The Cambridge Platform 1648
Unitarian Universalist
congregational covenant and
polity
Rev. Alice Blair Wesley
2000-01 Minns Lectures #5 of 6
Welcome to the world! For is this not
part of what it means to be human? We
are always born in the middle of
stories. The dramas - of our families,
our economy, our schools, our
government - of our churches - began a
long time ago.
Rev. Alice Blair Wesley
2000-01 Minns Lectures #5 of 6
The patterns of people, ideas and
assumptions, especially about authority
and division of labor, and the plot line,
the direction in which things are
moving, or not going anywhere -- All
these patterns were set long before we
even start to understand what is going
on.
Cambridge Platform 1648
• The Cambridge Platform of 1648, the
foundational document of the New England
system of congregational polity, includes
six major means by which congregations
participate in the Communion of
independent churches.
Cambridge Platform 1648
I. mutual care: considering One another’s welfare
II. consultation: when a church has Occasion to require the
judgment and counsel of other churches
III. admonition: when any public offense be found in a
church, which they do not discern or are slow in removing
or healing
Cambridge Platform 1648
IV. participation: members of one church
visiting another are admitted and ministerial
services are loaned by one church to
another to take the place of an absent or
sick minister
Cambridge Platform 1648
V. recommendation: when a member of one church moves to
the region of another church she/he is committed to the
fellowship of their covenant
VI. relief and succor: support for the necessities of poorer
churches
Cambridge Platform 1648
• You’re not the boss of me
– No higher authority than the individual
– No higher authority than the individual
congregation
– The free church
Cambridge Platform 1648
Rev. Alice Blair Wesley
Scrupulous congregationalism, a pattern
in
which all religious authority is located in
each single, distinct congregation.
Cambridge Platform 1648 Covenant
Alice Blair Wesley Minns Lectures
#5
A covenanted free church is a body of
individuals who have freely made a
profoundly simple promise, a covenant:
Cambridge Platform 1648 Covenant
Alice Blair Wesley Minns Lectures
#5
We pledge to walk together in the spirit
of mutual love. The spirit of love is
alone worthy of our ultimate, our
religious loyalty. So, we shall meet
often to take counsel concerning the
ways of love, and we will yield religious
authority solely to our own
understanding of what these ways are,
as best we can figure them out or learn
or remember them, together.
Cambridge Platform 1648 Covenant
Alice Blair Wesley Minns Lectures
#5
Our church ancestors understood the
Bible to be mainly about - the free and
covenanted, social practice of love.
Unitarian Universalism
Standing on the side of love!
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Cambridge Platform 1648
Leaders:
Deacons - The leaders who keep and
prepare the table, stewards of the resources,
caretakers - tangible
Elders - The leaders who understand and
uphold the deepest meaning of the faith - out
of which Teaching and Preaching elders
emerge - intangible