Congregationalist polity, often known as
congregationalism, is a system of
church governance in which every
local church congregation is independent,
ecclesiastically sovereign, or "
autonomous". Its first articulation in writing is the
Cambridge Platform of 1648 in
New England. Among those major
Protestant Christian traditions that employ congregationalism are those
Congregational Churches known by the "Congregationalist" name that descended from the
Independent wing of the Anglo-American
Puritan movement of the 17th century,
Quakerism, the
Baptist churches, and most of the groups brought about by the
Anabaptist movement in
Germany that migrated to the U.S. in the late 18th century. More recent generations have witnessed also a growing number of
non-denominational churches, which are most often congregationalist in their governance. In
Christianity, congregationalism is distinguished most clearly from
episcopal polity, which is governance by a hierarchy of
bishops. But it is also distinct from
presbyterian polity, in which higher assemblies of congregational representatives can exercise considerable authority over individual congregations.