Half-Way Covenant
The Half-Way Covenant's adoption has been interpreted by some historians as signaling the decline of New England Puritanism and the ideal of the church as a body of exclusively converted believers.
[1] Beginning in the 1620s and 1630s, colonial New England was settled by Puritans who believed that they were obligated to build a holy society in covenant with God.
The covenant was the foundation for Puritan convictions concerning personal salvation, the church, social cohesion and political authority.
According to the Puritan vision, every church member should be a "visible saint", someone who not only demonstrated an understanding of Christian doctrine and was free of social scandal but who also could claim a conscious conversion experience.
If accepted, they could affirm the church covenant and receive the privileges of membership,[4] which included participating in the Lord's Supper and having their children baptized.
Before being admitted into the church, the converts engaged in a Puritan practice of lay sermonizing or prophesying in which they recounted to the congregation the process by which they became convinced of their election.
Initially, the Platform included language declaring that baptism was open to all descendants of converted church members who "cast not off the covenant of God by some scandalous and obstinate going on in sin".
Nevertheless, this statement was not included in the final version of the Platform due to the opposition of important figures, such as Charles Chauncy who would later become president of Harvard College.
[14][15] These recommendations were controversial and met with strong opposition, inducing the Massachusetts General Court to call a synod of ministers and lay delegates to deliberate further on the question of who should be baptized.
Among the 70 members of the synod, the strongest advocate for the Half-Way Covenant was Jonathan Mitchell, pastor of Cambridge's First Parish, and the leader of the conservative party, President Chauncey.
Supporters argued that to deny baptism and inclusion in the covenant to the grandchildren of first generation members was in essence claiming that second-generation parents had forfeited their membership and "discovenanted themselves", despite for the most part being catechized churchgoers.
[27] By the end of the 17th century, four out of every five Congregational churches in Massachusetts had adopted the Half-Way Covenant, with some also extending access to the Lord's Supper.
[26] As the Half-Way Covenant became widely adopted, it became typical for a New England congregation to have a group of regular churchgoers who were considered Christians by their behavior but who never professed conversion.
[31] Stoddardeanism was an attempt to reach people with the gospel more effectively, but it did so, according to historian Mark Noll, by "abandoning the covenant as a unifying rationale".
[32] Historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom writes that during the First Great Awakening (1734–1745), "The ideal of a regenerate [church] membership was renewed, while Stoddardeanism and the Half-Way Covenant were called into question.
[34] Opponents of the Awakening saw Edwards' views as a threat to family well-being and the social order, which they believed were promoted by the Half-Way system.
[36] The liberal, Arminian Congregationalists who dominated the churches in Boston and on the East Coast rejected the necessity of any specific conversion experience and would come to believe that the Lord's Supper was a memorial rather than a means of grace or a converting ordinance.
[38] Nineteenth-century Congregationalist ministers Leonard Bacon and Henry Martyn Dexter saw the Half-Way Covenant's adoption as the beginning of the decline of New England's churches that continued into the 1800s.
"[40] Historian Sydney Ahlstrom writes that the covenant was "itself no proof of declension" but that it "documented the passing of churches composed solely of regenerate 'saints'.
"[41] Historian Francis Bremer writes that it weakened the unity of the Congregational churches and that the bitter fighting between ministers over its adoption led to a loss of respect for the Puritan clergy as a social class.
[26] Historian Robert G. Pope questioned the "myth of declension", writing that the process labeled decline was, in reality, the "maturation" of the Congregational churches away from sectarianism.
Due to its widespread adoption, most New Englanders continued to be included within the covenant bonds linking individuals, churches and society until the First Great Awakening definitively marked the end of the Puritan era.
