There are legitimate questions for Christians to ask as they study their Bibles and become active in a church. Some questions are worth pursuing endlessly (questions about the character of Christ, for instance). Others have their limits, particularly when little or nothing is directly said in the Bible about them. As the discussion becomes long and drawn out, it also becomes, well, odd. We become either speculative or dogmatic without substance, since there is little in Scripture that substantiates our arguments. Whether Christians should vote, or did vote in the New Testament times is one of those types of questions. It is legitimate to ask, but limited in its worth. There is only one time in the Bible that Christians are directly said to have voted, where a proper Greek word for “vote” is used (2 Cor. 8:18-19).
Do not take me to mean that church order is unimportant. If you would look in my library at how many books I have on the subject, Church/Church Order, you would immediately understand that I do not take it lightly. There are several themes in the subject of Church Order which I am convinced are worthy of lengthy pursuit. One, for instance is church discipline. Another, the one I want to talk about, is group decision-making among Christians. Taking votes is one way of making a group decision. There are others. From a biblical perspective, the significant idea for churches is not vote-taking, but group decisions.
Group decision-making
In my study I have found that the New Testament directly refers to group decision-making by Christians after the resurrection of Christ 16 times (Acts 1:15-16; 6:1-6; 8:14-17; 11:22; 11:30; 13:1-3; 14:21-23; 15:1-3; 15:4-29; 15:22; 15:36-41; 16:9-11; 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 / 2 Corinthians 2:5-11; 1 Corinthians 16:3-4; 2 Corinthians 8:18-19; 1 Thessalonians 3:1-5). No doubt I have overlooked a passage, which eventually someone will point out to me. If there are sixteen times in the Bible in which group decision-making is either described or instructed, it is an important biblical subject.
Of the sixteen, one is made by the core of the Jesus Movement as they awaited the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:15-16), one is made by the apostles (Acts 8:14-17), two are made by a missionary team (Acts 16:9-11; 1 Thess. 3:1-5), ten are made by a local church, one is described as a decision of the apostles, elders, and the church and finally, one is hard to specify by exegesis (Acts 13:1-3). I count it as a church example because the NT identifies the first line of accountability afterward as the sending church (Acts 14:26-27).
Strangely (for our thinking), the NT never once describes or instructs about how a group of elders or deacons makes its decisions (though no doubt they did make decisions as groups), not to mention how synods, councils, cardinals, make them. The biggest emphasis of the NT in the area of group decision-making is how the church made, or makes decisions. This fact isn’t hard to understand. The local church is the body of Christ in its locale. It is, as Paul says, “The temple of God” and “the pillar and ground of the truth.” So God put His emphasis there.
The American-invention myth
Church order has been a hot item in Christianity for centuries, motivating people (like yours truly) to write books, write constitutions and by-laws, hold seminars, end fellowship with one another, hatch plots, see visions, create hierarchies, remove authorities, kill, and create and disseminate myths. One myth peculiar to many American Christians is the notion that anything democratic in churches, including taking votes, started in the good old USA. After all, the US is the biggest democratic country to have existed in all of history. Saying that voting in churches began in America makes a great story line, but it is still just a myth.
Omitting for the moment the teaching of the NT about church order, there is a general consensus among church historians that Christian church organization was simple in its beginning. In time churches developed hierarchy and a clerical order. Still, the idea that the people of a church, or of a whole group of churches decided who would fill leadership roles did not die out until well into the middle ages.1
During the middle ages, the Roman Church especially adopted the doctrines of Pseudo-Dionysian writings. These taught that church hierarchy was patterned on the hierarchy of heavenly beings. By the 1300s, some began to raise their voices against Catholic hierarchy and called for congregational election of clergy.2
When the Reformation took place, most of its leaders, as they studied the Scriptures, were initially impressed with the congregational idea of church order, including the notion of electing pastors.3 Martin Luther, in fact, was the original “congregationalist” of the Reformation, and expounded that view in his tract, “The Right of a Christian Congregation.” In his Institutes (4.3.4-13; 4.4.10) Calvin states that the congregation is to elect the pastors. The Reformers had to modify their views of congregational authority on account of their political environments, but the Radical Reformers, otherwise known as Anabaptists, never changed their original idea of congregational decisions, including votes. Likewise, as the Reformation progressed in England, independent groups typically taught that the congregation had the right of electing its own officers and disciplining their members.4
So that I do not lose my audience, let me stop the history lesson with the fraction I have mentioned. But be aware of this: it all happened long before the Battle of Bunker Hill and the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Notes
1 See, for instance, Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol 1, Chapter 20; Edwin Hatch, The Organization of the Early Christian Churches; Fenton A.J. Hort, The Christian Ecclesia; Hans von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power; Hans Küng, Christianity, 116-130; Everett Ferguson, “The ‘Congregationalism’ of the Early Church,” in D.H. Williams, ed. The Free Church and the Early Church, 129-140).
2 See, for instance, Marsilius of Padua, Defenson pacis, Trans. Alan Gewirth, New York: Columbia University, 1956.
3 E.g., James Tunstead Burtchaell, From Synagogue to Church, Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1994, 34-36.
4 See, for instance, William R. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, 18-142. Most confessions in this section of his book precede Baptist confessions).
Jeff Brown was born in 1951 and received Christ as a child during an evening service in the First Baptist Church of Elkhart, IN. During his senior year in college, while studying Biology, God led him to change course and enter the ministry. He later attended seminary, and completed his theological education through the PhD in Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Seminary. Jeff and his wife, Linda, have four adult children.
We probably differ here, Ed. I take a good deal of what is in the Book of Acts as normative for us today. Acts is what binds all the Epistles together. It gives them unity, coherence, and context. The command of Jesus to the apostles in Acts 1:8 is still relevant for Christians, namely "the end of the earth." The project isn't complete. General patterns in Acts need to be instructional for us as well. That is my persuasion. Perhaps you can tell me why I should not think that way. Writers like Debelius, Haenchen, and their followers that I have read, who do not take the book of Acts as normative did not convince me.
On the other hand, the instruction for much of what happened in Acts is given in the Gospels. The apostles simply made thorough application of Jesus' commands. I will bring that out in a later section.
Finally, Paul told the entire church in Corinth to take up their responsibility of making a decision together: once to carry out church discipline (1 Cor 5:1-13) and once to select representatives (1 Cor 16:3-4).
I am in agreement with you that voting is not always necessary, and should be reserved for bigger matters. There are other ways of talking things through. Cantankerous business meetings are often the fault, not so much of cantankerous people but rather poor leadership and/or hidden agendas (say, of leaders). Likewise, nearly all pastors starting out lack a trust in their people because they have not been trained as well as themselves. Some pastors never get over this bias. Lack of trust causes tension. Tension comes out eventually, for instance in church meetings. Pastors can teach their congregations how to do things when they come together for meetings. If the pastor really loves his people and is honest with them, they will eventually learn to be peacemakers. The first church we started in Germany, nearly 20 years ago, has yet to have experienced a single unhappy business meeting (we have not been there for 4 1/2 years). It actually works if leaders, above all, will take Jesus seriously for those events.
A lot of pastors, I think, don't understand why there are church meetings. They have them because everyone always has had them. So the church meeting becomes a headache or heartache until they find a well-reasoned argument to ban it. A careful study of group meetings and decision-making in the book of Acts reveals several important reasons why the meetings took place and how valuable they can be for a church. We simply need to meditate a while on what we have read. There are often fabulous things that come out of good church meetings, including things that bless a congregation for years. It is too bad that a lot of preachers lump all church meetings together an unspiritual concept.
I think that we are probably similar in thought about flexibility. My one published book about this subject is titled: "Form and Freedom." I think that speaks for itself.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Ed, and for giving me the chance to speak long. Hope no one named Eutychus fell out a window as they read this.
Jeff Brown