Congregational churches

Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches; Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Reformed tradition practicing congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs.

In the United States and the United Kingdom, many Congregational churches claim their descent from Protestant denominations formed on a theory of union published by the theologian and English separatist Robert Browne in 1582.

Ideas of nonconforming Protestants during the Puritan Reformation of the Church of England laid foundation for these churches.

In England, the early Congregationalists are called Separatists or Independents to distinguish them from the similarly Calvinistic Presbyterians, whose churches embrace a polity based on the governance of elders.

Congregationalists also differ with the Reformed churches using episcopalian church governance, which is usually led by a bishop.

Congregational churches are widely established in the Plymouth Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony (in present-day New England), and together write the Cambridge Platform of 1648 which describes the autonomy of the church and its association with others.

Within the United States, the model of Congregational churches is carried by migrating settlers from New England into New York, then into the Old North West, and further.

With their insistence on independent local bodies, they become important in many social reform movements, including abolitionism, temperance, and women's suffrage.

Modern Congregationalism in the United States is largely split into three bodies: the United Church of Christ, the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches and the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference, which is the most theologically conservative.

Congregationalist tradition has a presence in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and various island nations in the Pacific region.

It has been introduced either by immigrant dissenter Protestants or by missionary organization such as the London Missionary Society.

A number of evangelical Congregational churches are members of the World Evangelical Congregational Fellowship.

Congregationalism, as defined by the Pew Research Center, is estimated to represent 0.5% of the worldwide Protestant population; though their polity-related customs and other ideas influenced significant parts of Protestantism, as well as other Christian congregations.

The report defines it very narrowly, encompassing mainly denominations in the United States and the United Kingdom, which can trace their history back to nonconforming Protestants, Puritans, Separatists, Independents, English religious groups coming out of the English Civil War, and other English dissenters not satisfied with the degree to which the Church of England had been reformed.