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“A Study in the Problem of Authority in Congregational Church Order”

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“A Study in the Problem of Authority in Congregational Church Order”

(Section II)

James M. Gustafson

(c. 1950) pp. 17-29

James Gustafson is a long time professor at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. He wrote as the Congregational Church was headed toward a merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church to become the United Church of Christ.

This section included here is a summary of early New England congregational thought with an emphasis on the meaning of covenant.

  1. Gustafson sees countervailing church claims as influencing polity. He seems to argue a sociological explanation for the church developing the way it did. How could this argument be critiqued?
  2. What was the basis of the ministerial call in early New England church life?

The text of this item is forthcoming.