Friday, September 1, 2023

It is the 1st of September, 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

We are back in the 1600s today and the English church, but with a focus on the colonies. Let’s lay a little foundation by way of remembering that:

The first pilgrims came to the New World in 1620. These were radicals whose project fizzled under the weight of bad weather and theological schism.

It was those who came later in that decade and 1630 who would set up the Massachusetts Bay Colony- they were decidedly English men and women who saw themselves as such but believed that a more thoroughgoing Reformation of the church- “Puritan” is a fair term, but not “separatist” or “independent.” 

From 1640, the English church and state were in deep division. The Parliament will first oppose King Charles and implement Presbyterian polity in the church. When Cromwell comes to power, he is an independent.

All of this concerned the folks of the Massachusetts Bay Colony as they did not want the crown to try and regulate their own churches. Furthermore, some in the colonies had been calling for either a Presbyterian model or an independent model. Amongst the church men who opposed this were John Cotton and Richard Mather (yes, both related to the later, famous Cotton Mather).

And so, it was on this, the 1st of September in 1646, that the General Court of Massachusetts called a synod to decide how the New England church would work. And the fruit of the synod was the Cambridge Platform- a document that would serve as a bedrock for later American Christianity and politics.

During the 1640s, the English Parliament called for a confession of faith- the Westminster Confession of Faith was produced, and seeing no major problems with this Calvinist-leaning document, the churches of the Massachusetts Bay Colony accepted it- they were happy to be in confessional fellowship with the old church. But they wanted a more “pure” church. They wanted to establish a church policy based on what they saw in the New Testament. And it was to them a “congregational” polity- each congregation would call its own pastor. Each congregation would have autonomy but be in friendly collaboration with one another. This was the famous “New England Way”. In it, we see a few things: First, it is a church polity not seen in the history of the church. It is, like the later American experiment, a “Novus order seculorum”- a new order under the heavens. Secondly, it had in it the seeds of toleration. The church's counterparts back in England criticized this model as it allowed for churches in fellowship with one another to disagree on points of doctrine and polity. This isn’t freewheeling toleration- but a start. And then, perhaps most shocking was its democratic nature. The church members called their pastor. No pastor was appointed by a foreign body.

But lest we see this Cambridge Platform as some product of enlightened moderns, it did contain two notable inclusions that would cause strife down the road. The first was the collection of taxes for the church. It was unthinkable to European Christians that they wouldn’t be expected to pay for the upkeep of the church and the livelihood of her workers. This would later spur on the issue of church and state and the First Amendment (although we should note that it was understood as a federal ban on church establishment- the church in Massachusetts still received tax dollars into the 1800s). And secondly, the Cambridge platform called for church members to be actively involved and able to pinpoint their own conversion experience. If you couldn’t make a public confession of your conversion, you could not receive communion. Over the years, this would lead to dwindling church attendance- on the eve of the 1st Great Awakening. Some saw this as the reason the churches had died. Some would suggest a “halfway” covenant wherein baptized but “unconverted” Christians could maintain church membership and thus voting rights.

The New England way might not be recognizable today, and the Cambridge Platform is a historical footnote, but the document drafted by the synod, which met for the first time on this day in 1646, would forever change the landscape of the American church and state.

The last word for today is from Psalm 105:

 Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name;
    make known among the nations what he has done.

 Sing to him, sing praise to him;

    tell of all his wonderful acts.

 Glory in his holy name;

    let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.

 Look to the Lord and his strength;

    seek his face always.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 1st of September 2023, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man for whom ‘The New England Way” is a cream sauce instead of tomatoes. He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who thought the “New England Way” was illegally taping the opponent's practices and deflating footballs- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be OK.