NONCONFORMISM

'Nonconformism' is the refusal to conform to common standards, conventions, rules, customs, traditions, norms or laws.

Contents
Nonconformism and Religion
Nonconformism and Art
See also
External links

Nonconformism and Religion


'Nonconformist' was a term used in England after the Act of Uniformity 1662 to refer to an English subject belonging to a non-Christian church or any non-Anglican church. It may also refer more narrowly to such a person who also advocated religious liberty.
The term is also applied retrospectively to English Dissenters (such as Puritans and Presbyterians) who violated the Act of Uniformity 1559, typically by practicing or advocating radical, sometimes separatist, dissent with respect to the established church.
Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and those less organized, were considered non-conformists at the time of the 1662 Act of Uniformity. Later, as other groups formed, they were also considered nonconformists. These included Methodists, Quakers, Unitarians, and members of the Salvation Army.
The religious census of 1851 revealed that total nonconformist attendance was very close to that of Anglicans.
Nowadays, churches independent of the Anglican Church of England or the Presbyterian Church of Scotland are often called Free Churches. In Scotland, the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church is considered nonconformist (despite its English counterpart's status) and in England, the Presbyterian United Reformed Church is in a similar position.
Members of nonconformist churches dissented, and often substantially, from established churches. Critics argued the required degree of conformity was quite high, and that members who refused to conform to common standards, conventions, rules, traditions or laws of the nonconformist church were dealt with far more severely than the established church dealt with its members.
The term dissenter came into use, particularly after the Act of Toleration (1689), which exempted nonconformists who had taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy from penalties for nonattendance at the services of the Church of England. For more on Nonconformists of the 17th and 18th centuries, see English Dissenters.
In England, nonconformists were restricted from many spheres of public life and were ineligible for many forms of public educational and social benefits, until the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in the nineteenth century and associated toleration. For example, attendance at an English university had required conformity to the Church of England before University College London (UCL) was founded, compelling nonconformists to privately fund their own ''Dissenting Academies''.

Nonconformism and Art


Nonconformism is often displayed by artists, either in the innovation of new styles and schools of artistic expression or in the personal habits and behavior of an artist. One famous example of a nonconformist movement in art was Surrealism, the tenets of which operate outside of limitations dictated by reason, aesthetics or morality. In the Surrealist Manifesto, Andre Breton wrote, "Surrealism, such as I conceive of it, asserts our complete nonconformism clearly enough so that there can be no question of translating it, at the trial of the real world, as evidence for the defense." Many Surrealists, and among them especially Salvador Dalí, were famous for their bizarre nonconformist behavior.

See also



English Dissenters

Independent

Conformism

Religion in the United Kingdom

Individualism

Non-conformists of the 1930s (France)

External links



Catholic Encyclopedia: Nonconformists

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