The Congregational Way

"In respect of the body, or Brotherhood of the church . . . it resembles a Democracy. . . .

--The Cambridge Platform of Church Discipline, 1648

It is the place where, among other things, we consider and approve the yearly budget to support the work of the First Religious Society. It is the place where we consider any proposed changes in the way we govern our church. It provides a yearly opportunity for our minister and committee chairs to report on their accomplishments, or lack of same, and to begin new initiatives. It is an opportunity for fellowship, and, if you attend the potluck dinner preceding it, for food. It is, or can be, an opportunity for celebration.

Admittedly, Annual Meetings also occasionally have been an opportunity for debate, disagreement, and dissolution.

But that's the Congregational Way! If you are a legal voting member of the First Religious Society, you have a vote at the Annual Meeting. Since we need a quorum of at least 50 members in order to transact our business, I hope that you will make every effort to be present and to let your voice be heard in our deliberations. If you have never attended an Annual Meeting, I invite you to do so. Indeed, if you are a member, it is your democratic responsibility and obligation to attend, if possible. Even if you are not a member, you are welcome to attend the Annual Meeting as an observer.

Believe it or not, participatory democracy in this country has its roots in "the congregational way." The Puritans brought this form of church government to the colonies in the 1600's and, mostly in response to the renegade Anne Hutchinson and her group of spiritual followers, codified it in a document called "The Cambridge Platform of Church Discipline" in 1648. In 1998, I attended the conference in Cambridge celebrating die 350th anniversary of the Cambridge Platform. In Divinity School 25 years ago, in a class on Congregationalism and Unitarianism, I had to read it--no easy task unless you actually enjoy reading closely argued 17th century theological treatises, which I don't particularly.

Congregationalism as a means of church governance had its beginnings in Europe among those who were known as "Puritans." They were called Puritans because they wanted to purify the church and its doctrines of what they felt were erroneous accretions and to bring it into closer resemblance to the forms which they believed were documented in their most sacred text, the Holy Bible.

In other words, they believed that Congregationalism was the form of church government practiced by the earliest Christians who had received their marching orders directly from Jesus Christ. And having been persecuted for their beliefs and practices in Europe, they were determined to maintain the independence and autonomy of their religious institutions here in New England. (Among other things, they insisted on a firm separation of the powers of the church from the state. Every Christian fundamentalist should be required to read the Cambridge Platform.)

I still remember the Platform's definition of a Congregational Church, which I was required to memorize for my class:

A Congregational-church is, by the institution of Christ apart of the Militant-visible-church, consisting of a company of Saints by calling, united into one body, by a holy covenant, for the publick worship of God, e^° the mutuall edification one of another, in the Fellowship of the Lord Jesus.

Yeah, OK, but what does it mean? What is "the congregational way"? Well, one way to understand it is to say that it's up to us. Congregationalism puts the power in the hands of the people. There is no hierarchy, no "presbytery" or "episcopacy" who will tell us what to do. No one else will do it for us, or, gratefully, and this is the greatest glory of the congregational way, to us.

In light of the difficulties which have afflicted the Roman Catholic Church in recent years, I would hold up for your consideration the proud heritage of individual freedom and empowerment which are the hallmark of the congregational way. As your minister, and as a member of the congregation, I have one vote just like the rest of you. Whatever authority I am deemed to wield, you have given to me. It is the congregation who called me to be the minister of this church, a closely guarded right among the early Congregationalists. It is the congregation which, should it choose to do so, can tell me where to go. It was a congregation which ordained me in the first place. And, at least until the recent advent of "community" ministry, it has been only in relationship to a congregation that I am a "minister" at all.

Ultimately, we function here as a little democracy. It is up to you-up to us-to decide on all matters of importance to our church: how to raise and spend money, whether or not and to what extent to support the larger Association of which we are a part, who we should hire or fire, and whether we should build buildings, among other things.

Democracy, as you may already know, is not a perfect system. As some of us have learned during the current budgeting process, it can sometimes be pretty messy.

Henry David Thoreau pointed out on at least one occasion that having a majority on your side doesn't necessarily mean you've got it right. Sometimes, he said, there can be a majority of one when it comes to doing the right thing. But many would argue that democracy, slow, inefficient, and unwieldy though it often is, is still the best system we have short of Quaker-style consensus, which, some would argue, is even more slow, inefficient, and unwieldy than participatory democracy. Indeed, Conrad Wright, one of the greatest historians of Unitarianism in the 20th century and the professor from whom I learned the details of the congregational way, and for whom I memorized its definition, has written that skill in administering the democratic process is by far the most important attribute that a Unitarian Universalist minister can possess: much more important than knowledge of arcane historical or theological facts, or even of the ability to preach tolerable sermons. Countless churches which have self-destructed in spite of the universally admired eloquence of their preachers would certainly agree with him.

And let us not forget that the development of the congregational way was not the result of either an antiquarian interest in church structure or governance per se, or strictly speaking a merely "political" exercise, but, m the inimitable words of Peter Gomes, "a part of God's great unfinished [and perhaps unfinishable] work."

The Puritans did not come here on a lark, after all, but because they truly believed, as John Winthrop so eloquently preached on board the ship Arabella as it sailed to the New World, that they were called to build that "citty upon a hill" described in the Bible, and which would be a lamp for all the nations. That work, as we know all too well, does remain unfinished, and, as Gomes realistically suggests, "perhaps unfinishable."

But if that perhaps unfinishable work belongs to anyone, does it not belong to us? Sometimes, in the midst of our disagreements about church practice or how we should spend out money, I fear that we forget our larger purpose, which, like that of the Puritans, was first and foremost to build what the philosopher Josiah Royce first called the "beloved community of memory and hope." We forget to treat each other respectfully and to put aside our own personal wants and desires for the good of the whole. Sometimes, in the process, we are not very nice to each other, or hurt each other unintentionally by the passion of our vision. We need to own that this is indeed sometimes the case; that, in fact, it may be an inevitable by-product of the congregational way itself.

Dictatorships tend to be somewhat more efficient in reaching their ends in the short run, which is why, I have always been led to believe, the Italians brought Mussolini to power. Hierarchies give at least the impression of stability and order. But in the long run, as the persistence of the congregational way at least suggests, the "free and deliberate consent of the individual members" works a whole lot better. Chaotic as our operations around here sometimes appear to be, and occasionally are, I believe that we have nevertheless inherited a better way. Difficult though it sometimes is to realize that the buck stops with us, and that there is no one to blame but ourselves, I continue to believe that the congregational way is about the best way there is.

Ultimately, the Puritans, like us (I like to believe), were mostly concerned with nurturing spiritual faith and building the beloved community. Everything else, including their polity, was only a means to that end. John Cotton, the first minister in Boston, wrote of it this way: ". . -The breath of... Christians," he said, "is like bellows, to blow up sparkes one in another, and so in the end, they breath forth many savoury and sweet expressions of the hearts, and edifie themselves by that mutuall fellowship one with another."

May we, too, remember the purposes which have brought us together here in this special, this sacred, space, in, as I like to say, "recognition of our shared humanity, as we strive to build together the beloved community," and treat one another accordingly. May we go forth from this place in peace and love, practicing loving-kindness, giving each other the benefit of the doubt at all times, being thankful for the caring and the community that we have found here. I hope to see you on Wednesday evening! Amen.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock