LARRY.....Got a question.....Pacifist means what exactly? I view things through a lens of "is it worth killing for." The fact that I can think of a few things that would lead me to do so keeps me from any serious pacifistic view. I can't commit past a certain point. Do the Quakers have "sects" shall we say that take a differing view or is the pacifist belief in non-violence an integral part of the life? Is it violence or violence against my fellow man? I wonder this because Norman Morrison was I think widely revered for his actions and yet I can think of very few things less violent. It's bothered me for a long time actually and I thought, what the hell, I'll ask someone who knows.
My dear Friend: You ask a very complex question, so I hope I can answer it in one or two goes. Yes, there is a divercity of opinion about the meaning and extent of pasifism among Friends. Don't forget, Richard Nixon, (my fingers cramp to type this...) was a Friend. And, yes, there are sects after a manner, and once a schism, though the division was on thological ideas other than pasisfism. So, I will begin with Quake's and the peace testimony.
Our peace testimony comes out of the fact of seeing God in everyone. Killing becomes impossible when you so include that other in your understanding of God's process that you are open and present to that person as a part of God's working.
Now, Quakerism is about process, not outcome. So, many Friends remain open (I hope) to finding their way to the above, but are not yet there and have been fighting Friends. Quakers have fought in most wars from the Revolution on - sometimes in the past, at the cost of being read out of their meetings, sometimes not. However, being read out of meeting is not a shunning, one can still go to meeting, and just not be on the rolls as a member.
As to the sects, they fall into three main catigories with many many sub catigories. Hicksites (like me) run the gammut from Christ may or may not be devine and that the bible is good theolgy for the most part, but not the hand of God, but is a rather flawed history book and a human artifact.. , to those who, as I do, feel that worshiping Christ as actualy God on earth more than any other of us, is to be pagan, and place an abstraction for God in the way of God, and the bible is a good way of discovering Jesus as a Hillelian rabbi and Hillel, who was a real light. Sect 2 Wilburites Jesus is God, is the light, the Bible is important but not more important than that still small voice all Quakers listen to in worship. Gurnyites: Jesus is God and the Bible is infalable and when your still small voice contradicts the bible, you are wrong.
That is a simplified version. But, I think the accepting of the peace testimony is pretty much eqaully accected and rejected by members of all the above.