Far Beyond the Half-Way Covenant

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Puritanism began as a covenant theology. Those who held to its fundamental principles up into the seventeenth century, when it dominated men’s lives in Europe and especially in New England, believed that the foremost of their religious duties was to make their invisible and spiritual covenants with God visible; that is, to demonstrate their sure conviction of the truth with holy living and convincing testimony before being admitted to membership in the church. This was accomplished through means regulated by the authority of the original covenanters, who became the guardians of the church and of society, judging what persons were fit to be admitted and rejecting the spiritually unfit. To be ad mitted, a person had to make a confession of faith, showing that he was conscious of God’s special grace in his religious experience. The church was therefore made up exclusively of well-informed, exceedingly self-conscious, and fully convinced believers. They called themselves the elect of God. By 1662, however, Puritan ministers decided on a change in this practice. This change, called The Half-Way Covenant, made it possible for children and grand children of covenant members to be ad mitted to membership until they came to their own full conviction of the truth. There were to be among the visible saints no uncertain members of the church. The sacraments of the church were not converting ordinances but were the exclusive right of the elect. 

By the end of the seventeenth century, a further compromise was made which for ever changed the character of American Protestanism. Initiated by Solomon Stoddard, Congregational minister at Northamp ton, Mass., and gradually adopted by all New England congregations, the change meant that admission to the church might precede a full testimony of the truth and and that the sacraments of the church were not the exclusive right of the elect but were means of converting the weak of faith to full conviction of truth. Member ship in the church was seen as a means to a holy life, not the reward of believing, as it had been earlier. 

There were both advantages and disadvantages in the new practice. Far more people included themselves in the religious activities of the community churches; far more felt religion was made to move the common man toward a better religious life; far more saw religion as a program of self-improvement. But at the same time, the intellectual impulse and introspective fervor of early Puritanism were lost. It was no longer necessary to use the mind to work to discover one’s spiritual worth. Religion was no longer a matter of God’s de terminations (and man’s intellectual effort to discover those determinations) but in stead a matter of man’s religious motives and moral actions (he could save himself if he tried). There was gradually much less of an interest in God’s role in a man’s life and much more interest in religion as a self-improvement program. Piety (the pursuit of knowledge of the power of God in one’s life) gradually degenerated into moralism (the pursuit of ways of living comfortably with one’s conscience). Intellectualism in American religion rose and fell with the rise and fall of covenant the ology. With its demise, anti-intellectuality came to dominate American religious thinking. 

I have mentioned all of this because I sense that Mormonism has been undergoing a similar change. It is valuable to be aware of the consequences. Mormonism, too, is a covenant theology in its basic teachings. From the outset of the Church, conviction was exacted before baptism was granted. Mormonism has also had its Half Way Covenant in allowing half-way membership to children until they can believe for themselves. But as with the congregational churches in early America, the Church has, since the late 1950s and early 1960s, encouraged baptism and membership as a means of conversion and testimony. Someone interested in the Church is now encouraged by our leaders and missionaries to be baptized before he is completely knowledgeable and possessed of absolute conviction. One’s desire to believe and a mere taste of the spirit now makes him eligible to become a part of the body of believers. 

The result has been of great advantage to the Church: the membership has swelled by several million and millions of others are influenced by its programs and power. But at the same time there have been some unfortunate consequences, and these appear to have been overlooked even though they have seriously affected the quality of religious life in the Church. 

With the influx of members who need years of instruction while learning the elementary principles of the Church, the teaching and preaching in the Church has had to adapt itself to the lower level of the convert, much more in recent years than ever before. To be helpful, meetings and activities have had to be geared to his level. Publications and programs have had to be designed for his elementary reading and listening. Lessons, discussions, sermons, entertainments, and cultural events, even General Conference addresses, have had to become more and more elementary, rather than increasing in sophistication or refinement of ideas. (“Elementary” should not be confused here with “simple and direct” or with “fundamental.”) 

Moreover, year in and year out, the in flux of “unconverted” but committed con verts continues, and so the meetings and activities, the publications and programs seldom rise above the level of the initiate. No relief appears in sight. The Reader’s Digest becomes our scriptures. We hear Albert Hay Malotte instead of Bach, Edgar A. Guest instead of John Milton. We quote J. Edgar Hoover instead of Joseph Smith, Jacob Hamblin instead of B. H. Roberts, Cleon Skousen instead of J. Reuben Clark. The discussions and reading material have breadth without much depth. The interpretations of world problems tends toward gross oversimplification and misunderstanding, with simple nationalism as a ready solution. Our theology becomes a handful of maxims. Our language becomes cliches. Our very personalities in the Church become a stereotype. 

Thus, the needs of the seasoned, knowledgeable members become ignored. Opportunities for sophistication in the gospel for life-long, thinking members diminish. A place for the intellectual in the Church disappears. 

Of course, one would not want to exclude one soul from among the converts. The problem is not at all the fault of the con verts. One only wishes that church-wide and local leaders could recognize (and especially the teachers in the Church) that as soon as the program of the Church is designed primarily for the new members or for the unlettered in the Church (much of the time, it seems, solely for them), those who hunger and thirst for further enlightenment are bound to experience alienation, and perhaps exclusion. Their activity in the Church must then become something outside and beyond the activity of the Church. Exclude the intellectual and a valuable source of ideas and energy is lost; yet when the Church goes as far beyond its own half-way covenant as it seems now to have gone, the intellectual may find in the activities or business of the Church little that can be of interest to him. He has been there before and is eager for new territory. 

In all of this, there are implications for the converts as well. It is axiomatic that the lower the level of awareness and experience of new members, the more control there must be from the leaders of the Church. This is always one of the problems with rapid-growing populations; the uneducated masses must be brought effectively under control. The result for both the advanced member of the Church and the new member, however, is decreased opportunity of expression and severely reduced individuality. All are expected to conform to a norm that is often mediocre, simplistic, and spiritually unstimulating. 

No doubt my complaint oversimplifies the problem, and may in fact seem mere snobbishness. There are complex matters in volved. But one wonders if leaders and teachers in the Church are always aware that a religion which addresses itself primarily to the outsider, the initiate, and the apprentice to the faith may in reality be in danger of losing the seasoned insider, the spiritually experienced, and the intellectually advanced. A program designed only for the intellect and experience of twelve-year-olds cannot expect to hold its twenty- or thirty-year-olds very long.