Solomon Stoddard

Solomon Stoddard (1643–1729) was a prominent New England Congregationalist minister and theologian whose tenure at Northampton, Massachusetts, made him one of the most influential religious figures of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He developed the controversial "Stoddardean" practice of admitting unconverted church members to communion, departing from strict Congregationalist polity and anticipating later evangelical inclusivity. His theological innovations and his role in fostering periodic religious revivals in his congregation established him as a precursor to the Great Awakening and a significant transitional figure between Puritan orthodoxy and American evangelicalism.