Congregationalist

In this series on denominational traditions (part 1, part 2), we come next to the Congregationalists. Congregationalism was a branch of English Puritanism, Reformed in doctrine and worship but holding to some unique positions on the doctrine of the church:

1. Membership on the basis of conversion.

The basis for church membership (communicant church membership) is faith and repentance, or more precisely, a profession of faith that is not only believable, but that compels belief. At least in New England, they generally required prospective members to give testimonies of their conversions. They did retain infant baptism, although the status of such children before their profession was debated (the Savoy Declaration did not count baptized infants as members of the visible church, but the versions of Savoy and the Westminster Confession accepted by New England Congregationalists did count them as such). 

2. Gathered churches formed by church covenants.

Rather than the universal visible church being formed into particular churches, churches are formed by believers covenanting together.

3. No greater church than a congregation, with all authority at the congregational level.

Their churches are independent, more or less, although there is a place for associations and synods (especially useful with respect to ordination), although associations beyond the local church lack church-power. 

4. Government by the congregation, led by officers.

Members vote on receiving, dismissing, and disciplining members, as well as calling men to office or removing them from office. Churches are led and taught by these officers. Originally Congregationalist churches had ministers, ruling elders, and deacons, but ruling elders gradually disappeared, leaving only ministers/elders and deacons. 

History

Notable English Congregationalists include William Ames, Thomas Goodwin, John Owen, and Isaac Watts. Notable American Congregationalists include the Pilgrims and New England Puritans, John Cotton, John Eliot, Thomas Hooker, the Mathers, Jonathan Edwards, Timothy Dwight, Nathaniel Taylor, D.L. Moody, C.I. Scofield, and Harold John Ockenga.

1620 - The Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth.

1640s - Westminster Assembly, a mostly Presbyterian assembly that included some Congregationalists like Goodwin.

1648 - The Cambridge Platform adopted in Massachusetts, which affirmed the Westminster Confession of Faith except as dealt with church government and discipline.

1658 - The Savoy Declaration, a modified version of the Westminster Confession, was produced by English Congregationalists. 

1662 - The Half-Way Covenant was adopted in many churches of New England.

1680 - The Reforming Synod (MA), which approved the Savoy Declaration with a few minor edits.

1708 - The Saybrook Platform (CT), which included the confession of 1680 (the slightly altered Savoy Declaration).

1730s - The Great Awakening began (e.g. Jonathan Edwards, Old Light / New Light split). 

1766 - American Presbyterians and CT Congregationalists form an association with a regular convention for better communication between them and for a united stand for the gospel and religious liberty and against the imposition of a bishop.

Late 1700s - The “New Divinity” develops among New Light Congregationalists

1801 - The Plan of Union with Presbyterians for westward expansion (until 1837 and 1852)

1800-1825 - Unitarian controversy; about 100 churches, mostly near Boston, break away.

1807 - Andover Seminary was founded in response to a Unitarian divinity professor at Harvard.

1810 - American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was founded (one of many voluntary societies created in that era).

1817 - Timothy Dwight, grandson of Edwards, minister, Yale president, dies.

1818-1819 - Churches disestablished in CT and NH.

1822 - Nathaniel Taylor became professor of divinity at Yale, promoting “New Haven Theology.”

1833 - Churches disestablished in MA.

1853 - The American Congregational Union formed.

1865 - The Burial Hill Declaration of Faith (preparation for the denomination that formed in 1871).

Late 1800s - D.L. Moody and C.I. Scofield active.

1871 - National Council of Congregational Churches of the United States.

1913 - The Kansas City Statement (watered down, no Calvinism, a more liberal position).

1931 - CCC (Congregational Christian Churches) was formed through a merger of the national (predominately northern) denomination with the General Convention of the Christian Church (predominately a southern denomination).

1948 - CCCC (Conservative Congregational Christian Conference) was formed due to theological concerns with the Congregational Christian Churches.

1955 - NACCC (National Association of Congregational Christian Churches) was formed out of opposition to the merger that created the UCC.

1957/1961 - UCC (United Church of Christ) was formed through a merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church (a denomination of German heritage).

What We Have in Common

With liberal Congregationalists, not much. Historically, with traditional Congregationalists, we have a great deal in common (e.g. doctrines of God’s sovereignty, covenant theology, Reformed worship), which is why Presbyterians and Congregationalists often worked together from at least the late 1600s through the mid-1800s.

Positive Traits We Can Appreciate

• They had all the positives of Puritanism: practical and zealous, with Reformed doctrine.
• Their emphasis on godly community, reform of church and society according to God‘s word, election sermons, missions, and an educated ministry.
• Their ability to achieve these things in New England.
• The importance of settled, churchly, Sabbatarian habits.
• Seeking both a godly commonwealth and a pure and zealous church (resisting, for a time, sectarian and broad church tendencies)

Where We Differ

While they hold to church membership of those who sufficiently prove themselves to be regenerate, we hold to church membership of those who profess faith and their children.

While they conceive of churches organized only as gathered local churches by church covenants, we conceive of the visible church as universal and particular, regional and local, united by profession of faith. 

While they hold churches to be basically independent, we hold the visible church to be local and regional, with local and regional governments.

While they hold to government and discipline that is congregational, based on and limited by their church-covenants, we hold to government and discipline that is by elders (teaching and ruling) called by the people.

Other differences result from the fact that congregational church government is not as effective at securing doctrinal unity, and so congregationalism general has more doctrinal diversity (despite its confessions and statements).

"As to my subscribing to the substance of the Westminster Confession, there would be no difficulty: and as to the Presbyterian government, I have long been out of conceit of our unsettled, independent, confused way of church government; and the Presbyterian way has ever appeared to me most agreeable to the word of God, and the reason and nature of things…"
- Jonathan Edwards (Letter from him to John Erskine, July 5, 1750)

"Had New England, with her compact and homogenous population, and all her other advantages, enjoyed the benefit of a regular Presbyterian government in the church, it would, in all human probability, have been the noblest ecclesiastical community in the world." 
- Charles Hodge