Congregational churches are
Protestant Christian churches practicing
Congregationalist church
governance, in which each
congregation independently and
autonomously runs its own affairs.
Many Congregational churches claim their descent from the original
Congregational churches, a family of Protestant
denominations formed on a theory of
union published by the theologian
Robert
Browne in 1592. They arose from the
Nonconformist religious movement in England
during the
Puritan reformation of the Church
of England.
In Great Britain
, the early congregationalists were called
separatists or independents to distinguish
themselves from the similarly Calvinistic
Presbyterians. Some
congregationalists there still call themselves
"Independents".
Congregational churches became widely established in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, later New England. The model of
Congregational churches was carried by migrating settlers from New
England into New York and the Northwest: Ohio, Indiana, Michigan
and Illinois. With their insistence on the independence of local
bodies, they became important in many reform movements, including
those for
abolition of slavery, and
women's
suffrage. As of the early 21st
century, Congregationalism in the U.S. had split into three major
bodies: the
United Church of
Christ, which most local Congregational churches affiliated
with, the
National
Association of Congregational Christian Churches, a fellowship
of churches and individuals formed to continue and foster classic
Congregationalism as the merger that created the UCC was being
debated, and the
Conservative
Congregational Christian Conference, an evangelical
group.
Origins
According to the congregationalist understanding of the history of
the Christian Church, the early disciples of Jesus had little or no
organization.
Congregationalists believe that in the
centuries after the spread of Christianity, leaders in centers like
Rome
, Antioch
, Alexandria
, Byzantium, and Jerusalem
attempted to gain influence over all the churches
in certain regions by creating hierarchy and structure.
Typically, congregationalists viewed this accumulation of power to
be complete by the year AD 1000, with the bishop of Rome claiming
authority over all Christendom. Many churches throughout the
western part of Europe submitted to his authority.The churches of
eastern Europe, all of Asia, and Egypt likewise had been gathered
under hierarchies of bishops, but retained independence from the
Pope, according to this view. DUH@$$
Congregationalists sympathetically interpreted various dissident
movements among the western churches, which were suppressed
throughout the Middle Ages. By the sixteenth century, political and
cultural changes had created a climate in which men such as
John Wycliffe,
John Hus,
Martin
Luther, and
John Calvin sought
change, with new ideas about the relationship of individual men to
God. This influenced what they saw as the power of people without
priests to intercede between them and God, the need for the people
to read and interpret the Bible, and correction of distortions from
original Christian thinking, as well as their protests against
church abuses. These reformers
advocated a return to the simplicity and authenticity they believed
was described in the
New Testament Church.
Congregationalists believe their model of church governance
fulfills the description of the early church and allows people the
most direct relationship with God.
Congregationalism is more easily identified as a movement than a
single denomination, given its distinguishing commitment to the
complete autonomy of the local congregation. The idea that each
distinct congregation fully constitutes the visible Body of the
church can, however, be traced to
John
Wyclif and the
Lollard movement, which
followed Wyclif's removal from teaching authority in the
Roman Catholic Church.
The early Congregationalists shared with
Anabaptist theology the ideal of a pure church.
They believed the adult conversion experience was necessary for an
individual to become a full member in the church, unlike other
Reformed churches. As such, the
Congregationalists were a reciprocal influence on the
Baptists. They differed in counting the children of
believers in some sense members of the church. On the other hand,
the Baptists required each member to experience conversion,
followed by
baptism.
In England, the episcopal system of church government was taken
over by the king,
Henry VIII. Influenced
by movements for reform and by his desire to legitimize his
marriage to
Anne Boleyn in 1533 (without
the blessing of the Pope in Rome) after divorcing his first wife
Catherine of Aragon, Henry's
government influenced Parliament to enact the 1st
Act of Supremacy in 1534. It declared the
reigning sovereign of England to be 'the only supreme head on earth
of the Church in England.' In the reign of Elizabeth I, this title
was changed to Supreme Governor of the Church of England, an act
still in effect. The Church of England replace Catholicism as the
established state religion.
Robert Browne,
Henry Barrow,
John
Greenwood,
John Penry,
William Brewster, and
John Robinson were notable people who
established dissenting churches separate from the Church of
England.
In 1639 William
Wroth, then Rector of the parish church
at Llanvaches
in Monmouthshire
, established the first Independent Church in Wales
"according
to the New England pattern", i.e. Congregational. The
Taberacle
United Reformed
Church at Llanvaches survives to this day.
With the demise of the monarchy, the
Westminster Confession of
Faith (1646) was officially declared the statement of faith for
both the Church of England (Anglican) and Church of Scotland
(Presbyterian). In 1658 the Congregationalists created their own
version of the Westminster Confession, called the
Savoy Declaration.
The underground
churches in England and exiles from Holland provided about 35 out
of the 102 passengers on the Mayflower, which sailed from London
in July
1620. They became known in history as the Pilgrim Fathers.
The early Congregationalists sought to separate themselves from the
Anglican church in every possible way and even forwent having
church buildings. They met in homes for many years.
Congregational Christian Churches in Canada
The Congregational Christian Churches in Canada (or 4Cs) is an
evangelical, Protestant, Christian denomination, headquartered in
Brantford, Ont., and a member of the World Evangelical
Congregational Fellowship. The name "congregational" generally
describes its preferred organizational style, which promotes local
church autonomy and ownership, while fostering fellowship and
accountability between churches at the National level.
Currently, the 4Cs is led by a National Board of Directors,
representing different areas of the country and coordinated by the
Chairman and the National Pastor who give spiritual oversight to
the broader Church. The denomination meets annually at a National
Conference, which confirms a new location (West, Maritimes or
Central Canada) for the following year.
The roots of Congregational Christianity can be traced back to the
Protestant Reformation in England. Congregational Churches were
established in the New World by non-Conformist Christians, some of
these arriving (in what would become Canada) out of roots in New
England. The revivals of the Great Awakening also contributed to
the spread of congregational style and ministry.
As a name, the movement was probably better known (and understood)
in the 19th Century in Canada, but many Congregational churches
voted to join with Methodists and Presbyterians to form the United
Church of Canada in 1925, and the term "congregational" fell into
disuse. The remnant of churches still congregational in polity were
concentrated in Southern Ontario, and were known as the "Ontario
Christian Churches". Officially, these churches affiliated with the
Conservative Congregational Christian Conference in the United
States in 1965, but retained their independence as a separate
Conference.
In 1988, with the advance of theological liberalism within the
United Church of Canada, a group of conscientious objectors who had
left that denomination, began looking for ways in which to
cultivate their evangelical Christian faith, and to affiliate with
others of like mind. This group became aware of the Ontario
Christian Churches, and began the process of joining with them. Out
of these discussions, a new organization was formed: The
Congregational Christian Churches in Canada.
Today, the 4Cs represent a family of about 75 churches across
Canada committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ— both its Great
Commands and Great Commission. The 4Cs is a member of the
Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. Its congregations have a strong
desire to work hand-in-hand with committed Christians of other
denominations, and have a growing interest in evangelism, church
planting, and both global and local mission projects. They are
varied in worship style, and in local focus, but are united in a
common Biblical creed, and in fellowship with one another.
Their national website is: www.cccc.ca
United States
The
Pilgrims sought to establish at
Plymouth Colony a Christian
fellowship like that which gathered around Jesus himself.
Congregationalists include the
Pilgrims of
Plymouth, and the
Puritans of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, which
were organized in union by
the
Cambridge Platform in 1648. These settlers had
John Cotton as their most influential
leader, beginning in 1633. Cotton's writings persuaded the
Calvinist theologian
John Owen to separate from the
Presbyterian church. He became very
influential in the development of Congregationalist theology and
ideas of church government.
Jonathan Edwards, considered
by some to be the most important theologian produced in the United
States, was also a Congregationalist.
The history of Congregational churches in the United States is
closely intertwined with that of American
Presbyterianism, especially in New England
where Congregationalist influence spilled over into Presbyterian
churches farther west.
Some of the first colleges and universities
in America, including Harvard
, Yale
, Dartmouth
, Williams, Bowdoin
, Middlebury
, and Amherst
, all were
founded by the Congregationalists, as were later Carleton
, Grinnell, Oberlin
, and
Pomona
.
Without higher courts to ensure doctrinal uniformity among the
congregations, Congregationalists have been more diverse than other
Reformed churches. Despite the efforts of
Calvinists to maintain the dominance of their system, some
Congregational churches, especially in the older settlements of New
England, gradually developed leanings toward
Arminianism,
Unitarianism,
Deism, and
transcendentalism.
By the 1750s, several Congregational preachers were teaching the
possibility of
universal salvation, an
issue that caused considerable conflict among its adherents on the
one side and hard-line Calvinists and sympathizers of the
First Great Awakening on the other.
In another
strain of change, the first church in the United States with an
openly Unitarian theology, the belief
in the single personality of God, was established in Boston,
Massachusetts
in 1785 (in a former Anglican parish.) By 1800, all but one
Congregational church in Boston had Unitarian preachers teaching the strict unity of God, the subordinate
nature of Christ, and salvation by character.
Harvard
University, founded by Congregationalists, became a center of
Unitarian training. Prompted by
a controversy over an appointment in the theology school at
Harvard, in 1825 the Unitarian churches separated from
Congregationalism. Most of the Unitarian "descendants" hold
membership in the
Unitarian Universalist
Association, founded in the 1960s by a merger with the
theologically similar
Universalists.
This group had dissented from Calvinist orthodoxy on the basis of
their belief that all persons could find salvation (as opposed to
the Calvinist idea of
double
predestination, excluding some from salvation.)
Congregational churches were at the same time the first example of
the American
theocratic ideal and also the
seedbed from which American liberal religion and society arose.
Many Congregationalists in the several successor denominations to
the original tradition consider themselves to be
Reformed first, whether of traditional or
neo-orthodox persuasion.
In 1931 the Congregational Churches and the General Convention of
the Christian Church, a body from the
Restoration Movement tradition of the
early 19th century, merged to form the
Congregational Christian
Churches. The Congregationalists were used to a more formal,
less evangelistic form of worship than Christian Church members,
who mostly came from rural areas of the
South and the
Midwest. Both groups, however, held
to local autonomy and eschewed binding creedal authority.
In the early 20th century some Congregational (later Congregational
Christian) churches took exception to the beginnings of a growth of
regional or national authority in bodies outside the local church,
such as mission societies, national committees, and state
conferences. Some congregations opposed liberalizing influences
that appeared to mitigate traditional views of sin and corollary
doctrines such as the
substitutionary atonement of
Jesus. In 1948, some adherents of these two streams of thought
(mainly the latter one) started a new fellowship, the
Conservative
Congregational Christian Conference (CCCC). It was the first
major fellowship to organize outside of the mainstream
Congregational body since 1825, when the
Unitarians formally founded their own
body.
In 1957, the General Council of Congregational Christian Churches
in the U.S. merged with the
Evangelical and Reformed
Church to form the
United
Church of Christ. About 90% of the CC congregations affiliated
with the General Council joined the United Church of Christ. Some
churches abstained from the merger while others voted it down. Most
of the latter congregations became members of either the CCCC
(mentioned above) or the
National
Association of Congregational Christian Churches. The latter
was formed by churches and people who objected to the UCC merger
because of concerns that the new national church and its regional
bodies represented extra-congregational authorities that would
interfere with a congregation's right to govern itself. Thus, the
NACCC includes congregations of a variety of theological positions.
Still other congregations chose not to affiliate with any
particular association of churches, or only with regional or local
ones.
Mergers in other countries
Argentina
The mission to Argentina was the second foreign field tended by
German Congregationalists. The work in South America began in 1921,
when four Argentine churches urgently requested that denominational
recognition be given George Geier, who was serving them. The
Illinois Conference licensed Geier, who worked among Russia Germans
who were alike in every way to those in the United States and in
Canada. The South American Germans from Russia had learned about
Congregationalism in letters from relatives in the United States.In
1924 general missionary John Hoelzer, in Argentina for a brief
visit, organized six churches.
Australia
In 1977, most congregations of the
Congregational Union of
Australia merged with all Churches of the
Methodist Church of
Australasia and a majority of Churches of the
Presbyterian Church of
Australia to form the
Uniting Church in Australia.
Those congregations that did not join the Uniting Church formed the
Fellowship of
Congregational Churches or continued as Presbyterians. Some
more
ecumenically minded
Congregationalists left the Fellowship of Congregational Churches
in 1995 and formed the
Congregational Federation
of Australia.
Canada
In Canada, the first foreign field, thirty-one churches that had
been affiliated with the General Conference became part of the
United Church of Canada when that denomination came into being. In
1925, the
United Church of
Canada was founded by the merger of the Canadian
Congregationalist and
Methodist churches,
and two-thirds of the congregations of the
Presbyterian Church of Canada
(or in French, Église Presbyterienne du Canada). In 1988, a number
of UCC congregations separated from the national church, which they
felt was moving away theologically and in practice from Biblical
Christianity. Many of the former UCC congregations banded together
as the new
Congregational
Christian Churches in Canada.
Ireland
The Congregational Union of Ireland was founded in the early 1800s
and currently has 29 member churches.
Samoa
The
Christian Congregational Church of Samoa is
the largest group of churches throughout the Pacific Ocean, founded
by John Williams on the Island of Savaii, the church grew and built
theological colleges in Samoa and Fiji. Today there are over 2,000
congregations throughout the world, most of which are located in
Samoa, American Samoa, New Zealand, Australia and America. The
Christian Congregational Church of Jamaica fall
under the constitution of the Samoan Church.
United Kingdom
In 1972, about three quarters of English Congregational churches
merged with the
Presbyterian Church of
England to form the
United
Reformed Church (URC). However about six hundred Congregational
churches have continued in their historic independent tradition.
Under the Act of Parliament that authorised the merger between what
had become by then the Congregational Church of England and Wales
and the Presbyterian Church of England, certain assets were divided
between the various parties.
In England there are three main groups of continuing
Congregationalists. These are the
Congregational Federation, which
has offices in Nottingham, the
Evangelical
Fellowship of Congregational Churches, and about 100
Congregational churches that are loosely federated with other
congregations in the
Fellowship of
Independent Evangelical Churches, or are unaffiliated.
In 1981, the URC merged with the Re-formed Association of Churches
of Christ and, in 2000, just over half of the churches in the
Congregational Union of
Scotland also joined the URC. The remainder of Congregational
churches in Scotland joined the Congregational Federation.
Wales
traditionally is the part of Europe which has the largest share of
Congregationalists among the population, most Congregationalists
being members of Undeb yr Annibynwyr Cymraeg (the Union of
Welsh Independents), which is particularly important in Carmarthenshire
and Brecknockshire
. Among its leaders up to the end of the 20th
century was
R Tudur Jones.
The Congregational Federation, , and the URC enjoy good relations
and share certain aspects of church life together including their
joint involvement in the
Council for World Mission.
Mission
The
London Missionary
Society was effectively the world mission arm of British
Congregationalists - it sponsored missionaries including
Eric Liddell and
David Livingstone.
As thinking developed, particularly in the context of
decolonisation, and churches wanted to recognise the gifts of
people of the South, the London Missionary Society transformed into
the
Council for World
Mission - an organisation in which the United Reformed Church
is no more important than the
Church of South India (for
example).
See also
References
- United Tabernacle Reformed Chapel
Further reading
- Works by John
Waddington
- Congregational Martyrs. London, 1861, intended to form
part of a series of 'Historical Papers,' which, however, were not
continued; 2nd ed. 1861
- Congregational Church History from the Reformation to
1662, London, 1862, awarded the bicentenary prize offered by
the Congregational Union
- Surrey Congregational History, London, 1866, in which
he dealt more particularly with the records of his own
congregation.
- Congregational History, 5 vols., London,
1869-1880
External links
Congregational Church Links:
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