Congregationalism in the United States
Congregationalism in the United States consists of Protestant churches in the Reformed tradition that have a congregational form of church government and trace their origins mainly to Puritan settlers of colonial New England. Congregational churches in other parts of the world are often related to these in the United States due to American missionary activities.
These principles are enshrined in the Cambridge Platform and the Savoy Declaration, Congregationalist confessions of faith. The Congregationalist Churches are a continuity of the theological tradition upheld by the Puritans. Their genesis was through the work of Congregationalist divines Robert Browne, Henry Barrowe, and John Greenwood.
Congregational churches have had an important impact on the religious, political, and cultural history of the United States. Congregational practices concerning church governance influenced the early development of democratic institutions in New England. Many of the nation's oldest educational institutions, such as Harvard University, Bowdoin College and Yale University, were founded to train Congregational clergy. Congregational churches and ministers influenced the First and Second Great Awakenings and were early promoters of the missionary movement of the 19th century. The Congregational tradition has shaped both mainline and evangelical Protestantism in the United States.
In the 20th century, the Congregational tradition in America fragmented into three different denominations. The largest of these is the United Church of Christ, which resulted from a 1957 merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church. Congregationalists who chose not to join the United Church of Christ founded two alternative denominations: the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches and the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference.
History
17th century
Early settlement
The Congregational tradition was brought to America in the 1620s and 1630s by the Puritans—a Calvinistic group within the Church of England that desired to purify it of any remaining teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. As part of their reforms, Puritans desired to replace the Church of England's episcopal polity with another form of church government. Some English Puritans favored presbyterian polity, as was utilized by the Church of Scotland, but those who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony organized their churches according to congregational polity.The first Congregational church organized in America was First Parish Church in Plymouth, which was established in 1620 by Separatist Puritans known as Pilgrims. The first Congregational church organized in the Massachusetts Bay Colony was First Church in Salem, established in 1629. By 1640, 18 churches had been organized in Massachusetts. In addition, Puritans established the Connecticut Colony in 1636 and New Haven Colony in 1637. Eventually, there were 33 Congregational churches in New England.
According to historian James F. Cooper Jr., Congregationalism helped imbue the political culture of Massachusetts with several important concepts: "adherence to fundamental or 'higher' laws, strict limitations upon all human authority, free consent, local self-government, and, especially, extensive lay participation." However, congregational polity also meant the absence of any centralized church authority. The result was that at times the first generation of Congregationalists struggled to agree on common beliefs and practices.
To help achieve unity, Puritan clergy would often meet in conferences to discuss issues arising within the churches and to offer advice. Congregationalists also looked to the ministers of the First Church in Boston to set examples for other churches to follow. One of the most prominent of these ministers was John Cotton, considered by historians to be the "father of New England Congregationalism", who through his preaching, helped to standardize Congregational practices. Because of these efforts, agreement on baptism, church discipline, and the election of church officers were largely achieved by 1635.
File:Plimoth_Plantation_at_Plymouth.jpg|thumb|Recreation of Plymouth's fort and first church meeting house at Plimoth Patuxet
The colonists developed a system in which each community organized a gathered church of believers. Every congregation was founded upon a church covenant, a written agreement signed by all members in which they agreed to uphold congregational principles, to be guided by sola scriptura in their decision making, and to submit to church discipline. The right of each congregation to elect its own officers and manage its own affairs was upheld.
The major offices were elder and deacon. Teaching elders or ministers were responsible for preaching and administering the sacraments. In some churches, prominent laymen would be elected for life as ruling elders to govern the church alongside teaching elders. In the beginning, deacons largely handled financial matters. By the middle of the 17th century, most churches did not have lay elders, and deacons assisted the minister in leading the church. Congregations also elected messengers to represent them in synods for the purpose of offering non-binding advisory opinions.
The Puritans created a society in which Congregationalism was the state church, its ministers were supported by taxpayers, and only full church members could vote in elections. To ensure that Massachusetts had a supply of educated ministers, Harvard University was founded in 1636.
Defining Congregationalism
In the aftermath of the Antinomian Controversy, ministers realized the need for greater communication between churches and standardization of preaching. As a consequence, nonbinding ministerial conferences to discuss theological questions and address conflicts became more frequent in the following years. A more substantial innovation was the implementation of the "third way of communion", a method of isolating a dissident or heretical church from neighboring churches. Members of an offending church would be unable to worship or receive the Lord's Supper in other churches.In the 1640s, Congregationalists were under pressure to craft a formal statement of congregational church government. This was partly motivated by the need to reassure English Puritans about congregational government. In 1645, residents of Massachusetts who resented the limitation of voting rights to full church members threatened to appeal to the English Parliament, raising fears that the English government might intervene to change the churches' restrictive membership policies. It was also thought necessary to combat the threat of Presbyterianism at home. Conflict erupted in the churches at Newbury and Hingham when their pastors began introducing presbyterian governance.
The Massachusetts General Court called for a synod of ministers and lay representatives to meet in Cambridge to craft such a statement. The Cambridge Platform was completed by the synod in 1648 and commended by the General Court as an accurate description of Congregational practice after the churches were given time to study the document, provide feedback, and finally, ratify it. While the Platform was legally nonbinding and intended only to be descriptive, it soon became regarded by ministers and laypeople alike as the religious constitution of Massachusetts, guaranteeing the rights of church officers and members.
Missionary efforts among the Native Americans began in the 1640s. John Eliot started missionary work among the natives in 1646 and later published the Eliot Indian Bible, a Massachusett language translation. The Mayhew family began their work among the natives of Martha's Vineyard around the same time as Eliot. These missionary efforts suffered serious setbacks as a result of King Philip's War. By 1696, New England had over 130 white churches and 30 Native American towns with Native American preachers.
Half-Way Covenant and Puritan decline
In the years after the Antinomian Controversy, Congregationalists struggled with the problem of decreasing conversions among second-generation settlers. These unconverted adults had been baptized as infants, and most of them studied the Bible, attended church, and raised their children as Christians. Nevertheless, they were barred from receiving the Lord's Supper, voting, or holding office in the church. In the 1660s, the Half-Way Covenant was proposed, which would allow the grandchildren of church members to be baptized as long as their parents accepted their congregation's covenant and lived Christian lives. Some churches maintained the original standard into the 1700s. Other churches went beyond the Half-Way Covenant, opening baptism to all infants whether or not their parents or grandparents had been baptized. Other churches, citing the belief that baptism and the Lord's Supper were "converting ordinances" capable of helping the unconverted achieve salvation, allowed the unconverted to receive the Lord's Supper as well.The decline of conversions and the division over the Half-Way Covenant was part of a larger loss of confidence experienced by Puritans in the latter half of the 17th century. In the 1660s and 1670s, Puritans began noting signs of moral decline in New England, and ministers began preaching jeremiads calling people to account for their sins. The most popular jeremiad, Michael Wigglesworth's "The Day of Doom", became the first bestseller in America.
The Savoy Declaration, a modification of the Westminster Confession of Faith, was adopted as a Congregationalist confessional statement in Massachusetts in 1680 and Connecticut in 1708.
In 1684, Massachusetts' colonial charter was revoked. It was merged with the other Bible Commonwealths along with New York and New Jersey into the Dominion of New England. Edmund Andros, an Anglican, was appointed royal governor and demanded that Anglicans be allowed to worship freely in Boston. The Dominion collapsed after the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89, and a new charter was granted in 1691. However, the power of the Congregational churches remained diminished. The governor continued to be appointed by the Crown, and voting rights were now based on wealth rather than church membership.