Baptist denominations in North America appear to be navigating through some very choppy waters at the moment. Some of the concerns have to do with doctrine, others have to do with practice, but all of them are complicated by polity.
One of the challenges with Baptist denominational polity is that the people on the governing boards and committees are often chosen on the basis of representative criteria, which means they tend to represent the problems and divisions plaguing the fellowship in roughly the same proportion as the general constituency. This leaves the leadership group doubly disinclined to pursue reform.
A: Because all organisms have an instinct toward self-preservation.
B: Because for a significant proportion of the leadership to vote for reform would be to vote against their own interests.
What this means effectively, is that efforts to reform have to come from below, but being Baptists, and particularly if those Baptists are Canadian, this will always be labelled as either “bad process” or “bad manners”.
Usually both.
And truth be told, sometimes bad manners are a complicating factor. Looking back at the early years of my reform career I have some regrets about some of the things I said and wrote. There are a few letters I’d like to take a second crack at and a few blogs I’d have been wiser to have turned into phone calls.
But then again, it often takes a few ill-mannered people to press through systemic paralysis. I’m thankful for Martin Luther’s bold and even brash refusal to get along to go along, even though I don’t think I would have enjoyed having him as a colleague. Going even further back, where would we be as Christians without Athanasius’ courageous willingness to stand alone against the rest of the world?
Polite people who play by the rules and are content to wait for a change that is never coming will require assistance from more assertive people who are willing to pay a short-term relational price to achieve something of enduring importance. In the providence of God and the outworking of redemptive history, it does seem that some people are given hard heads by the Lord for a reason and for a season.
Systems only work until they don’t. Baptist denominational structures were created at a time when we enjoyed broad agreement and were simply trying to unite regions for the sake of collective mission. Times are different now. The cultural headwinds are much stronger and the danger of drifting away is more immediate. If churches wish to remain in effective partnership with one another, they will need deeper, thicker and more responsive forms of unity that include within them accessible mechanisms for correction and reform.
Baptist groups will need to redesign quickly or risk significant fracture in the future. In the meantime, we must be careful not to label all objections coming from below as necessarily “ill mannered” or “divisive”. Concerns about decorum must always bow before the greater matters of obedience and faithfulness.
O God help!
Pastor Paul Carter
If you are interested in more Bible teaching from Pastor Paul you can access the entire library of Into The Word episodes through the Audio tab on the Into the Word website. You can also download the Into The Word app on iTunes or Google Play.
