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Religion
종교 탐방
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회중교회
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Congregationalists are members of a group of churches that arose in
England in the late 16th and 17th centuries. Originally they were frequently
called Independents, as
they still are in Welsh-speaking communities. The main centres of
Congregationalism traditionally were in Britain and the United States, but
in the 20th century Congregationalists have joined with others to form
united churches in these and several other countries. | |
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Congregationalism has occupied a position among the churches somewhere
between Presbyterianism and the more radical Protestants, such as
non-Fundamentalist Baptists and Quakers. Its distinctive emphasis has been
on the right and responsibility of each properly organized congregation to
make its own decisions about its own affairs, without having to submit them
to the judgment of any higher human authority. Although this was not always
true in the early days in America, Congregationalists have generally been
distrustful of state establishment of religion and have been workers for
civil and religious liberty. Their emphasis on the rights of the particular
congregation and on freedom of conscience arose historically from their
strong Protestant convictions concerning the sovereignty of God and the
priesthood of all believers. This attitude has given them an openness of
outlook that has led many of them to theological and social liberalism and
to active participation in the ecumenical movement. | |
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The "Congregational way" came into prominence in English
life during the 17th-century Civil War, but its origins lie in 16th-century
Separatism. Robert Browne is sometimes taken as its founder, but he was an
erratic character who changed his views more than once. Congregational ideas
were in the air, finding expression independently of him. The Separatists
(those advocating separation from rather than reform of the Church of
England) were severely persecuted under Elizabeth I; three of them--John
Greenwood, Henry Barrow, and John Penry--were the first Congregational
martyrs. Some of the Separatists settled in Holland to escape persecution,
and it was from among these that the Mayflower
Separatists later set sail for the New World (see below, United States
). | |
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At the time of the Long Parliament, beginning in 1641, many exiles
returned to England, and the Independents, as they were now called, became
increasingly active. They were particularly influential in the army, having Oliver
Cromwell himself associated with them. They began to move away from
the Presbyterians, with whom they had initially cooperated, and to draw
closer to the Baptists and the Fifth Monarchy Men (a Puritan millennialist
sect). They reached the peak of their influence during the Commonwealth in
the 1650s, and their leaders, Hugh Peter, John Owen, and Thomas Goodwin,
held positions of eminence. With the death of Cromwell (1658) they lacked
the conviction and power of initiative to hold the country together, and in
the confused period before the recall of King Charles II in 1660 their
political influence collapsed. | |
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The advent of Charles II was a disaster for Congregationalists, and the
Act of Uniformity of 1662 was the first of a series of determined efforts to
root them out from English life. "Black Bartholomew," St.
Bartholomew's Day, Aug. 24, 1662, when some 2,000 ministers of various
Protestant groups who rejected the authority of the Church of England were
ejected from their livings, has always been regarded as a great turning
point in the history of English Dissent. All Nonconformists
were subjected to a persecution that, although severe, was not so intense as
to imperil their existence. In this time John Owen and others produced some
of the classical statements of Congregational belief; John Milton produced
his greatest poems; and John
Bunyan, although his closest affinities were with the Baptists,
imprinted some of the characteristic religious attitudes of the Dissenters
indelibly on the English consciousness. | |
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The accession of William and Mary in 1688 and the consequent Toleration
Act of 1689 meant that the survival of the Congregationalists was assured,
although still under civil disabilities. Their fears were renewed by the
advent of Queen Anne
(1702). The Occasional Conformity Act (1711) forbade Dissenters from
qualifying for public office by occasionally taking communion at the
Anglican parish church, and the Schism Act (1714) was directed against their
schools. The death of Queen Anne in 1714, before the Schism Act could be
fully implemented, was considered providential by the Dissenters. They
supported the new regime and the Whig ascendancy and for the next 50 years
enjoyed a modest prosperity. Most of them belonged to the economically
independent sections of society and lived in London and the older provincial
towns. They were especially active in education. After 1662 Dissenters were
debarred from the universities, and many ejected ministers started small
schools and colleges called academies, which gradually became more numerous
and influential. Their curricula, influenced by the educational theories of
Francis Bacon and John Amos Comenius, were more relevant than those of the
comatose universities, and they were the precursors of many later
educational developments. (see also Index: United Kingdom) | |
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Religious zeal was declining as the 17th century waned, and rationalism
became more influential. Deism and Arianism (a heresy denying the divinity
of Christ) were widespread, the latter especially among the Presbyterians,
some of whom gradually became Unitarian. That Congregationalism did not go
the same way was in no small measure due to the influence of Philip
Doddridge, minister of Northampton, who was a theologian, pastor, social
reformer, educationist, and author of the devotional classic The
Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul (1745). (see also Index: Unitarianism) | |
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The quality of Congregationalism in the early 18th century has sometimes
been disparaged, but its limitations were those of a small community in the
aftermath of a period of great intensity of experience. A change came with
the rise of Methodism and the Evangelical
Revival (c. 1750-1815), which had a profound, if unobtrusive, influence on
Congregationalism. Many ministers were deeply affected by the revival, and
many people who were reached by the Methodist preaching found their way into
the already existing Congregational churches. Thus the great evangelist
George Whitefield had close relations with Congregationalism, and many of
the churches founded by Selina Hastings, countess of Huntingdon, a leading
figure in the revival, made and long retained a connection with
Congregationalism. By 1815 the character of Congregationalism had been
significantly changed in an Evangelical direction, especially in the
developing industrial areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire. | |
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The outstanding result of the Evangelical Revival in Congregationalism
was the founding of the London
Missionary Society (1795). Its purpose was not so much the spreading
of Congregationalism overseas as the proclaiming of "the glorious
gospel of the blessed God," leaving the churches it founded to find
their own form. Its main support was always Congregational, and it has now
been incorporated into the Council for World Mission of the United Reformed
Church. Through its agency, churches have been established in Africa,
Madagascar, India, China, Papua New Guinea, and on islands in the South
Seas. Many of these are now united in wider bodies, of which the most
notable is the Church of South India. | |
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In the first half of the 19th century Congregationalism was involved in
a period of expansion and consolidation. Increased numbers brought many
poorer people into the churches, and a new political and social radicalism
began to emerge. Voluntarism, which opposed the state support of
denominational education, and the Liberation Society, which advocated
disestablishment, found widespread support. The Congregational Union of
England and Wales, linking the churches in a national organization, was
founded in 1832 and the Colonial (later the Commonwealth) Missionary
Society, for promoting Congregationalism in the English-speaking colonies,
in 1836. | |
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Congregational churches shared fully in the ecclesiastical prosperity of
the Victorian era. Many new buildings were erected, often in ambitious
Gothic style, and the cult of the popular preacher developed. Able
ministers, among whom R.W. Dale of Birmingham was outstanding, deeply
influenced the public life of Victorian cities. The links of the churches
with the Liberal Party were greatly strengthened, and the civic disabilities
of Dissenters were steadily removed. Thriving churches in new suburbs
developed into hives of social, philanthropic, and educational activity. The
picture of the philistine (unimaginative) Dissenters drawn by the poet and
critic Matthew Arnold in Culture
and Anarchy(1869)
contained a measure of truth, but the work's lack of historical perspective
led it to underestimate the zeal for self-improvement and the desire for a
richer life that existed in Victorian Congregationalism. | |
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The Liberal victory of 1906 represented the peak of the social and
political influence of Congregationalism. After that, Congregational
churches shared in the institutional decline of most British churches, but
they continued to show theological and cultural vitality. In October 1972
the majority of English Congregationalists and Presbyterians united to form
the new United Reformed Church, which was joined in 1981 by the Churches of
Christ, the small British counterpart of the American Disciples of Christ. | |
ii)
Wales,
Ireland, and Scotland. | |
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Welsh-speaking Congregational churches did not join the United Reformed
Church but have their separate organization in the Union of Welsh
Independents. These churches grew up originally in the countryside but
transplanted themselves with remarkable success to the developing industrial
valleys in the 19th century. The churches have been strong centres of
distinctively Welsh culture, and their ministers have often been national
leaders. Their influence diminished in the 20th century as population moved
away from old centres of strength, but Welsh Congregationalists maintain
their tradition of preaching, poetry, and hymnody. | |
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Congregationalism in Scotland has been less prominent, and in Ireland it
has struck only a very small root. In Scotland
it arose in the 19th century out of dissatisfaction with the lack of
missionary zeal of the Church of Scotland and soon united with a similar
group called the Evangelical Union. Numerically small, it has made a
distinctively liberal contribution to Scottish life and has given many
notable sons to the church-at-large, among them the missionaries David
Livingstone and Robert Moffat and the writer George Macdonald, as well as
Peter Taylor Forsyth. | |
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It was in the United States that Congregationalism achieved its greatest
public influence and numerical strength, and, through the New England
experiment, in setting up communities based on Congregational-type religious
principles, it was a major factor in determining the character of the
nation. The New England settlement had two roots, in the Separatism of
Plymouth Colony and in the Puritanism
of Massachusetts Bay. The first Separatists came on the Mayflower in 1620 from the exiled church at Leiden, Holland. The
Puritans wished to reform the Church of England rather than to leave it, and
they left England in order to build a "godly commonwealth" that
would be an example to old England of what a new England, truly reformed
according to the Word of God, might be. They were closer in spirit to the
English Presbyterians than to the Separatists, but there was enough affinity
between the two groups to enable them to live together in comparative
harmony and to reject more radical leaders such as Roger Williams and Anne
Hutchinson. In 1648 the two groups united to produce the Cambridge
Platform, a declaration of faith that accepted the theological
position of the Westminster Confession but maintained a Congregational
polity. (The English Congregationalists produced a similar statement, the
Savoy Declaration, in 1658.) | |
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The original experiment demanded a radical commitment of an intellectual
and spiritual intensity that made the New England colony unique in history.
As the community became established and a second generation grew up, it
became difficult to maintain the high standard, and the rigorous conditions
for church membership had to be relaxed. This need found expression in the
famous Half-Way Covenant,
which said that those who had been baptized but could not enter into full
church membership on the basis of the kind of religious experience
considered appropriate were accepted as church members but not admitted to
communion or allowed to have voting rights. | |
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The community was keenly interested in education from the outset, and
one of its earliest acts was to start a college to maintain the succession
of learned ministers. Thus was founded Harvard College (1636), the first of
a long line of colleges begun under Congregational auspices in America. | |
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The gradual loss of religious fervour caused great distress and
self-questioning to the Congregational leaders, but a quickening of new life
came with the 18th-century Great
Awakening, the widespread revival movement that started in 1734 under
the influence of Jonathan Edwards.
The Awakening, however, threw into relief the differences emerging between
two wings in Congregationalism. On the one side were those who maintained
the Calvinist tradition, creatively restated by Edwards and his followers,
with a greater emphasis on the affective elements in religion. On the other
was a rapidly growing Unitarianism, parallel to a similar movement in
England. By the early 19th century many of the oldest Congregational
churches had become Unitarian, including 12 of the 14 in Boston.
Unitarianism was not so prevalent in Connecticut, where Congregationalism
had quickly taken root and remained the established church until well into
the 19th century. | |
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Although the loss to Unitarianism was serious, Congregationalism
remained vigorous in the 19th century and was active in the westward
expansion of the nation. The Presbyterians were almost nonexistent in New
England but strong in the Middle Atlantic states, where Congregationalism
had little root. The two bodies adopted a Plan of Union in 1801 for joint
missionary activity in the developing territories. One of the reasons for
the ultimate breakdown of this arrangement after half a century was the
growing liberalism of Congregationalism. The characteristic theologian of
this period was Horace Bushnell, who challenged the traditional
substitutionary view of the Atonement (that Christ's suffering and death
atoned for man's sins), and whose well-known book, Christian
Nurture (1847), questioned the necessity of the classical conversion
experience. Such influential preachers as Henry Ward Beecher and Washington
Gladden popularized similar ideas. The so-called Kansas City Creed of 1913
summed up the liberalism of this period, which represented a radical break
with the Calvinist past. (see also Index:
Presbyterian churches) | |
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American Congregationalists have engaged in widespread missionary
activity, particularly in the Middle East and in China before the Communist
Revolution. A national Congregational organization was formed in 1871, and
powerful Boards for Home Missions and Education were established, through
which Northern Congregationalists did a great deal for black education in
the South, where there were hardly any indigenous Congregational churches. | |
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Modern American Congregationalism has shown itself singularly ready to
unite with other churches. Union with a relatively small body called the
Christian Church, which was concentrated in the upper South, was achieved
between the world wars, and a more notable union was achieved with the Evangelical
and Reformed Church in 1961. This was a strong community of German
Lutheran and Reformed background, which claimed the eminent theologians
Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich among its ministers. The new church body
is known as the United Church of
Christ. A minority of Congregational churches refused to join the
union, and these remain separate. | |
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Congregationalism has not succeeded in becoming a popular worldwide form
of church life, although it has been represented in most English-speaking
countries. Congregationalists were prominent in the formation of the Church
of South India in 1947. They have also become part of the United Church of
Canada and of the Uniting Church in Australia. Through the International
Congregational Council, united with the Reformed Alliance since 1970, they
have had fraternal ties with churches of similar outlook in Europe, notably
the Remonstrant Brotherhood of Holland and the Swedish Mission Covenant
Church. | |
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Throughout their history Congregationalists have shared the faith and
general outlook of evangelical Protestantism in the English-speaking
countries, but normally in a more liberalized way than would be customary
among their nearest neighbours, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the
Baptists. The English historian Bernard Manning once described their
position as decentralized Calvinism, in contrast to the centralized
Calvinism of Presbyterians. That description contains much truth about their
doctrines and general outlook until well into the 19th century, but it
underestimates the Congregational emphasis on the free movement of the
Spirit. This provides a link with the Quakers and partly explains the
Congregational distrust of giving binding authority to creedal statements.
The other part of their distrust is explained by their anxiety to accord
supreme authority to Scripture. They have not been slow to produce
declarations of faith. In addition to the Savoy Declaration, the Cambridge
Platform, and the Kansas City Creed already mentioned, lengthy statements
have also been produced both by the United Church of Christ and by the
English Congregationalists. No great authority is claimed for any of these,
and in recent generations most Congregationalists have regarded the
primitive confession, "Jesus is Lord," as a sufficient basis for
membership. | |
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Similarly, they have always stressed the importance of freedom. Even in
the days of their Cromwellian triumph they were tolerant by the standards of
the time, and through the activities of the Protestant Dissenting Deputies,
who had the right of direct access to the monarch, they contributed greatly
in the 18th century to the establishment of the rights of minorities in
England. Both in England and America the long-faced and repressive Puritan
of tradition owes as much to the caricatures of political opponents and
literary rebels as to actual fact. | |
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Congregationalism has always attached importance to preaching because
the Word of God as declared in Scripture is regarded as constitutive of the
church. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are considered to be the only
sacraments instituted by Christ. Infants are baptized, normally by
sprinkling. The Lord's Supper is normally celebrated once or twice a month
and has not always been given a central place, often following a preaching
service after a brief interval in which many of the congregation leave. In
recent times, the unity of sermon and sacrament as parts of the same service
has been much more strongly emphasized, and there has been a tendency to
assimilate Congregational and Presbyterian practice to each other.
Traditionally public prayer has been extempore, but in the 20th century
service books and set forms have been increasingly used. Since the 18th
century and the work of the great Congregationalist hymn writer Isaac Watts,
hymns have featured prominently in Congregational worship. The English
compilation, Congregational Praise (1951),
worthily maintained the tradition. | |
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The distinctive organizational tenet of Congregationalism has been that
of the spiritual autonomy of the particular congregation.
The congregation, however, is not thought of as any casual gathering of
Christians but as a settled body with a well-defined constitution and proper
offices that has tried to order itself in harmony with the New Testament
understanding of the nature of the church. The claim is made that if a
church in a particular place possesses the Bible, the sacraments, a properly
called and appointed minister and deacons, and members who have made a
genuine Christian profession, no earthly body can be more fully the church
than this. It follows that, as it is responsible to God for its life in that
place, so it must have freedom to discern and obey God's will for itself,
with no dictation from outside. Although this view carries with it respect
for the rights of the individual conscience, it is not spiritual
individualism but an attempt to treat the visible and corporate character of
the church as concretely as possible. | |
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It has always been recognized that this principle did not involve
ecclesiastical isolation. "The communion of the churches with each
other" was a frequent 17th-century theme. But the precise way in which
churches should be related to the association and councils through which
they expressed their communion has often caused uneasy debate. In the 19th
century, thinking about this relation was affected by the individualism of
the age, while in the more centralized and mobile 20th century, with the
widespread movement toward mergers and redeployment, the positive role of
councils has been stressed. The authentic Congregational principle would
appear to be that, whatever adaptations of organization may be necessary in
changing circumstances, responsibility and the freedom to fulfill it must
always be as specific and personal as possible. | |
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The idea of the "gathered" church is integral to traditional
Congregationalism. It is a recognition that the primary agent in church
foundation is not human but God's Spirit. Arising in protest against the
Anglican territorial conception of the church, according to which all
residents of a particular neighbourhood should be counted as members of the
local Anglican church, it insisted that it was the duty and privilege of the
believer to discover who else in the vicinity was called by Christ and then
to walk together with them in church order, which was thought of not
primarily as a matter of organization but of common style of life. Where the
state or prelacy tries to impose another principle, "the crown rights
of the Redeemer" (Christ) in his church--a great phrase among
Congregationalists--are impugned. How far the principle of the gathered
church can be honestly applied in churches with large formal memberships is
a problem modern Congregationalists have not solved, but great
responsibilities remain with particular churches. All members are deemed to
have equal rights and are expected to exercise them through membership of a
church meeting that is empowered to deal with all matters pertaining to that
particular church's life. Church meetings have not always been very vigorous
and, especially in the United States, many of their powers have been
delegated to officers or committees, but efforts have been made to restore
them to their important place. | |
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Ordination
to the Congregational ministry has been through the ratification of the call
of the individual by acceptance for training by the churches acting
together, and then by the call from a particular church to act as its
minister. This practice has been retained in most of the new united
churches. The churches corporately set standards of training, which,
particularly in the United States and Canada, is frequently conducted in
interdenominational seminaries or universities. | |
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Until new patterns were established by mergers, nearly all
Congregational churches were linked together in association or unions on
local, provincial, and national levels. In recent times these have appointed
superintendent ministers or moderators, who exercise a general ministry to
the churches over a large area; but it would be misleading to think of their
role as equivalent to that of diocesan bishops, since they are not regarded
as the sources of ecclesiastical order and have no formal authority over
independent churches. It is a Congregational principle that the service of
the Word and the sacraments, rather than one's place in a system of
ecclesiastical administration, confers authority on a minister. | |
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All offices in Congregational churches were open to women before it
became widespread practice. The first woman was ordained in 1917. Churches
are mainly financed by the contributions of members. There are substantial
denominational funds for ensuring minimum stipends to finance missionary
work and pensions, but even these depend heavily on contributions from the
churches as well as on endowments. | |
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Congregationalism has flourished most in settled communities of
manageable size, in provincial cities, or in the substantial suburbs of
larger cities. It has played a prominent part in the civic life of such
places, especially in the 19th century, and it has proved itself a rich
seedbed for educational and cultural aspirations. It has not itself always
enjoyed the fruits of these aspirations because many of the children it has
produced have moved on to spheres where the organized churches have found
difficulty in keeping pace with them. Many prominent American and English
politicians have been Congregationalists, among them Hubert Humphrey and
Harold Wilson. John Milton and Robert Browning stand closest to the
distinctive Congregationalist outlook among the numerous major artists of
Congregationalist connection or upbringing. | |
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Congregationalism has clearly not succeeded in establishing itself as
one of the major forms of churchmanship in the modern world. Congregational
ideas and practices have, however, had a deep influence on many other
churches. Congregationalism has also been a major factor in shaping the
institutions and the general culture of the United States and, to a lesser
degree, of Britain and the Commonwealth. Its expansion and vitality in
England in the 19th century were closely linked with the rise of new
middle-class groups, but with the increase of social mobility, the
centralization of business organizations, and the decline of the continuity
of family style of life from one generation to the next, its churches have
suffered heavily in deterioration of numbers and direct social influence.
The decline has not been as marked in the United States, where
Congregational churches have shared in the general ecclesiastical
prosperity, although even there they have not expanded at anything like the
rate of most other large groups of churches. Most of the historic
Congregational churches are now incorporated in reunited churches belonging
to the Reformed family. Whether what is distinctive in Congregationalism can
be effectively maintained under the pressure of modern urban mobility in
more centrally organized churches is to be determined. (D.T.J.) | |
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[ Congregationalism ]
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