The Spirituality of the Covenant Recapturing True Congregationalism Through Scriptural Devotion
Shawn P. Stapleton
 

I see it especially pronounced in our Congregational churches, which seems a great and tragic irony to me. I hear our people say that one of the blessings of Congregationalism is that “we can believe what we want.” I see our churches flying only the flag of freedom and, as a result, becoming functional independents. That is not what I understand Congregationalism to be. Instead, I understand the Congregational Way to be a Way of covenant, in which believers are bound to each other in the locally gathered church. However, it doesn’t stop there. The covenant also binds churches to each other, and the entire body of believers to God. The way of the covenant is a way of unity.

In light of these assertions, I believe that we must renew a biblically based spirituality in our churches; one that stresses the unity of the believers rather than their individualism.

A Scriptural Basis for Unity
In Christ, God calls God’s people into unity. Christ tells us that He is most present where believers gather together in His name (Matthew 18:20 ). In what many call “the real Lord’s Prayer,” Jesus prays to the Father that His disciples “may be one, as we are one” (John 17:11 NRSV). But we are not made one with each other and with Christ without some participation on our part, for Christ says, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” (Luke 8:21 NRSV).

In other words, it is clearly the desire of God for God’s people to be joined in the Spirit so we may learn from each other and correct each other when necessary. In Paul’s letter to the church in Rome , the apostle desires “that we mat be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.” (Romans 1:12). Jesus tells His disciples to point out to another member of the church when he or she sins against someone. (Matthew 18:25). However, He also tells them to forgive ceaselessly. (Matthew 18:22).

Covenant Theology Revisited
The scriptural understanding of unity is best expressed in the covenant. Throughout the canon of scripture, God is presented as a God of covenant, meaning God makes either verbal or symbolic pacts with God’s people. Scholars have held that the covenant found in scriptures is not simply a contractual agreement, but instead is a gift from God which binds believers to one another and, as a body, to God, with the Holy Spirit as the binding element. ¹

The covenant was the driving force behind the early Christian church and the force that the English Puritans sought to recapture after the Elizabethan Compromise of 1559. In response to the persecution they felt in England , and what they saw as the continued (though somewhat softened) “popery” of the queen’s church, the Puritans sought to recapture the practices of the early church and formulate their meetings around the concept of covenant, rather than around an institutionalized church.

Robert Browne, writing in Holland in 1582, was among the first to articulate the covenantal nature of the Congregational Way. Browne wrote, “Christians are a company or number of believers, which by a willing covenant made with their God, are under the government of God and Christ, and keep His Laws in one Holy Communion. ² The church becomes the church, Browne wrote, first by a covenant made by God, secondly by a covenant made by the community of believers, and third by “using the sacrament of Baptism to seal those conditions, and covenants. ³

The Puritans asserted that the church is made up of a community of believers, called together by God but bound together and set apart by the covenant. It is the covenant of God that binds believers together, not as a collection of individuals seeking personal fulfillment, but instead as part of the body of Christ.

But this understanding of covenant does not just apply to the individual believers. We also understand that to apply to each locally gathered church. Those gathered in Cambridge in 1646 called for churches to internally unite in Christ, but also to unite one church to another in the same divine covenant. Framers of the Cambridge Platform compare the churches to the apostles, saying the churches, like the apostles, are bound together in Christ and therefore in covenant. That is to say, the Congregational understanding of covenant transcends the walls of the meetinghouse and is an organic union that unites individual believers as the locally gathered church and unites gathered churches as the body of Christ. It should be said here that I see no evidence of this applying only to Congregationalists. We are called as a covenant people to be united in Christ with all denominations, including the United Church of Christ. St. Paul wrote, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the Spirit was are all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we are all made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Cor. 12:12-13 NRSV).

The Ramifications of Scriptural Unity on Congregationalism
I believe too often our churches of today – churches of any denomination, but especially our Congregational churches – are plagued by a narcissistic individuality, in which our congregants are seeking a deeper relationship with God but are ignoring their contribution to the covenanted community of the church. We all see people who come to church occasionally on Sunday but in no way participate in the life of the church. Based solely on anecdotal evidence, I am forced to conclude that those folks make up a frighteningly large segment of our church population. As such, the church is not the church, but is instead some kind of social club.

That kind of individual attitude in inevitably reflected at the communal level. The Roozen Report states clearly that many of our member churches are ignoring their covenanted duty to be in active and intentional fellowship with neighboring Congregational churches. Relatively few churches are holding vicinage councils when calling a new minister or in times of strife, despite the admonitions of our forebears. ⁴  Where we have been in fellowship with sister churches, many of us have become too devoted to denominationalism, drawing lines in the sand where lines ought not to be drawn. What else can explain the fact that for the past 43 years we have shouted with bitter tones that we are not the United Church of Christ? Being a people of covenant means working to blur denominational boundaries, not etching them deeper.

As I see it, we are not one as God is one. We are not living as a covenanted people. We are not who we say we are.

A New Congregationalism
I believe we must reorient ourselves away from the culture of individualism and toward a renewed understanding of what it means to be a people of the covenant. Congregational churches are uniquely suited to do so, since we are not restricted or hindered by ecclesial authority above the local church.

I think the movement begins from our pulpits and classrooms. It may seem too basic for some, but I believe the message of our churches has been twisted somewhat and has wandered away from Christ. We must again proclaim what St. Polycarp said, “Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Savior of our souls, the Governor of our bodies, and the shepherd of the catholic church throughout the world. ⁵ That does not mean that our faith stops with a one-on-one relationship with God! It means that we must recognize that our Lord Jesus is our shepherd, and that means we belong to a flock. Being a people of God means being of “one body and one Spirit.” (Eph. 4:4).

Similarly, we must once again proclaim what it means to be a people of the covenant. We must again stress the communal aspect of the covenant and the responsibility of each member who owns the covenant. We must proclaim the necessity of a covenanted body to live in community, and not as a collection of individuals.

Another way to recapture that unity is through pastoral visitations, conducted both by clergy and laity. If our only time together is an hour on Sunday morning and perhaps a mid-week Bible study, how can we be one in Spirit? We must come together as God’s people through caring non-emergency visits, where we can bare our souls to one another and keep each other in spiritual check. One of John Wesley’s frequent questions for those he visited was, “How is it with your soul?” We should be asking the same questions of each other, and we should be doing so regularly. When one member of the body is hurting, the whole body hurts. God designed the physical body to heal itself when a part of the body is injured. The injured part does not heal itself. If the body were to ignore the injury, then the injury would never heal. Infection would set in, which results in more injury. Eventually the body dies.

So it is with the body of Christ. We must be ever vigilant for injured members of the body and must rush to their aid by praying with them and listening to them. We, as members of the body, must nurture the injured members back to health. As God designed the physical body, so God designed the spiritual body.

Consider for a moment what would happen if in fact our members felt as though they truly belonged to a covenanted body. Just as the rampant individualism has plagued our Way, so would the caring covenant-ism infect our Way. Churches would naturally reach out to other churches in the same way members reached out to members. Our churches would begin to feel the bond of covenant in ways not felt in 200 years or more. I believe positive results are inevitable when we live out the covenant in the way that God has designed.

Conclusion
It’s clear that I agree with author Kenneth Leech when he says much of modern spirituality is self-centered and individualistic. A truly biblical spirituality, however, is a social spirituality, Leech says.

To move from the intensely individualistic religion of our day to St. Paul ’s letters is to enter an entirely different realm. There is in fact very little in the New Testament letters about personal spiritual formation as such. The center of gravity is always the body, the solidarity; its spirituality is social. To be Christian, to be en Christo, is to be part of an organism, a new community, the extension of the Incarnation. ⁶

I would never suggest that we abandon individual spirituality in order to focus solely on the communal. Neither would Leech. Instead, we must grow in Christ not for ourselves, but so we can better serve the body. Congregationalists are best poised to do that. Once we as individuals retrain ourselves to live in covenanted community, then we will begin to live as churches in community. We can even move beyond our denominational boundaries and live in covenant with the Presbyterians, Methodists, UCCs, and so on. There is no ecclesial authority standing in our way. Once the covenant concept is truly embraced and begins to infect us, we may even see a blurring of denominational lines and begin to see the one holy, catholic and apostolic church designed by Christ 2,000 years ago. Are we who we say we are? No, not yet – but it’s not beyond our reach.

¹ George E. Memdenhall, “Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition” in The Biblical Archeologist Reader vol. III, p. 52., as quoted in Peay, We Covenant With the Lord, 2-3.  (Return to text)
² William Walker, The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1991), 19 (spellings updated and emphasis added). (Return to text)
³ Ibid (Return to text)
⁴ The Cambridge Platform calls specifically for such councils to be held in such instances. (Return to text)
⁵ Martyrdom of Polycarp (c. 135, E) 1.39, David W. Bercott, ed., A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs (Peabody, MA: Hendirckson Publishers, Inc., 1998), 146 (Return to text)
⁶ Kenneth Leech, Spirituality and Pastoral Care (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications,1989), 9 (Return to text)