English Dissenters

English Dissenters or English Separatists were Protestants who separated from the Church of England between the 16th and 19th centuries. English Dissenters opposed state interference in religious matters and founded their own churches, educational institutions and communities. They tended to see the established church as too Catholic, but did not agree on what should be done about it.

Some Dissenters emigrated to the New World, especially to the Thirteen Colonies and Canada. Brownists founded the Plymouth Colony. The English Dissenters played a pivotal role in the religious development of the United States and greatly diversified the religious landscape. Some originally agitated for a wide-reaching Protestant Reformation of the established Church of England, and they flourished during the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell.

King James I had said "no bishop, no king", emphasising the role of the clergy in justifying royal legitimacy. Cromwell capitalised on that phrase, abolishing both upon founding the Commonwealth of England. After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the episcopacy was reinstalled, and the rights of the Dissenters were limited: the Act of Uniformity 1662 required Anglican ordination for all clergy, and many instead withdrew from the state church. These ministers and their followers came to be known as Nonconformists, though originally this term referred to refusal to use certain vestments and ceremonies of the Church of England, rather than separation from it.

Certain denominations of English Dissenters gained prominence throughout the world. The Baptists, the Congregationalists, and the Quakers of the 17th century, and the Methodists of the 18th century, remain major Christian denominations.

In existence during the English Interregnum (1649–1660):

Anabaptist (literally, "baptised again") was a term given to those Reformation Christians who rejected the notion of infant baptism in favour of believer's baptism. Though there is little evidence for Anabaptism in Britain later than the Elizabethan era, following their severe persecution by Henry VIII and Mary, Anabaptists in Holland and England influenced the development of Baptism. Scholars differ on the degree of this influence. In 1640, a proto-Baptist congregation in London began practicing a form of immersion Baptism which they had learned from an Arminian sect in Holland. This ritual of Anabaptist origin would later become standard across all Baptist churches. Despite this, evidence suggests that the early relations between Baptists and Anabaptists were strained. In 1624, the five Baptist churches of London issued an anathema against the Anabaptists. Even today there is still very little dialogue between Anabaptist organisations (such as the Mennonite World Conference) and the Baptists.

Baptist historian Bruce Gourley outlines four main views of Baptist origins:

Henry Barrowe maintained the right and duty of the church to carry out necessary reforms without awaiting the permission of the civil power; and advocated congregational independence. He regarded the whole established church order as polluted by the relics of Roman Catholicism and insisted on separation as essential to pure worship and discipline.