Congregationalism in the United States

Congregational practices concerning church governance influenced the early development of democratic institutions in New England, and many of the nation's oldest educational institutions, such as Harvard University and Yale University, were founded to train Congregational clergy.

Chartered by Connecticut Colony, the "Collegiate School" was established in 1701 by clergy to educate Congregational ministers.

Congregational practices concerning church governance influenced the early development of democratic institutions in New England, and many of the nation's oldest educational institutions, such as Harvard University and Yale University, were founded to train Congregational clergy.

The early College primarily trained Congregational and Unitarian clergy, although it has never been formally affiliated with any denomination.

The largest of these is the United Church of Christ, which resulted from a 1957 merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church.

The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical confessional roots in the Congregational, Reformed, and Lutheran traditions, and with approximately 4,882 churches and 824,866 members.

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.

The National Association of Congregational Christian Churches (NACCC) is an association of about 400 churches providing fellowship for and services to churches from the Congregational tradition.

Congregational churches in other parts of the world are often related to these in the United States due to American missionary activities.

Congregationalism in the United States traces its origins to the Puritans of New England, who wrote the Cambridge Platform of 1648 to describe the autonomy of the church and its association with others.

Congregational churches and ministers influenced the First and Second Great Awakenings and were early promoters of the missionary movement of the 19th century.

In the American colonies, the Awakening caused the Congregational and Presbyterian churches to split, while it strengthened both the Methodist and Baptist denominations.

Congregationalists also looked to the ministers of the First Church in Boston to set examples for other churches to follow.

First Church in Boston is a Unitarian Universalist Church (originally Congregationalist) founded in 1630 by John Winthrop's original Puritan settlement in Boston, Massachusetts.

It also influenced the development of American Unitarianism and Unitarian Universalism.

New England Unitarians evolved from the Pilgrim Fathers' Congregational Christianity, which was originally based on a literal reading of the Holy Bible.

The Congregational tradition has shaped both mainline and evangelical Protestantism in the United States.

Early American evangelicalism was shaped by the Puritans of New England (also known as Congregationalists), a 16th and 17th-century Calvinist movement originating in England.

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.

The Cambridge Platform is a statement describing the system of church government in the Congregational churches of colonial New England.

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.

The Half-Way Covenant was a form of partial church membership adopted by the Congregational churches of colonial New England in the 1660s.

Brattle Street Church was organized on December 12, 1699, but without the support of the other churches in the colony.

The Brattle Street Church (1698–1876) was a Congregational (1698 – c. 1805) and Unitarian (c.

In 1735, Jonathan Edwards led his First Church congregation of Northampton, Massachusetts, through a religious revival.

Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was a North American revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist Protestant theologian.

The Saybrook Platform called for the creation of standing councils called consociations in every county and tasked associations with providing ministerial consultation and licensure.

The Saybrook Platform was a new constitution for the Congregational church in Connecticut in 1708.

Other Congregationalists met at Boston in 1743 under the leadership of Benjamin Colman of Brattle Street Church and Thomas Prince of Old South Church.

The Old South Meeting House is a historic Congregational church building located at the corner of Milk and Washington Streets in the Downtown Crossing area of Boston, Massachusetts, built in 1729.

Congregational churches and ministers influenced the First and Second Great Awakenings and were early promoters of the missionary movement of the 19th century.

Congregationalists set up missionary societies to evangelize the western territory of the northern tier.

Jonathan Mayhew of Boston's West Church rejected traditional views on the divinity of Christ and embraced Arianism.

Jonathan Mayhew (October 8, 1720 – July 9, 1766) was a noted American Congregational minister at Old West Church, Boston, Massachusetts.

Charles Chauncy of Boston's First Church became the leader of the revival's opponents with the publication of his Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England, which attacked the enthusiasm and extravagant behaviors of revival meetings.

Charles Chauncy (1 January 1705 – 10 February 1787) was an American Congregational clergyman in Boston.

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.

The New England Congregationalists were also adamant that they were not separating from the Church of England.

The New Divinity, as the Edwardsean school of thought became known, sought to answer Arminian objections to Calvinism and to provide a theological basis for the revivalism that had been unleashed by the Great Awakening.

New England theology designates a special school of theology which grew up among the Congregationalists of New England, originating in the year 1732, when Jonathan Edwards began his constructive theological work, culminating a little before the American Civil War, declining afterwards, and rapidly disappearing after the year 1880.

In the two decades after the First Great Awakening, the tone of Congregational thought was set by New Light theologian Jonathan Edwards and his followers, most notable being Joseph Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins.

Samuel Hopkins (September 17, 1721 – December 20, 1803) was an American Congregationalist theologian of the late colonial era of the United States, and from whom the Hopkinsian theology takes its name.

In the two decades after the First Great Awakening, the tone of Congregational thought was set by New Light theologian Jonathan Edwards and his followers, most notable being Joseph Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins.

Joseph Bellamy (20 February 1719 - 6 March 1790) was an American Congregationalist pastor and a leading preacher, author, educator and theologian in New England in the second half of the 18th century.

The Congregational tradition has shaped both mainline and evangelical Protestantism in the United States.

The largest and most influential Protestant denominations in Britain's 13 colonies were the Anglicans (after the American Revolution called Episcopalians) and the Puritans (later mostly Congregationalists and Unitarian Universalists).

The University of Vermont and Middlebury College were founded by Congregationalists.

It was founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, making it the first operating college or university in Vermont.

The Mayhew family began their work among the natives of Martha's Vineyard around the same time as Eliot.

He became a Congregational minister with the oversight of five or six Indian assemblies, and continued in his ministry for 64 years.