RT Article
T1 Congregational Discipline in Small-Town Woodland New England
JF Church history and religious culture
VO 105
IS 3/4
SP 379
OP 397
A1 Rogers-Stokes, Lori
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1960464183
AB Every town in the Massachusetts Bay Colony had at least one congregation. But this didn’t mean each town had a church. When Congregationalists used the word "church," they referred to a body of people within a congregation who, when joined together to worship, were transformed by God into one being. The rapid population growth of New England towns meant a continual influx of new people—"strangers"—into congregations by default, but a church could not be so easily guaranteed. The Halfway Covenant, broached as an idea in 1662 by a synod in Cambridge, proposed a way for completely unaffiliated people to join congregations "halfway": not full members of the church, but more than just members of the congregation. In this article, I explore examples of Halfway Covenant membership, including Indigenous and English believers, in several towns in the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the turn of the 18th century, particularly Iyannough/West Barnstable and N’ahteuk/Natick. Covenant members were subject to the same church discipline as full church members, and church records detail many interesting cases. Church records also show that "halfway" membership often led to full membership for Indigenous and English people alike. The identity-conferring power of Congregationalism in this region, commented on by so many contemporary observers, was due in part to the people’s embrace of the Halfway Covenant. Its flexibility and practicality made it possible for the region to maintain sincere religious practice through over a century of fundamental socio-political change and a dynamic, shifting population.
K1 Congregationalism
K1 Halfway Covenant
K1 Indigenous
K1 Iyannough/West Barnstable
K1 Massachussets Bay Colony
K1 N’ahteuk/Natick
K1 Puritans
K1 Woodland New England
K1 Church discipline
DO 10.1163/18712428-bja10084