First Parish in Cambridge

The church is notable for its almost 400-year history, which includes pivotal roles in the development of the early Massachusetts government, the creation of Harvard College, and the refinement of current liberal religious thought.

The Meeting House's first minister, Thomas Hooker, stayed only a handful of years; he and most of his flock moved to Connecticut to escape religious persecution in 1636.

Such costs as the maintenance of the meeting house and the salary of the town's "public teacher of piety, religion, and morality" (who was also the minister of the church) were met by regular assessments on all persons domiciled within the territorial limits of the parish (unless exempted because they were supporting either Baptist or Episcopal worship).

The division between Calvinists and Arminians, which appeared in many churches of the Standing Order in the 18th century, reached a time of crisis in the period from 1805 to 1830.

Reverend Holmes held to orthodox doctrinal views, but he remained on friendly terms with the liberal or Arminian party for three decades after his installation in 1792.

After vainly attempting to persuade Reverend Holmes to return to his earlier, more inclusive practices, the Parish voted to dismiss him as its public teacher of religion and morality.

The fourteenth minister, Reverend Dr. Samuel McChord Crothers, an eloquent preacher and widely read essayist, managed to attract a following from both the University and the Old Cambridge communities.

In 1837, Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered his now famous "American Scholar" address—referred to by Oliver Wendell Holmes as America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence"—at the First Parish Church.

The current church leadership, however, is committed to maintaining the witness of liberal religion, in keeping with the struggles of earlier generations.