Yes, Publisher, thank you for sharing. Before reading this thread, I had no idea that the Quakers were so far removed from Catholic teaching, or even from most protestant teaching.
Your comments would not have surprised me if you were a member of a church founded in the last few months or years (The Church of Woodstock comes to mind, as does another fictional church which my Aunt used to mention - “The Church of What’s Happening Now.”)
If you search, and you think you’ve found the answer (no matter what it is), then, by golly, you actually have found it! What a deal. Everybody can believe what they want, and still live in total tolerant harmony. We all agree to disagree. No creeds. No pesky Tradition to worry about. The Bible can be interpreted at will per the need du-jour. And the narrow path turns out to be very very wide. No pain, no suffering, no chastisement of sinners, no crosses to bear. Except those which one takes great pride in bearing, so as to prove ones love of mankind, to mankind.
We must love our enemies, of course, as you point out. And I suppose that it doesn’t even hurt to call them Friend, but we must love them despite their sins, and not love them so much that we tolerate or endorse their sins.
As GK Chesterton said: “Tolerance is the virtue of the man with no convictions.”
Now, having said all this, I also have no doubt that you are a fine fine person who loves God, and his fellow human beings. It just seems to me that we are called to do battle with evil for our sake and the sake of others. “War is not the answer”, except, sometimes it actually is.
