the theological doctrine is. Quaker doctrine does not include any statement about the precise nature of the trinity, whether Jesus was "begotten, not made", original sin, or other traditional theological topics. Quakers do not practice a number of traditional rituals, such as baptism or communion, but they do perform religious weddings.

I think that the situation among practicing Quakers is much like the situation in other mainline Protestant churches (Episcopal, Presbyterian, etc); some people will say that they are Christian and that Christ is the literal son of God, others will say that they are Christian (in that they worship the Christian God) but that Jesus should be understood to be a great teacher, not the Messiah, and still others will agree that Jesus was a teacher not the savior, and think that that probably makes them "not Christian". It's all a matter of what people understand to be required to count as a Christian.

Different meetings/congregations will have different feels to them. I've been to a conservative meeting ("conservative" in the sense that it's like meetings from the early 1800's, not in its politics which are, by tradition, quite liberal), where a Bible was one of the few books present that people would look at and read from (but usually the parables, not the more doctrinal stuff in Paul's letters). Another meeting I've gone to (and didn't much like) has a "New-Agey" feel to it, and you'll hear more about Gaia than Christ. There are evangelical Quaker churches (mostly in the southwest) where members are "born again through Christ". All of them call themselves Quakers, and the main Quaker organizations try to represent all of their viewpoints.

Overall, though, Quakers spend very little time on whether they are Christian or not, and what it takes to count as Christian; this, I think, is part of the reason why they often don't seem like real Christians. I think the feeling is that it's easy to just say that Jesus was or was not divine, but what's hard (and what really counts) is whether your actions reflect your belief that there is something of the divine in everyone.