CONGREGATIONALISM. Congregational churches arose in England in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In their early days, Congregationalists were also known as Independents. They are most numerous in the United States, England, and Wales, but recently most of them have joined with others to form united churches in several parts of the world.

Among churches, they have stood somewhere between the Presbyterians and the more radical Protestant groups, with a distinctive emphasis on the rights and responsibilities of each properly organized congregation to make its own decisions about its own affairs without recourse to any higher human authority. This, along with an emphasis on freedom of conscience, arose from convictions concerning the sovereignty of God and the priesthood of all believers.

Historical Survey

The "Congregational way" emerged as a major factor in English life during the English Civil War, but its roots lay in Elizabethan Separatism, which produced...