“Visible Saints” and Their Descendants: the “Half-Way Covenant”, Generational Change, and the Problem of Perceptions of Kinship in 17th-Century New England

The article examines the issues related to perceptions of kinship and intergenerational relations in 17th century New England colonies. English settlements, founded in the 1620s — 1630s, by the second half of the century were experiencing a series of crises, generally rooted in the slow dissolution of ideological and economic unity which characterized the early years of the settlements’ existence. One of the key components of the crisis was the problem of baptism of the children of the second generation of colonists, their parents, though baptized themselves, rarely being full members of a church. The issue of whether such baptisms should be allowed was widely discussed and involved a reevaluation, albeit subtle, of both the place of the church community within the New England society and the ideas of kinship in general. As the social and religious cohesion of early decades of settlement vaned, the spiritual kinship of a church became less important, and the biological and social, familial ties, temporarily pushed into the background of social life by the unique circumstances of the congregational colonial settlements came to the fore again.