The Puritans 3: The Half-Way Covenant

Early Puritan Church/Photo Ponahou School

Continuing on with the Puritan subject, an interesting thing happened in the mid 1600's as the Puritan churches in New England began to suffer declining membership, part of the problem was that to become an actual member of the Puritan Church you had to have a "Conversion Experience", the requirement was that someone who was not a member had to publicly stand in front of the congregation and declare that they had a religious conversion, if the leaders of the church were convinced that this conversion was authentic then the person received membership.

The problem started when second generation family members did not experience this "Conversion Experience" and the first generation church members began to die so church membership began to seriously decline. At the time church attendance was expected from all townspeople, hoping this would increase membership however conflicts inevitably arose over the requirement of an "Conversion Experience".

In 1662 an agreement was reached, known as the Half-Way Covenant, offered a practical solution: members children who had not experience the conversion themselves could join the church as a "half-way" member, restricted only from participation in communion. In the end this agreement ensured that the church still had money coming in and kept it's power over the colony's government.

This was one of the few times you will find that the puritan church showed religious tolerance, but as you can see though it was toward there only family members and it kept the church in power.

For now this will be the end of the post's on the Puritans unless someone wants more, thank you for stopping by.