Godly Order and the Trumpet of Defiance

Abstract

This chapter explores the politics of church life among Congregational gathered churches during the English Revolution. In contrast to studies that view gathered church life at this time as too fluid and unsettled to be meaningfully analysed, it outlines the social relations and ecclesiastical structures that shaped the ‘mixed’ church polity of Congregational churches, arguing that these structures defined the corporate and personal experience of their members. In a close analysis of the transactional debate and conflict apparent in two case studies, focusing on the politics of Congregational church life at Norwich and Bury St. Edmunds in the 1640s and 1650s, it concludes that these politics were formative and creative. They determined a church’s beliefs, practices, identity, and communal life in a process best understood as denominational formation. This chapter therefore provides a method for studying religious experience within other institutional churches established both in this period and more generally.