Covenants - today?

[Aluno49]

Does the concept of a Covenant, at a community level, still chime as religiously useful? I am especially interested in the views of modern Christians.

It obviously remains central in Judaism. It once was a perfectly respectable - in fact essential - part of Protestantism, at least in the Reform branches (which is all I know much about, really). Jonathan Edwards would be a classic exponent, but it was universally understood even in our American public life as late as Abraham Lincoln. It is, I think, central to Bonhoeffer's understanding of discipleship, and the exceptional writer Marilynne Robinson is atune with it, too - so it is not all ancient history.

I am interested because it supposes that communities (of like-minded believers) - not just individuals - have a relationship with God. And not just any old relationship - no New Age ambiguity - but rather one with terms and conditions.

Your thoughts?

Aluno

[hellsapoppin]

What an intriguing question!

You are correct in that a covenant entails a community's union with a divinity. Indeed, Lincoln believed (as I did at one time) that the United States is the TRUE Nation of Israel. He felt we forfeited our Covenant because we betrayed the trust given in biblical times and foresaw much further bloodshed and turmoil as a result of that betrayal.

In modern times the World Wide Church of God based in California under Herbert W Armstrong was a big exponent of the Covenant Christianity. Unfortunately, it turned out that his church, like his ministry, was a total fraud.

If an institution is to claim divine sanction as did the WWCG, all it need do is to produce miracles of the type shown in the Bible. This would fully prove and justify its claims. Many years ago I challenged Armstrong to do just that.

Naturally, he and his followers all ran away from my challenge.

[Whifflingpin]

I'm neither Christian nor modern, but I'll offer a suggestion.

I was taught a long time ago that one distinction between barbarism and civilisation (don't assign any moral value to either term, please) was that barbaric societies were based on the tribe as a unit, but civilised ones were based on the individual as a unit. The shift, at least in the Mediterranean world, starting in Greece in C5th BC or thereabouts, but by no means complete even yet. (For the sake of less emotive discussion, I'll replace barbaric and civilised by pre-Socratic and Socratic.)

In pre-Socratic society, it was assumed that the tribe was the unit, and that God or a god might belong to the tribe. It was understood, for example, that the tribe might be punished for the misdeeds of an individual, and that an individual (a scapegoat) might be sacrificed to redeem the tribe. In such a society, a covenant between a community and the gods made complete sense.

In the Socratic society, where the individual is the unit, there is no sense in a covenant between the community and the gods. Each individual has to make his own relationship with God.

The more heavily Christians depend on the Old Testament, as the Protestant Reformers tended to do, the more likely they are to consider the idea of a community covenant to be valid. The difference may not be one of older or more modern Christians, but one of emphasis, e.g covenantish Christians may emphasize Christ as the fulfillment of the scriptures, non-coventantish ones would emphasize their personal relationship with Christ. The two are not exclusive, of course.

[Aluno49]

A very thoughtful analysis, Whifflingpin. Continuity of the tradition seems certainly important (it is to me, as you would guess), and there need be no hard distinction (as Bonhoeffer certainly did not make one). Whether the world can survive the individualist model [I do not suppose that because you pose it means that you necessarily subscribe to it in a naive form] is perhaps worth considering, especially as our 300 million consumes 25% ofthe world's energy and world population explodes toward 5,6,? billion. But that is not a narrow theological question.

Hellsapoppin, I can see - though I had not considered when framing the question - the possibility of the notion of a covenant evolving (I'd say degenerating) into an exclusivity and finally into a parody. It need not do so. Perhaps the WWCG is an example less of the perils of using a community-based covenant concept than of falling prey to the cult of personality, a 20th-Century malady that brought many tribulations across the world.

My thanks to you both for serious replies.

Aluno

[hellsapoppin]

~~ falling prey to the cult of personality ~~

While your analysis is spot on, I would say this was more than a 20th century phenomenon: it happened to the Millerites {1840s}, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Mormons, the Shakers, and other cultists. Perhaps its most tragic examples have been found in the latter century as we have witnessed the Jim Jones's, David Koresh's, and Scientologies with their bizarre scheme of things. Each claims to be divinely sanctioned but the stairway to heaven that they promise comes with a price tag that inevitably involves more than just a massive cash expenditure.

[Aluno49]

Hi hellsapoppin,

You are quite right that I ought not tohave limite dit to the 29th C. I was thinking of the special case - far beyond religions - of the cult of personality in terms of 20th C people like Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot. Thelist is depressingly long.

Aluno

[Vittoria666]

I think that before we make any rash desitions, we should define the meaning of a covenant... i you hing that its a blood line that leads directly to jesus then maybe you are right. but if you think that its someone of an ancient family sworn to protect a secret of your home nation, then i think that we all need to refresh the argument.