Dissenter: Difference between revisions

A '''dissenter''' (from the Latin ''dissentire'', "to disagree") is one who disagrees in matters of opinion, belief, etc.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|title=Dissenter|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Dissenter|work=1911 Encyclopædia Britannica|volume=Volume 8|access-date=2019-02-28}}</ref> In the social and religious history of [[England]] and [[Wales]], and, by extension, [[Ireland]], however, it refers particularly to a member of a religious body who has, for one reason or another, separated from the [[established church]] or any other kind of [[Protestant]] who refuses to recognise the supremacy of the established church in areas where the established church is or was [[Anglican]].<ref name=OxDictChristChurch>{{citation | title = The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church | editor1-first = FL | editor1-last = Cross | editor2-first = EA | editor2-last = Livingstone | publisher = Oxford University Press | place = USA | edition = 3rd | page = 490 | date = March 13, 1997}}.</ref><ref name="IP58">{{cite book |last1= Parker |first1= Irene |authorlink1= |title= Dissenting academies in England: their rise and progress, and their place among the educational systems of the country |url= https://archive.org/details/dissentingacadem00parkiala/ |format= |accessdate= |year=1914 & 2009|publisher= Cambridge University Press |location= |language= |isbn=978-0-521-74864-3|oclc= |doi= |id= |page= |pages=|chapter= |chapterurl= |quote= |ref= |bibcode= }}</ref>▼

Originally, the term included English and Welsh [[Roman Catholics]]<ref name=OxDictChristChurch/> whom the original draft of the [[Nonconformist Relief Act 1779]] styled "[[Protesting Catholic Dissenters]]". In practice, however, it designates Protestant Dissenters referred to in sec. ii. of the [[Act of Toleration 1689|Act of Toleration]] of 1689 (see [[English Dissenters]]).<ref name=":0" /> The term [[recusant]], in contrast, came to refer to Roman Catholics rather than Protestant dissenters.▼

The term has also been applied to those bodies who dissent from the Presbyterian [[Church of Scotland]], which is the national church of Scotland.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.covenanter.org/RefPres/shortaccount.htm |title=Archived copy |accessdate=2015-09-13 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150813021129/http://covenanter.org/RefPres/shortaccount.htm |archivedate=2015-08-13 |df= }}</ref> In this connotation, the terms "dissenter" and "dissenting", which had acquired a somewhat contemptuous flavor, have tended since the middle of the 18th century to be replaced by "[[nonconformist]]", a term which did not originally imply secession, but only refusal to conform in certain particulars (for example the wearing of the [[surplice]]), with the authorized usages of the Established Church.<ref name=OxDictChristChurch/>▼

Still more recently, the term "nonconformist" has in its turn, as the political attack on the principle of a state establishment of religion developed, tended to give way to the style of "[[free church]]es" and "Free Churchman". All three terms continue in use, "nonconformist" being the most usual, as it is the most colourless.<ref name=":0" />▼

{{wiktionary|dissent|dissenter}}▼