Information about Nonconformism

Nonconformism is in general the refusal to conform to common standards, conventions, rules, customs, traditions, norms or laws. In specific usage (usually capitalized), however, it refers to the Protestant Christians of England who refused to "conform", or follow the governance and usages of the Church of England.

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.

The term is also applied retrospectively to English Dissenters (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, Quakers (founded in 1648), 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, 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 nonconformist churches dissented, and often substantially, from established churches. Critics argued 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.

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.

See also

• English Dissenters
• Independent (religion)
• Ranter
• Religion in the United Kingdom

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia: Nonconformists