All the people of England were the members of the Christian church in one way or another. Pope in Rome was regarded as the head of the church. Later, during the reformation, people were divided and there evolved two groups, namely, the Catholics and the Protestants. When the Catholics were loyal to the Pope, the people who protested certain doctrines of the church became the Protestants who were against the Pope.
Anglicanism and Catholicism
Anglicanism or Catholicism was considered the main national religion of then England. They are both Christian churches and rely on the Eastern Orthodox churches. Both the Anglicans and Roman Catholics were much similar in reading the Bible and yet differed in various ways. Catholics consider the hierarchy in the church and the Catholic Priests do not marry, whereas the Anglicans did not accept the supremacy of the Pope and their priests were married.
Head of the Church of England
As Anglicanism was the official religion of England, most of the people belonged to the Church of England. It was mostly connected by a network of parishes. And each of this parish was in the charge of a Rector or Vicar. The Archbishops of Canterbury in the South and York in the North were powerful and superior and the King or the Queen was the real head of the Church of England.
Divisions
In the 17th century there was a division into two groups namely the high church and the low church. The high church members gave a high place to authority whereas the low church members did not give a high place to authority. There was no difference between the rituals of the Roman Catholics and the Anglo Catholics except that they did not accept the supremacy of the Pope.
Non-Conformists
Queen Elizabeth brought about certain reforms to which certain people did not conform. They were the people who were nicknamed Puritans. They wanted to purify the Church of England of all Roman Catholic practices. Their descendants were known as Dissenters. Those dissenters were called Non-Conformists and the most important of which were the Methodists, the Baptists, the Congregationists, the Presbyterians and Quakers or the member of the Society of Friends
Methodism
Methodism was the closest to the Church of England and was started in 1729. They were named Methodists for the way they had followed methodically in practising their Christian faith.
John Wesley and George Wakefield were the leaders of the group. Wesley believed in Armenianism and Whitefield believed in Calvin’s doctrine. In 1795 the methodists became an independent body and in 1932 the methodist bodies became united.
The Baptists
The Baptists, as a sect came into existence in the middle of the seventeenth century. They believed that faith is a fact between the God and an individual. The most famous of England Baptists was John Bunyan who famously wrote the book, The Pilgrim’s Progress. Baptist belief was introduced into America in 1639 by Roger Williams.
It’s basic belief was that the only people who have professed their faith can be baptised, unlike the infant baptism practiced by most other Christian faiths. The Baptist missionary society founded in 1792 was the first English organisation for foreign missions.
Congregationalism
This started with the Protestant Reformation. One of the groups separated themselves completely from them and called themselves Congregationalists. For them, Christ was the only head of the church and the Bible was a sufficient role of faith.
Presbyterians
They were a group of Protestant Christians without Bishops; they were predominant in their reformation period. They displaced the Church of England at least for a time. It is rooted in the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. When the Catholic church did not accept the reformers, there emerged a number of other theological movements with different denominations as this one.
Quakerism or the Society of Friends
Quakers are the people who belong to a Protestant Christian set of denominations historically known as the Religious Society of Friends. This was established during the short period of between 1648 and 1650 by George Fox. They were called quakers because they quacked when they spoke under divine inspiration . They had the faith that every man was guided by God. They were against all doctrines and they also did a lot of charitable works. William Penn and Elizabeth Fry were the famous quakers.
Unitarianism
Unitarianism basically denied the doctrine of Trinity. It prevailed in the mid nineteenth century and became a religion of reason. It was under the leadership of James Martineau of England. Several other notable people are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker of the United States, S T Coleridge, Elizabeth Gaskell and Sir Isaac Newton.
Adventists
Adventists were the various groups of Christians who had believed that the second coming of Christ was most imminent. The first coming of Christ was as the savior of the world the second coming of Christ was expected to be as a Judge of mankind. The Seventh-day Adventists Church considered Saturday as their day of rest.