Nonconformism
Nonconformism is the refusal to conform to common standards, conventions, rules, traditions or laws.
Nonconformist was a term used in
England after the
Act of Uniformity 1662 to refer to an English subject belonging to a non-
Christian church or any non-
Anglican church. It may also refer more narrowly to such a person who also advocated
religious liberty. (see
English Dissenters)
The term is also applied retrospectively to earlier English Protestants (such as
Puritans and
Presbyterians) who violated the
Act of Uniformity 1559, typically by practicing or advocating radical, sometimes
separatist, dissent with respect to the established church.
Presbyterians,
Congregationalists,
Baptists, and those less organized, were considered Nonconformists at the time of the 1662 Act of Uniformity. Later, as other groups formed, they were also considered nonconformists. These included
Methodists,
Quakers,
Unitarians, and members of the
Salvation Army.
The religious census of
1851 revealed that total nonconformist attendance was very close to that of
Anglicans.
Nowadays, churches independent of the Anglican
Church of England or the
Presbyterian Church of Scotland are often called
Free Churches. In Scotland, the Anglican
Scottish Episcopal Church is considered nonconformist (despite its English counterpart's status) and in England, the Presbyterian
United Reformed Church is in a similar position.
Members of noncomformist churches dissented, and often substantially, from established churches. It has, however, been frequently noted that, within the church, the required degree of conformity was quite high, and that members who refused to conform to common standards, conventions, rules, traditions or laws of the nonconformist church were dealt with far more severely than the established church dealt with its members. G. K. Chesterton observed:
For instance, what we called the Free Churches, constituting whatwas also called the Nonconformist Conscience, represented a marvelof moral unity and the spreading of a special spiritual atmosphere.But the Free Churches were not free, whatever else they were.The most striking and even startling thing about them was the ABSENCEof any individual repudiations of the common ideals which the Consciencelaid down. The Nonconformist Conscience was not the normal conscience;they would hardly themselves have pretended that the mass ofmankind necessarily agreed with them about Drink or Armaments.But they all agreed with each other about Drink or Armaments.A Nonconformist minister standing up to defend public-houses,or public expenditure on guns and bayonets, was a much rarer thingthan a heretic in much more hierarchical systems. It was broadlythe fact that ALL such men supported what they called Temperance;which seemed to mean an intemperate denunciation of temperate drinking.It is almost as certain that ALL of them insisted on what theycalled Peace; which seemed, so far as I could make out, to meansuch weakening of armament as would involve disaster and destructionin War. But the question here is not whether I disagreedwith them; but whether they ever disagreed with each other.[1]
The term
dissenter came into use, particularly after the
Act of Toleration (
1689), which exempted nonconformists who had taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy from penalties for nonattendance at the services of the Church of England. For more on Nonconformists of the 17th and 18th centuries, see
English Dissenters.
In England, nonconformists were restricted from many spheres of public life and were ineligible for many forms of public educational and social benefits, until the repeal of the
Test and Corporation Acts in the nineteenth century and associated toleration. For example, attendance at an English university had required conformity to the Church of England before
University College London (UCL) was founded, compelling nonconformists to privately fund their own
Dissenting Academies.
*
Christian anarchism*
English Dissenters*
Civil disobedience*
Conformism*
Religion in the United Kingdom*
Catholic Encyclopedia: Nonconformists
