First Parish in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the birthplace of both religious and civic freedom in America, stands at the heart of the Pilgrim story.
The fifth Pilgrim meetinghouse, dedicated in 1899 and known for years as the National Memorial Pilgrim Church, celebrates Pilgrim values and beliefs through its architecture and interior decorative symbolism. Since 2018 it has been under the stewardship of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, whose goal is to fully restore the building and create an interactive museum in honor of the Pilgrims.
First Parish’s continuous records date back to 1606 in Scrooby, England, where religious dissenters known as Separatists were forced to worship in secret in William Brewster’s manor house in order to avoid being persecuted for their religious beliefs.
In 1608, the Scrooby Separatists (the segment of the Mayflower’s passengers who came to the New World primarily for religious freedom) fled to Holland, where their beliefs were met with much greater tolerance.
The Separatists embraced Pastor John Robinson’s belief that “[t]he Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth out of his Holy Word,” words that are inscribed on the left sanctuary wall of the 1899 meetinghouse. In The Church of the Pilgrim Fathers, well-known Unitarian Universalist ministerGeorge N. Marshall argues that this belief “established the principle of progressive and continuing revelation at a time when everywhere one found truth prescribed by the past.”
In “Why a Unitarian Church,” one of the essays contained in Marshall’s edited volume, former First Parish minister Alfred Rodman Hussey argues that this “was a daring attitude to take in those days, for it showed a frame of mind diametrically at variance with the spirit of the age” due to the high value placed on the search for truth and individual thought.
In 1620, a portion of the Leyden Separatist congregation made the decision to journey to the New World. William Bradford observed in his journal that they were “pilgrims,” but it was not until the 1700s that the term “Pilgrims” came to refer to not only the Separatists, but also the other Mayflower passengers (sometimes referred to as “the Strangers”) who had been drawn to the New World primarily for material gain.
Following the often harrowing months at sea, the Mayflower reached the New World in November and anchored in Provincetown Harbor. In the process of reaching agreement on how to govern themselves in this new world, the religious and more secular leaders crafted a document that would become known as the Mayflower Compact.
After arriving in Plymouth, the Pilgrims held their first religious services in a small building that they constructed near the base of Burial Hill. In 1622, a fort erected on top of Burial Hill served both the civic and religious needs of the community.
Reverend George N. Marshall supports the view that “the Pilgrim tradition is the basis of our democratic culture in America. The Mayflower Compact was the original American instrument of democratic government. The town-meeting concept was established by the Pilgrim Fathers, as was the annual election of officers. They sought to establish religious freedom and safeguard it with civil liberty.”
After arriving in Plymouth, the Pilgrims held their first religious services in a small building that they constructed near the base of Burial Hill. In 1622, a fort erected on top of Burial Hill served both the civic and religious needs of the community.
Although Pastor Robinson had remained in Leyden with the majority of the congregation, the Pilgrims continued to be guided by his words and beliefs.
In “The Pilgrims’ Church in Plymouth,” former Pilgrim Society president Arthur Lord observes that “[the Mayflower Separatists] carried with them, so far as appears in the minute chronicle of Bradford, no written confession or declaration of faith or creed. They would doubtless have described themselves as Calvinists; but it was a Calvinism which was marked with a singular degree of liberality. Much broader and more tolerant than that of the catechism and covenant of later days.”
In George N. Marshall’s view, “The liberalism of the Pilgrim Pastor, John Robinson, culminated in broad tolerance. The Pilgrims of Plymouth were remarkable for their lack of witch-hunting, for their failure to follow the other New England colonies in their persecution of Quakers, for their willingness to allow a difference of theological opinion to exist among the members of the church and even between the church and its ministers.”
This liberality of thought and the lack of a creed continued at First Parish (originally called First Church) until the Reverend Chandler Robbins, First Parish minister from 1760-1799, insisted in 1795 that the church adopt a “Calvinistic Confession of Faith,” a clear departure from the practices of the Separatists.
After Robbins’ death in 1799, Mr. James Kendall from Harvard was called as minister, and Robbins’ creed was eliminated as the church returned to its original, more liberal ways. According to former First Parish minister John Cuckson, “Unlike so many Congregational Churches at this time . . . the First Church resisted Calvinism so completely that there was no room for dispute.”
In the 1830s during Dr. Kendall’s sixty-year ministry, First Parish gradually came to embrace Unitarianism. In “Why a Unitarian Church,” former First Parish minister Alfred Rodman Hussey argues that “Unitarianism is an attitude, and an approach to religious inquiry. The First Church never voted to ‘become Unitarian’ because it never felt it was making a radical change.”
(Plymouth’s First Universalist Society founded 1822 discontinued services in 1934 due to declining membership, at which time most of its members joined First Parish. In 1965, the Unitarian and Universalist churches formally were consolidated.)
It is Reverend George N. Marshall’s belief that “[t]he Pilgrim faith forecast a number of freedoms which all Americans have come to cherish, and some freedoms not yet fully realized . . . If the Pilgrim colony at Plymouth had not become the core of the New England settlements . . . it is entirely probable that the colonization of America, and the type of settlements evolving, might have been organized in an undemocratic fashion, and hence shaped our heritage in a far different way.”
“Today’s Church of the First Parish adheres to the unfettered faith of the Pilgrims both in freedom from creed and in the simple ritual of its worship services. There is no theological test of any kind, and all persons who sincerely wish to join the Church are welcome . . . . Our aim is to maintain and preserve a free and fearless church, seeking truth wherever it may be found, and striving for an interpretation of religion that shall be in harmony with modern knowledge and will satisfy the spiritual and intellectual cravings of today’s people” (“A Brief History of the First Church in Plymouth,” 1973).