What was the Halfway Covenant?

Answer 1

A form of church membership among the Congregational churches of New England allowed by decisions in 1657 and 1662 and permitting baptized persons of moral life and orthodox faith to enjoy privileges of full membership except the partaking of the Lord's Supper. It was promoted in particular by the Reverend Solomon Stoddard, who felt that the people of the English colonies were drifting away from their original religious purpose.

Answer 2

the halfway covenant was in massachussetts-

Clergy's answer to lack of conversions to become a puritan was the half way covenant. Parents who had been baptized but had not yet experienced the conversion could bring their children before the church and subject offspring to the doctrine and discipline of the church and have their children baptized.

this was done because puritan society in mass. had combined church and state. so the rule was if you werent a member of church, couldn't be in government. but only like 20% of mass. was puritan, so they needed more people to have their conversion experience, so more people were puritan.

Answer 3

Troubled ministers in 1662 announded a new formula for church membership, the Half-Way Covenant. This new arrangement modified the "covenant," the agreement between the church and its adherents, to admit to baptism-but not "full communion"- the unconverted children of existing members. By conferring partial membership rights in the once-exclusive Puritan congregations, the Half-Way Covenant weakened the distinction between the "elect" and others, furthere diluting the spiritual purity of the original settlers' godly community. The Half-Way Covenant dramaatized the difficluty of maintaining at fever ptich the religious devotion of the founding generation.