Meeting Minute

We of Wilmington Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) affirm a divine guidance to treat others with love and respect regardless of where they were born. Wilmington Yearly Meeting strongly opposes the U.S. government’s policy of mass deportations and ongoing harassment of undocumented immigrants in this country.

As Quakers, we believe in the sanctity of every human life. The latest escalation of violence between Israel and Palestine breaks our hearts and compels us to demonstrate our testimonies of peace, truth, justice and equality. We grieve for every life lost, and for every survivor suffering from the unspeakable violence in this troubled region.

The current presidential administration’s raids and deportation of immigrants harms families and communities and violates the values that we, as a country, profess.

Seeking and speaking truth motivates us to create the following statement of our deep concern with the current government’s stark disregard of Constitutional principles and laws, and the harm being done to the people of our country.

In response to the October 2023 attack by Hamas militants, the government of Israel launched what human rights organizations* have concluded meets the definition of genocide.** The Israeli military is rendering the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for Palestinians.

We cry out for the violence in Gaza to stop—for an end to the killing of Palestinians and for the Israeli hostages to be released.

The recent police raid on the Westminster Quaker Meeting House has strongly shaken the U.K. and the wider Quaker community.

The deportation of human beings from our country risks being crowded off the front pages by other events. But it is an urgent and critical issue that is being enforced in ways that violate our democratic values.

Quakers from Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas met in annual sessions April 13-20, 2025 and approved a Minute which enumerates ways in which Trump administration policies are in conflict with Friends’ testimonies.

Members and attenders of the Santa Fe Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) mourn all loss of lives, homes, and communities that are the result of violence in the Middle East, regardless of the nationality or politics of these victims.

As Quakers we believe in the sacred worth of each person and stand against violence in all its forms. We are deeply concerned about the suffering, death, and destruction that this conflict is causing. We call on our leaders to recognize that we are complicit in the devastation of Gaza.

We believe with moral clarity, and in line with the definition of the crime of genocide, that the current actions in Gaza perpetrated by the Israeli government constitute genocide.

Because of our testimonies of integrity and equality and our commitment to peaceful resolution to conflicts, Quakers from Austin Texas call on our US government to end American complicity in genocide as defined by the international Genocide Convention.

As Quakers we value Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, Justice, and Stewardship. We are called to search for the Truth and to recognize “that of God,” a divine Light, that is inherent in every person. We believe the policies of the current governments are in stark conflict with the values and holy guidance we believe we are called to follow.

The Northern Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, Quakers of the Upper Midwest of North America, wish to voice our opposition to the deliberate starvation and destruction of civilians’ lives and properties in Gaza by the government of Israel.

Because of our testimonies of integrity and equality and our commitment to peaceful resolution to conflicts, Quakers from Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas call on our US government to end American complicity in genocide as defined by the international Genocide Convention.

Western Quarterly Meeting feels compelled to express our deep concern over the action willfully taken by the leaders of our country to bomb Iran in June 2025 that may be the first step toward another virtually endless war.

An epistle from BBIPOC (Black Brown Indigenous People of Color) Decolonizing Friends.

Still, if a widely held opinion that we regard as mostly erroneous threatens grave harm, we feel called upon to address and oppose it. Such is the case of a cluster of opinions that go under the common name Christian nationalism.

To our representatives, Through your action or inaction, you have permitted the intrusion of federal officers into our houses of worship to abduct our friends and neighbors. We cannot accept this transgression of the sacred; both the sacred stillness of our worship, and the divine human rights of our persecuted friends.