Nonconformist (Protestantism)

Nonconformists are Protestant Christians who do not "conform" to the governance and usages of the established church in England, and in Wales until 1914, the Church of England.

Use of the term Nonconformist in England and Wales was precipitated by the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, when the Act of Uniformity 1662 renewed opposition to reforms within the established church. By the late 19th century the term specifically included other Reformed Christians (English Presbyterians and Congregationalists), plus the Baptists, Brethren, Methodists, and Quakers. English Dissenters, such as the Puritans, who violated the Act of Uniformity 1558 – typically by practising radical, sometimes separatist, dissent – were retrospectively labelled as Nonconformists.

In Ireland, the comparable term until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869 was Dissenter (the term earlier used in England), typically a reference to Irish Presbyterians who refused, or dissented from, the approved Anglican communion.

By law and social custom, Nonconformists in England and Wales, and Dissenters in Ireland, were restricted from many spheres of public life – not least, from access to public office, civil service careers, or degrees at university – and were referred to as suffering from civil disabilities. In England and Wales in the late 19th century the new terms "free church" and "Free churchman" (or "Free church person") started to replace Nonconformist or Dissenter.

One influential Nonconformist minister was Matthew Henry, who beginning in 1710 published his multi-volume biblical commentary that is still used and available in the 21st century. Isaac Watts is an equally recognised Nonconformist minister whose hymns are still sung by Christians worldwide.

The term can also be applied more broadly to describe Christians who do not belong as communicants to a country's majority national church, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden.