help with the new england way pleease?

Question

identify and describe the new england way? how did religious beliefs influence this society?

Answer 1

The concept of the covenant provided a practical means of organizing churches. Since the state did not control the church, the Puritans reasoned, there must be an alternate method of of establishing authority. According to Harry S. Stout, "For God's Word to function freely, and for each member to feel an integral part of the church's operations, each congregation must be self-sufficient, containing within itself all the offices and powers necessary for self-regulation. New England's official apologist, John Cotton, termed this form of church government 'Congregational,' meaning that all authority would be located within particular congregations" (The New England Soul 17).

Cotton's sermon at Salem in 1636 described the basic elements of this system in which people covenanting themselves to each other and pledging to obey the word of God might become a self-governing church. Checks and balances in this self-governing model included the requirement that members testify to their experience of grace (to ensure the purity of the church and its members) and the election of church officials to ensure the appropriate distribution of power, with a pastor to preach, a teacher to "attend to doctrine," elders to oversee the "acts of spiritual Rule," and a deacon to manage the everyday tasks of church organization and caring for the poor (Stout 19). The system of interlocking covenants that bound households to each other and to their ministers in an autonomous, self-ruling congregation was mirrored in the organization of towns. In each town, male church members could vote to elect "selectmen" to run the town's day-to-day affairs, although town meetings were held to vote on legislation.

Thus the ultimate authority in both political and religious spheres was God's word, but the commitments made to congregation and community through voluntary obedience to covenants ensured order and a functional system of religious and political governance. This system came to be called the Congregational or "New England Way." According to Stout, "By locating power in the particular towns and defining institutions in terms of local covenants and mutual commitments, the dangers of mobility and atomism--the chief threats to stability in the New World--were minimized. . . . As churches came into being only by means of a local covenant, so individual members could be released from their sacred oath only with the concurrence of the local body. . . . Persons leaving without the consent of the body sacrificed not only church membership but also property title, which was contingent on local residence. Through measures like these, which combined economic and spiritual restraints, New England towns achieved extraordinarily high levels of persistence and social cohesion"