Baptist Church Cooperation, Part 8

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7.

The End of the Matter

Baptists have experimented with a variety of forms of organization. Churches and individuals have worked together in associations, in separate service organizations, under the approval system, through preachers’ fellowships, in church-sponsored agencies, and on a simple, ad hoc basis. We have had centuries of experience with these forms of organization. We ought to have learned certain lessons by now.

For example, we ought to have learned something about institutional loyalty. People love to attach their loyalty to bricks and mortar. Barring that, they will fasten their loyalty to an individual or an organizational structure. The actual nature of the structure doesn’t seem to matter very much. People can be as loyal to a service organization as they can to a convention. They can be as loyal to an entrepreneur as they can to an emperor.

Assuming the best, an organization that Baptists create will be founded on certain principles. The loyalty of the founders will be to those principles. As the organization increases in age, size, wealth, and influence, however, it begins to create a certain attraction to itself. People begin to transfer their loyalty from the founding principles to the organizational structure itself (I am indebted to Professor George Houghton for this insight).

As this transfer takes place, the organizational structure can provide a shelter for doctrinal deviation or immoral conduct. Loyalty to the organization comes to be perceived as loyalty to truth. Those who promote the organization effectively are granted certain exemptions from accountability. This is how liberals were able to insinuate themselves into the structure of the Northern Baptist Convention. It is also how ruthless politicians have maintained their power within fundamentalist organizations.

Carnally ambitious people are able to use any structure or any position to leverage themselves into power. The form of organization does not much matter. Any organization at all, even informal organization, provides a venue for climbers. As Dr. Robert Delnay says, the cream may always rise to the top, but so does the scum. The problem is that we can’t always tell which is which.

Once the climbers have entrenched themselves in positions of power, abuse is almost inevitable. The leadership of the organization begins to perceive questions as challenges and challenges as opposition. Whether the power structures are formal or informal, they will be used against the perceived opposition. Those whose loyalty is genuinely to the founding principles of the organization are faced with three wretched choices. First, they can simply walk away and start over again—but starting over is no guarantee that the same thing won’t happen again. Second, they can stay in the organization and quietly go about their business—the very thing that abusive leaders hope they will do, for quiet loyalists really make up the backbone of abusive power. Third, they can initiate action against the abusive leadership, which will inevitably precipitate an internecine war and transform the entire organization into a politically charged institution, whoever wins.

Given these risks, why bother with organization at all? Why not simply retreat into our local churches and do the work that God has given us to do? Could independence be the answer? If we answer yes, then we are going to face certain problems.

First, complete independence will severely restrict what most churches are able to accomplish. How do they intend to sustain missionaries on the field? How do they intend to train their own next pastor? Perhaps some churches will be able to accomplish these objectives, but many will not.

Second, creating an independent church is more difficult than it sounds. If any members join the church from outside, they will bring baggage with them. They will have been to this or that college. They will know this or that missionary, sent to the field through this or that agency. They will want to listen to this or that preacher. Even if the membership of the church is restricted to new converts, they are going to pick up books or hear religious broadcasts that introduce outside elements into the congregation.

Autonomy is not independence. We can and should have autonomous Baptist churches, but none of our churches is truly independent. Given membership transfers, pastoral exchanges, shared challenges, and the influence of mass-produced Christianity, cross-pollination between churches is inevitable. Our churches interact with one another. We cannot avoid the intrusion of influences from outside the congregation (even the churches of the New Testament could not avoid these influences). Complete independence is an illusion. The only answer is to have a trained congregation that is mature and discerning enough to look out for itself.

Given the presence of original sin, we can expect to meet with disappointments in all institutions, whatever organizational model we deploy. Therefore, we should regard all institutions (whether associations, preachers’ fellowships, conferences, conventions, missions agencies, seminaries, or colleges) with a measure of suspicion. We should never drop our guard.

Regardless of which model we follow, we must recognize that we build institutions in the absence of much New Testament teaching. We should hold them with trembling hands, and be prepared to discard or destroy them quickly when necessary. They are useful to us only as means to an end, but never as a necessary implementation of New Testament polity. We should never confuse the institutions with the church.

The institutions that become politicized most quickly and most viciously are the ones that insist that you must give them money in order to have a say in their operation. When these institutions become doctrinally or morally aberrant, churches or individuals may withhold financial support. Such persons or churches automatically lose their voice in setting the organization’s policies. They are excluded from the opportunity to help correct the problem. Such institutions generally end up being run eventually by the people with the least conscience.

The most important lesson is this: original sin is at work in all of us. For that reason, no structure will provide a permanent safeguard against the infections of doctrinal deviation or moral misconduct. People of integrity are the only bulwark against drifting.

Ye Golden Lamps of Heaven

John Wesley (1703-1791)

Ye golden lamps of Heaven, farewell,
With all your feeble light;
Farewell, thou ever-changing moon,
Pale empress of the night.

And thou, refulgent orb of day,
In brighter flames array’d;
—My soul, that springs beyond thy sphere,
No more demands thine aid.

Ye stars are but the shining dust
Of my Divine abode,
The pavement of those heavenly courts
Where I shall reign with God.

The Father of eternal light
Shall there His beams display;
Nor shall one moment’s darkness mix
With that unvaried day.

No more the drops of piercing grief
Shall swell into mine eyes;
Nor the meridian sun decline
Amidst those brighter skies.

This essay is by Dr. Kevin T. Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). Not every professor, student, or alumnus of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.