With more people, came more controversy, so individuals were no longer forced to go to chuch based on where they lived, they could actually choose a church. This led to differentiation amongst churches and room for a strong profession of faith.
Calvinism was soon the target and religion was litigated in the public sector for domination. This led to antagonistic relationships between the "liberals" and the "orthodox" (two words I just so love!)
Churches became more a reflection of their members than of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. With such independence, soon came the need to band together for efficiency and conventions, (one would imagine the processor of denominations) formed for administrative purposes among the liberals and for ecclesiastical purposes among the orthodox.
Meetings among the churches began to happen and leaders, such as Bellows and Starr-King emerged. These leaders had administrative and ecclesiastical authority, although only administrative authority was actually granted.
The Universalists were slightly more skewed toward ecclesiastical hierarchy, but each church was still local. This effectively lame-duck leadership led to quite a fracture relationship among the Universalists, who had these professions, like the Winchester Profession, which were official, but yet had no enforcement teeth behind them.
From there, distinctions in the local churches became driven in large part to ministers, such as Parker, but it was difficult to see if the following was for the minister or for the church. Wright frames the creed/false creed argument that passed and both ended up in different places, one wanting a more concrete profession of faith and one not. But each on their own, through consensus began to come together as coherent religious groups.
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