Congregationalism, type of Protestant church organization in which each congregation, or local church, has free control of its own affairs. The underlying principle is that each local congregation has as its head Jesus alone and that the relations of the various congregations are those of fellow members in one common family of God. Congregationalism eliminated bishops and presbyteries.

History of the Movement

In Great Britain

The movement to which the name came to be applied began in the 16th and 17th cent. in England in a revolt against the Established Church. Robert Browne Browne, Robert, c.1550–1633, English clergyman and leader of a group of early separatists popularly known as Brownists. Browne conceived of the church as a self-governing local body of experiential believers in Jesus.
..... Click the link for more information. published in 1582 the first theoretical exposition of Congregational principles and expressed the position of some of those separatists separatists, in religion, those bodies of Christians who withdrew from the Church of England. They desired freedom from church and civil authority, control of each congregation by its membership, and changes in ritual. In the 16th cent.
..... Click the link for more information. . Churches established on such lines were started very early in the 17th cent. in Gainsborough and Scrooby, but government opposition drove them into exile in Holland.

Not until the Protectorate did the Congregationalists make much progress. About that time the name Independents Independents, in religion, those bodies of Christians who claim freedom from ecclesiastical and civil authority for their individual churches. They hold that each congregation should have control of its own affairs.
..... Click the link for more information. was first introduced, a term long common in Great Britain (it is still used in Wales) but seldom used in America. In 1658, when the Savoy Synod met in London, over 100 churches were represented. With the Restoration came repression for the Independents, partly relieved by the Toleration Act of 1689.

A marked tendency among English Congregationalists in the 19th cent. was toward combination in larger fellowship. Churches of this denomination formed a union in Scotland in 1812 and in Ireland in 1829; in 1831 the Congregational Union of England and Wales was established. The Congregational Union and the Evangelical Union were united in 1896. Membership in Congregational churches in Great Britain has declined in the 20th cent. Congregationalists have been active in ecumenical activities, and in 1972 most British Congregationalists and Presbyterians merged to form the United Reform Church.

In America

Congregationalism was carried to America in 1620 by the Pilgrims, who were members of John Robinson's congregation in Holland, originally of Scrooby, England. In America, Congregationalism reached its greatest public influence and largest membership. In New England numerous communities were established based on Congregational-type religious principles. In 1648 in the Cambridge Platform Cambridge Platform, declaration of principles of church government and discipline, forming in fact a constitution of the Congregational churches. It was adopted (1648) by a church synod at Cambridge, Mass.
..... Click the link for more information. a summary of principles of church government and discipline was drawn up. Congregationalists took a leading part in the Great Awakening Great Awakening, series of religious revivals that swept over the American colonies about the middle of the 18th cent. It resulted in doctrinal changes and influenced social and political thought.
..... Click the link for more information. that, in New England, was started in 1734 by the preaching of Jonathan Edwards Edwards, Jonathan, 1703–58, American theologian and metaphysician, b. East Windsor (then in Windsor), Conn. He was a precocious child, early interested in things scientific, intellectual, and spiritual.
..... Click the link for more information. . As the country expanded, Congregational churches were established in the newly opened frontier regions.

In 1810 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions began its work; in 1826 the American Home Missionary Society was formed. These were followed in 1846 by the American Missionary Association, primarily devoted to missionary work among African Americans and Native Americans. The early part of the 19th cent. brought the Unitarian secession, when over 100 churches left the main Congregational body.

Congregational churches began to meet in local and then in statewide conferences, out of which developed (1871) the National Council of the Congregational Churches of the United States. But each local church remained free to make its own declaration of faith and free to decide its own form of worship; in the conduct of the local church each member was granted an equal voice. The principal assistants of the pastor are the deacons. In education Congregationalists were always prominent, but the institutions of their founding—Harvard, Yale, Williams, Amherst, Oberlin, and many others—have generally been free from sectarianism.

The trend toward broader fellowship and larger cooperation was notably indicated in the merging in 1931 of the National Council of the Congregational Churches of the United States and the General Convention of the Christian Church (see Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), sometimes called Campbellites, a Protestant religious body founded early in the 19th cent. in the United States. Its primary thesis is that the Bible alone should form the basis for faith and conduct, each individual
..... Click the link for more information. ) to form the General Council of the Congregational and Christian Churches of the United States. A move to unite the Congregational Christian Churches with the Evangelical and Reformed Church was approved by the councils of the two denominations in 1957, forming the United Church of Christ United Church of Christ, American Protestant denomination formed in 1957 by a merger of the General Council of Congregational Christian Churches (see Congregationalism ) and the Evangelical and Reformed Church .
..... Click the link for more information. . The National Association of Congregational Christian Churches was formed in 1955 by churches that chose not to join in the merger; it had about 70,000 members in 1997.

Bibliography

See W. Walker, The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism (1907, repr. 1960); A. A. Rouner, Jr., The Congregational Way of Life (1960); H. Davies, The English Free Churches (2d ed. 1963); M. L. Starkey, The Congregational Way (1966).

Congregationalism

Movement that arose among English Protestant Christian churches in the late 16th and early 17th century. It developed as one branch of Puritanism and emphasized the right and duty of each congregation to govern itself independent of higher human authority. Its greatest influence and numbers were in the U.S., where Puritans first established it at Plymouth Colony. The Half Way Covenant (1662) loosened requirements for church membership, and the Great Awakening led U.S. Congregationalism away from its Calvinist roots. Many churches defected to Unitarianism. In general, Congregationalists eschew creeds and emphasize preaching over sacraments, accepting only baptism and the Eucharist. English Congregationalists are now part of the United Reform Church. Most American Congregationalists are now part of the United Church of Christ. Baptist, Disciples of Christ, and Unitarian Universalist churches also practice congregational polity.