Central Yearly Meeting of Friends in the context of "Gurneyite"

Conservative Friends are members of the Wilburite branch of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). In the United States, Conservative Friends belong to three Yearly Meetings: the Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative), the North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative), and the Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative). Of these, the Ohio Yearly Meeting is the most traditional. English Friends affiliated with the Conservative branch of Quakerism are organized as the Friends in Christ and tend to use the terms Primitive or Plain.

There is no single unifying association of Conservative Friends, though a Wider Fellowship of Conservative Friends general gathering is held every two years. The term “Conservative Friends” does not refer to a conservative political orientation, but rather to a traditional interpretation of Quakerism harkening back to the beliefs and practices of the early Friends. The Central Yearly Meeting of Friends is theologically conservative and plain dress-wearing, but since they are part of the Gurneyite branch of Quakers, they are not classed under the designation of Conservative Friends.

Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, originally known as simply the Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after John 15:14 in the Bible. Originally, others referred to them as Quakers because the founder of the movement, George Fox, told a judge to "quake before the authority of God".

The Friends are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to be guided by the inward light to "make the witness of God" known to everyone. Quakers have traditionally professed a priesthood of all believers inspired by the First Epistle of Peter. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, orthodox, universalist, independent, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity, as well as Nontheist Quakers. To differing extents, the Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2017, there were an estimated 377,557 adult Quakers, 49% of them in Africa followed by 22% in North America.