Research Topic
Summary
This research project is focuses on studying the articulated and the practiced polity among Baptist churches in America during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in order to discover and document modifications in governance models over time. This project aims to help the reader better understand how leadership by volunteer committees, deacon boards, and/or professional staff became so common among the practiced polity in Baptist churches today. A primary preferred outcome of this project is that the reader might become better equipped, both by Scripture and by knowing how the present state of practiced polity came to be. Thus, the reader may be helped to recognize and address matters of polity in their own local church.
The present author’s understanding is that the earliest Baptists in America thoughtfully articulated and tenaciously practiced a form of government that included congregational and pastoral authority. From the seventeenth century Baptists in England (represented by the theologian Benjamin Keach[1]) to the nineteenth century Baptists in America (represented by the theologian John Dagg[2]) the fundamental ecclesiological convictions and polity principles seem to have been relatively consistent, though the specific details in allocating responsibility may not have been uniform. However, in the twentieth century, at least some Baptists in America were arguing for a return to historic Baptist practices regarding polity, such as Winthrop Hudson.[3] Changes had certainly occurred, and one can observe some of the most basic structural sort by reading from an incredibly influential Baptist churchman, J. Newton Brown. In his short and widely used church manual, he used terms like “treasurer,” “clerk,” “trustee,” and even “sexton” as though every Baptist church had such agents (or officers).[4]
Two extremes have arisen from this historic Baptist milieu that have become common over the last 120 years. A commercial and pragmatic polity governs many larger Baptist churches, often centralizing authority among professional employees. Many smaller Baptist churches function as a pure democracy, though this democratic form of government often includes committees (usually comprised of members with no other qualification than that they are a church member) and at least some authoritative oversight from elected deacons. Some modern Baptist authors, such as William Henard,[5]simply assume a committee-organized and demographically segregated polity. Others, like Ed Stetzer,[6] embrace a completely pragmatic approach, and they promote management models more akin to corporate America than to historic Baptists. Versions of elder-led congregationalism,[7] in which the congregation and the pastor(s) each share distinct authoritative roles, is the minority practice of Baptist polity in America today.
The modern label of elder-led congregationalism seems to fit historic Baptist polity well, but many Baptists today have seemingly embraced the view of Gregg Allison, who does not argue for any single church polity, but articulates various polity options without favoring one over another.[8] Allison, representing the Baptist polity zeitgeist of twenty-first-century Baptists (and other Evangelicals as well), even advocates for “offices not named in Scripture” to provide ministry “oversight” among the local church because they are “nonetheless practical.”[9] From whence did these pragmatic governmental structures and offices come (i.e., staff rule, deacon oversight, and authoritative committees)? How did nearly identical extra-biblical offices (i.e., committee member, clerk, and treasurer) become so pervasive among Baptists in America? Did anyone make a positive case that the early Baptists were wrong or ignorant in their polity practices? If not, are modern Baptists simply ignorant of the polity convictions of their forebears? And if the early Baptists were correct, how might the church recover its convictions and practices today?
Nature of the Problem
This project falls under the category of applied or practical research. It will address the perennial problem of local church health and vitality with a keen eye on Baptist polity because polity affects church health and life directly. The conviction of the present author is that much ecclesiological confusion was exposed during the COVID pandemic of 2020. Many churches are still reeling because of the circumstances that arose and the practices that were either already common or newly adopted. This research project will not focus on the leadership methods that should or should not be employed during a pandemic, but more fundamentally on broader polity principles. Of special interest are the principles of shared responsibility and authority between the congregation and the pastor(s) of particular local churches. What convictions did Baptists have from the beginning regarding pastoral and congregational authority, and how have the practices of Baptists changed over the last century?
In many respects, polity is what makes Baptist churches Baptist. It was not the gospel or defining the marks of a true church that differentiated Baptists from their Presbyterian or Congregationalist brethren; it was polity. More importantly, if historic Baptist polity is genuinely biblical, the consistent practice will produce the healthiest, most faithful, and most effective churches. There is an apparent groundswell of recovering historic Baptist polity among Baptist churches today, and this project aims to contribute to that discussion and aid in the recovery effort.
This project is to be completed at the highest level of scholarship and under the purview of the Historical Theology department of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. It will (Lord willing) contribute to the advancement of scholarly historical research in this seminary and the broader academic community. It will also (Lord willing) prove relevant to the practical discussions of ecclesiology and polity among Baptists today. The highest aim of this project is that it will be a genuine benefit to pastors and church members who are convictional Baptists and who want to help their churches organize themselves and operate in faithful submission to the Lord Jesus Christ… to the glory of the triune God. May He grant that it be successful to this end.
Identified Sources
Primary Sources
In this early phase of the project, the primary sources are defined as those which provide both historic and present displays of Baptist church polity, either by doctrinal argumentation or by exposing local church practices. These primary sources include books, articles, dissertations, the historical records of several local Baptist churches, and the records of at least one Baptist association. Documenting the development of polity among specific local Baptist churches since the turn of the twentieth century is paramount to this project. So too is understanding (to the extent possible) and describing the influences upon and rationale for any notable polity changes. Information will be gained from the historic and present-day minutes from members’ meetings and committee meetings, constitutional documents, church covenant documents, and the like. More information, as well as denominational and associational context, will be gained from the historic and present-day records of associational meetings from the Harmony-Pittsburg Baptist Association. This project has confirmed participation from four churches that are at least 100 years old, including the First Baptist Church of Diana, TX, the First Baptist Church of Salado, TX, the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, TX, and Oakridge Baptist Church in Marietta, TX. Participation from at least ten Baptist churches is desirable.
As this project develops, it will likely proceed by showing developments in polity, both articulated and practiced, among specific churches (as noted above). It will also show developments in the polity articulated by key theological proponents throughout history. Beginning with the mid- and late-seventeenth century, for the purpose of establishing continuity and consistency, this project will likely begin by evidencing the basic polity principles of the Independents (or Congregationalists) and the Baptists (English and American), both of which sprouted from the post-Reformation soil of the English Puritans.[10]
Benjamin Keach is among the earliest conscious Baptist theologians. Though he lived and died in England (now the United Kingdom) by 1704, he was greatly influential on early Baptists in America. Keach’s small book The Glory of a True Church[11] is a classic on the subject of Baptist ecclesiology, and Baptist polity is necessarily subsumed within that subject. John Cotton, in his booklet The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven,[12] exemplifies the Independent or Congregationalist ecclesiology about fifty years before Keach. A Concise History of the Kehukee Baptist Association[13]by Lemuel Burkitt, Jesse Read, and Henry Burkitt offers some insight into Baptist polity in the eighteenth century, and Mark Dever’s compilation of historic Baptists in his book Polity[14] also provides foundational documentation through both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Iain Murray’s marvelous compendium, The Reformation of the Church: A Collection of Reformed and Puritan documents on Church Issues,[15] will offer even more detail and a broader historical perspective (i.e., Evangelical, and not merely Baptist) of this same general period.
Tracing the congregationalism of Baptists through the nineteenth century, Democratic Religion[16] by Greg Wills, The Baptist Church Manual[17] by J. Newton Brown and Manual of Theology[18] by John Dagg will each contribute just a bit more of the historic Baptist theology and practices which gave way to the twentieth century. Wills masterfully reveals the congregationalism practiced by Baptist churches, and Brown was a highly influential Baptist theologian and churchmen among nineteenth-century Baptists. His little church manual was a booklet used by so many Baptist churches that his enclosed procedural forms became the template for Baptist documents, both within churches and communication from one church to another. Dagg’s influence cannot be overstated. His manual was not as concise as Brown’s, but it represents the scholarly Baptist articulation and defense of ecclesiology in the nineteenth century and beyond.
This project has presently identified two primary sources from the twentieth century and one other source that may be quite interesting. The two main sources articulating Baptist polity during this focal period are currently The Churchbook[19] by Gaines Dobbins (published in 1951) and Training in Church Membership[20] by I. J. Van Ness (published in 1959). Both of these are popular-level works that promote and explain the function of Baptist polity in the life of the local church. The third source of written form from the twentieth century is A Biblical Defense of Plural Proclamation in the Local Church[21] by Gregory Kappas. This dissertation argues for more than one minister of the word in the local church. It is unclear at this point if Kappas was something of a forerunner to the surge of authors in the twenty-first century who wrote on the importance of word-centered leadership and of a plurality of pastors or elders. Still, if so, then Kappas’s dissertation will be of particular interest. More written sources from the twentieth-century sources are desirable, though the bulk of the source material from this period will likely be the documents from several local churches and at least one association (as mentioned above).
Significant motivation for the project anticipated here arises from the fact that many works have been published at the beginning of the twenty-first century which aim to call Baptists to return to their historic polity convictions and practices. This overtly implies that there has been a drift over time or maybe even a conscious change of course at some point in the past. The main focus of this project is to discover and document the changes in Baptist polity that provoked so many Baptists to reprove, instruct, and exhort their co-laborers. Among some of these works are Baptist Foundations[22]by Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches[23] by John Hammett, the journal article Why Baptist Elders Is Not an Oxymoron[24] by Phil Newton, Restoring Integrity in Baptist Churches[25] by Thomas White, Jason Duesing, and Malcolm Yarnell, Southern Baptist Identity[26] by David Dockery and others, and also a journal article by Robert Wring called Elder Rule and Southern Baptist Church Polity.[27] Dockery, White, Duesing, and Yarnell have all directly urged modern Baptists to consider and adopt the polity and practices of earlier Baptists. Dever, Hammett, Newton, and Wring have each offered modern Baptists an argument for the biblical and historical roots of the Baptist polity practiced by their forebears, often contrasting the older with the newer.
Critiquing the contemporary polity environment is not the only method by which some Baptists have been urging other Baptists to embrace their historic ecclesiology and polity. Many other works have simply offered a positive argument for and articulation of Baptist polity. Among these are Baptist Polity and Elders[28] and The Church,[29] an article and a book, both by Mark Dever. In the twenty-first century, Dever has been an especially noteworthy proponent of historic Baptist polity. Other works articulating and promoting Baptist polity are American Baptist Polity[30] by Robert Handy, Shepherding God’s Flock[31] by Benjamin Merkle and Thomas Schreiner, Elders in the Life of the Church[32] by Phil Newton and Matt Schmucker, and Polity and Proclamation[33] by Alvin Reid. These works are not only interested in promoting Baptist polity generally but are also mainly focused on the way pastoral leadership (as distinct from the leadership of staff or committees or deacons) functions in a congregational church. The emphasis of these sources makes them of primary interest to this project.
Other influential publications during the same period will provide a contrast to the works cited above. Ed Stetzer’s Planting Missional Churches[34] and William Henard’s Can These Bones Live?[35] have been prominent books for those interested in church planting and in church revitalization. Henard is an adjunct professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and his text is part of the required reading in his course on church revitalization. Furthermore, Stetzer remains a leading voice in church planting strategies and methods among Southern Baptists and Evangelicals more broadly. His ideas largely shaped the discussion during the early 2000s.
In addition to these two publications, two others are noteworthy as contrasting articulations of popularly practiced church polity today. One is The Prevailing Church[36] by Randy Pope. Pope was the senior pastor of a Presbyterian megachurch outside of Atlanta, GA (he retired from the pastorate in 2019, after 42 years at the same church), and his book has been highly influential among church planters and church leaders over the last twenty years. Pope presents an ecclesiological model that embraces efficiency, pragmatism, and industry, all highly prized features of common polities practiced among Baptist churches today and Evangelical churches more broadly. Such features might be hard to recognize as having any connection to the polity and ecclesiology of our Baptist forebears.
One other articulation of popular church polity today is Gregg Allison’s introductory and popular-level book on ecclesiology, simply called The Church.[37] Allison, who is a member of the faculty at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, typifies the laissez-faire sort of attitude that many twenty-first century church leaders have about church polity. In his concise work (published in 2021), Allison lists various polities he perceives as being exercised in the New Testament without offering any notion that one might be preferred over another. Not only is Allison stepping away from his Baptist ancestors by omitting an argument in favor of congregationalism, but he also ignores the reality that many Baptists, Presbyterians, and those who embrace an episcopate form of church government (both historic and present-day) strongly argue that the Bible consistently prescribes one form of church polity over others. This certainly was and is a conviction of many Baptist churchmen.
In summary, these primary sources will contribute to this project by demonstrating the shape of Baptist ecclesiology and polity from the 1600s through the present day. This project aims to discover and document notable changes to the way Baptists articulate their polity convictions, as well as significant changes to the way Baptist churches practice their polity in real-time. First, the historical records of specific churches and at least one association are important. The books, articles, and dissertations that fit the primary source category will provide broader documentation expected to basically correspond to the convictions and practices of these churches on the ground.
Secondary Sources
Once again, there must be the acknowledgment that this project is still in its infancy, so the precise definition of each category of sources may change. At present, the secondary sources are those which offer observations and assessments of Baptist church polity developments during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These secondary sources include books, articles, and unpublished dissertations.
Several sources may provide historical documentation and a variety of assessments of historic Baptist polity. The most important of these will probably be The Reformation of the Church[38] by Iain Murray, Polity[39] by Mark Dever, Baptist Church Covenants[40] by Charles Deweese, and Baptist Confessions of Faith[41] by William Lumpkin. These books evidence to show what historic Baptists, spanning from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century, professed to believe, promised to do, and claimed as their polity. These books also offer assessments and commentary on the development of belief, practice, and polity over time. Additionally, several other sources will help add additional content on these same matters. These are A History of Democratic Church Polity[42] by Alfred Link, Baptist Concepts of the Church[43] by Winthrop Hudson, Polity Developments in the Southern Baptist Convention[44] by James Sullivan, Baptists: The Bible, Church Order and the Churches[45] by Edwin Gaustad, Democratic Religion[46] by Greg Wills, and Baptist Ecclesiology in Historic Perspective[47] by Douglas Weaver.
These sources are not only helpful to this project because of their particular assessment of Baptist polity, both past and present, but they are also valuable contributions at various points of the chronological focus of this project. Spanning from 1929 to 2014, these sources offer a critique of Baptist polity as each author perceived it during their own day. Further research into these sources may even provide real-time evidence (conscious to the author or otherwise) of polity changes as they happened.
Tertiary Sources
At this early stage of the project, the tertiary sources are defined as those that provide historical context for the noted Baptist polity displays and perspective for the various contemporaneous assessments thereof. These sources largely tell the story of Baptist history, each one from a different perspective and some focusing on a specific period or geography. Some of the sources listed below may not remain on the list, and others may be added that are not presently known to the present author, but those cited below are of interest to this project.
A few classic Baptist history tomes are A Short History of the Baptists[48] by Henry Vedder, The Baptist Heritage[49] by Leon McBeth, and A History of the Baptists[50] by Robert Torbet. These each offer a traditional and comprehensive view of Christian history, focusing on Baptists. More recent works will provide greater detail in one way or another. David Bebbington’s Baptists Through the Centuries[51] takes a more universal look at Baptist history, including those Baptists who spread beyond the western world. Evangelicalism Divided[52] by Iain Murray is not specifically focused on Baptists (as the title suggests). Still, it provides context and commentary on some of the most influential people and events which shaped Evangelicalism (including Baptists) during the twentieth century. Baptists in America[53] by Thomas Kidd and Barry Hankins offers a more focused perspective of specific Baptists, but it also gives a broader view of the social, political, and religious landscape for Baptists in American society. The Baptist Story[54] by Anthony Chute, Nathan Finn, and Michael Haykin is a concise summary of what many Baptist histories have provided before, but this work also takes on the perspective and culture of the authors who wrote it in the early 2010s.
Baptist polity and ecclesiology are convictions that have been applied over time and in various circumstances. Sometimes Baptists have been victimized by those with the power of government to oppose them, and sometimes Baptists have had greater freedom to congregate and to organize themselves according to their own convictions. At all times, Baptists have been proponents of local church autonomy and the responsibility of local congregations. Baptists have also recognized and advocated for the importance of biblically qualified church leaders in the form of pastors or elders, but the leadership structures in Baptist churches have indeed morphed over time to include various additional authoritative agents. Decision-making deacons, managerial staff, and supervisory committees have all become rival governing apparatuses for the shared responsibility and authority among the pastor(s) and the congregations of local Baptist churches. This project intends to discover and document both how and why such changes occurred.
Conversation Partners
While several of the sources already cited will offer points and counterpoints to the development and practice of polity among Baptist churches during the last century, two twenty-first-century scholars are likely to be critical representatives of the conversation this project aims to engage. These men have written dissertations with a strong emphasis on an elder-rule or elder-leader polity, and this project will likely benefit much from these two sources. The first is Robert Wring who submitted his Ph.D. dissertation to the Practical Theology Department of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in 2002. Wring’s paper is titled An Examination of the Practice of Elder Rule in Selected Southern Baptist Churches.[55]
Wring examines the leadership of elders among Southern Baptist churches in three areas: first, the exegetical development of such a polity from the Scripture (specifically the New Testament); second, the historical employment of elder leadership among the churches and the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention; and third, the influence of Reformed and Presbyterian theologians upon Southern Baptist theologians and church leaders. Of particular interest to this project is the method Wring used to document case studies of selected Southern Baptist Churches and the results of his studies. This project intends to discover and document the development of polity in a similar way. However, unlike Wring’s dissertation, this project expects to shine the light on how and why these historical changes happened, rather than merely observing and critiquing current practices.
Wring limits his research and evaluation to critiquing what he perceived to be a move from the “two-officer model of church leadership” (namely pastors and deacons) to a “three-officer model,” which includes a distinct sort of pastor or elder that does not regularly preach.[56] Wring’s research is essential to this project, but Wring’s focus is more narrow in the sense that this project will also investigate the development and use of various non-biblical officers, such as decision-making staff, ruling deacons, and administrative committees. Wring’s research and conclusions will also contribute to this project as a strong conversation partner, offering a divergent view from the present author (observing both past and present Baptists) on the role and function of pastoral leadership. It should be noted that the present author agrees wholeheartedly with Wring that “Southern Baptists need to develop ways to address the biblical and Baptistic position of church leadership…” However, the present author disagrees with Wring that the biblical and Baptistic position of church leadership is “by a [singular] pastor and deacons.”[57]
The second scholar who has previously done notable work in the field in which this project plans to toil is Joseph Silvey. Silvey also completed his Ph.D. through Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, and his dissertation was submitted in 2019 with the title The Role of Elder in Church Leadership: A Historical Analysis.[58] Silvey’s research and findings directly interact with Wring’s work at some points, and several other writers and works that have been cited among the primary sources of the present project. Silvey’s study method was similar to Wring’s in that Silvey began by exegeting various Scripture passages that speak to the role and function of church leaders, namely pastors or elders. However, Silvey’s method differed from Wring’s in at least two ways: first, Silvey concentrated his research on the role of elder among the broad terrain of Christian history, rather than focusing only on Southern Baptists; second, Silvey presented a comprehensive and extensive survey of the role of an elder, rather than focusing on the relationship of elder or pastoral leadership in the context of a congregational church polity.
Silvey’s research and conclusions will be important to the present project. Silvey will undoubtedly help direct the present author toward valuable historical sources and particular excerpts within those sources. Silvey also presents useful information that directly contributes to the goal of this project, specifically his chapter on “The Role of Elder in the Evangelical Period.”[59] Though Silvey offers a helpful historical outline of the use and function of elder leadership in the broad scope of Christian churches, including those Baptists churches that focus on this project, he also leaves much room for further inquiry.
In fact, both Silvey and Wring leave some gaping holes that this project aims to fill. Among these holes is the arrival of church committees. Neither Wring nor Silvey appear to notice this governing structure at all, and yet, administrative committees comprised of volunteers from among a church’s membership are omnipresent among Baptist churches today. The Southern Baptist Convention even has a Committee on Committees, which is either modeled after or serves as the model for such a committee on the local church level among Southern Baptists. Another hole is the origin and function of deacons in an administrative or ruling capacity. Neither Wring nor Silvey seem to address the fact that the dichotomous allocation of church offices – pastor/elder and deacon – has nonetheless morphed over time into what has practically become the office of ruling deacon. Wring and Silvey both acknowledge the importance Baptists have placed on congregational polity, and Wring even chides Baptists who may allow for a sort of ruling elder (the sort that overrides the authority of the congregation), but he ignores the overabundance of deacon bodies which rule many Baptist churches today.
Yet another hole in Wring’s and Silvey’s research is the arrival of and the present common function of church staff as authoritative leaders in the church. Program Directors and Office Administrators make unilateral decisions among many megachurches today that clearly fall under the responsibility of pastors or elders. In larger churches, staff personnel departments (or an individual employee) handle hiring and firing (sometimes of pastoral staff) completely separate from any input from (and sometimes even without providing any information to) the congregation. In smaller churches, church membership recommendation requests and letters are often a simple clerical matter, handled by a church secretary without informing the congregation, much less seeking consent from them. From whence have these practices come? When did such practices and agents become common among Baptist churches in America? Who argued for the adoption of these new roles and practices? Or did they simply show up on the scene by some unconscious assimilation from elsewhere?
This project intends to delve into an apparent yet unexplored area of inquiry, namely the arrival of aberrant practices of Baptist church polity, which were unknown to our Baptist forebears. It is one thing for Baptists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to grant slightly more authority to elders or pastors than did the paedobaptist congregationalists before them, but it is quite another for them to invent an entirely new office (such as a program director, a decisive deacon board, or a committee chair) that wields more authority than does either the congregation or the pastor(s). That is a polity shift indeed! This project aims to discover and document the phenomenon and the rationale that produced it.
[1] Benjamin Keach 1640-1704., “The Glory of a True Church, and Its Discipline Display’d Wherein a True Gospel-Church Is Described : Together with the Power of the Keys, and Who Are to Be Let in, and Who to Be Shut out / by Benjamin Keach,” 1697.
[2] John L. Dagg, Manual of Theology: A Treatise on Church Order, Second (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 2012).
[3] Winthrop Hudson, ed., Baptist Concepts of the Church: A Survey of the Historical and Theological Issues Which Have Produced Changes in Church Order (Philadelphia, PA: The Judson Press, 1959).
[4] J. Newton Brown, A Baptist Church Manual: Containing The New Hampshire Declaration of Faith Suggested Covenant, Rules of Order, and Forms of Church Letters (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1994), 36.
[5] William David Henard, Can These Bones Live? A Practical Guide to Church Revitalization (Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing Group, 2015).
[6] Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006).
[7] Elder-led congregationalism is the modern label for a local church polity that simultaneously embraces both congregationalism and pastoral leadership. The forms may vary widely, but the elements are generally the same – authority is shared and distributed between the pastor(s) and the congregation. In an elder-led congregational polity, as in the earliest Baptist churches in America, the question is not whether the pastor(s) is over the congregation or vice versa, nor is it essentially a matter of greater or lesser authority. In elder-led congregationalism, in keeping with historic Baptist polity, responsibility and authority are based on complementary biblical assignments summarized by distinct job descriptions – one for pastors (singular or plural) and another for the assembled congregation.
[8] Gregg R. Allison, The Church: An Introduction, Short Studies in Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 93-104.
[9] Ibid., 90.
[10] Some have argued that Baptists can trace a historical line all the way back to the time of the Apostles. See J. M. Carroll, The Trail of Blood: Following the Christians Down Through the Centuries; or The History of Baptist Churches From the Time of Christ Their Founder, to the Present Day (American Baptist Publishing Company, 1931). Others believe there is a stronger connection between the European Anabaptists and American Baptists. See Paige Patterson, “Learning From the Anabaptists,” in Southern Baptist Identity: An Evangelical Denomination Faces the Future, ed. David Dockery (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2009), 123-138. However, this debate of history is beyond the scope of this project. What is clear and beyond dispute is that early American Baptists drew heavily upon their English Puritan predecessors, at a minimum by modeling their confessions after the First and Second London Confessions of Faith.
[11] Benjamin Keach 1640-1704., “The Glory of a True Church, and Its Discipline Display’d Wherein a True Gospel-Church Is Described : Together with the Power of the Keys, and Who Are to Be Let in, and Who to Be Shut out / by Benjamin Keach,” 1697.
[12] John Cotton, The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven: And Power Thereof, According to the Word of God, ed. P. Joseph (Copppell, TX: Independent, 2021).
[13] Lemuel Burkitt, Jesse Read, and Henry L. Burkitt, A Concise History of the Kehukee Baptist Association From Its Original Rise Down to 1803 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo, 1850).
[14] Mark Dever, ed., Polity: Biblical Arguments on How to Conduct Church Life (Washington, D.C.: Center for Church Reform, 2000).
[15] Iain Murray, The Reformation of the Church: A Collection of Reformed and Puritan Documents on Church Issues (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1987).
[16] Gregory A Wills, Democratic Religion: Freedom, Authority, and Church Discipline in the Antebellum South (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
[17] Brown, The Baptist Church Manual.
[18] John L. Dagg, Manual of Theology: A Treatise on Church Order, Second (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 2012).
[19] Gaines S. Dobbins, The Churchbook: A Treasury of Materials and Methods, Third Printing (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1951).
[20] I. J. Van Ness, Training in Church Membership, Revised Edition (Nashville, TN: Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1959).
[21] Gregory A. Kappas, “A Biblical Defense of Plural Proclamation in the Local Church” (Portland, OR, Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1988).
[22] Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman, eds., Baptist Foundations: Church Government for an Anti-Institutional Age (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2015).
[23] John S. Hammett, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2005).
[24] Phil A Newton, “Why Baptist Elders Is Not an Oxymoron,” Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry 2, no. 1 (2004): 63–73.
[25] Thomas White, Jason G. Duesing, and Malcolm B. Yarnell, eds., Restoring Integrity in Baptist Churches (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2008).
[26] David S. Dockery, ed., Southern Baptist Identity: An Evangelical Denomination Faces the Future (Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Books, 2009).
[27] Robert A Wring, “Elder Rule and Southern Baptist Church Polity,” Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry 3, no. 1 (2005): 188–212.
[28] Mark Dever, “Baptist Polity and Elders,” Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry 3, no. 1 (2005): 5–37.
[29] Mark Dever, The Church: The Gospel Made Visible, 9Marks (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2012).
[30] Robert T. (Robert Theodore) Handy, “American Baptist Polity: What’s Happening and Why,” American Baptist Quarterly 27, no. 4 (2008): 343–56.
[31] Benjamin L. Merkle and Thomas R. Schreiner, eds., Shepherding God’s Flock: Biblical Leadership in the New Testament and Beyond(Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2015).
[32] Phil A Newton and Matt Schmucker, Elders in the Life of the Church: Rediscovering the Biblical Model for Church Leadership, 9Marks Life in the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2014).
[33] Alvin L Reid, “Polity and Proclamation: The Relationship Between Congregational Polity and Evangelistic Church Growth in the SBC,” Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry 3, no. 1 (2005): 164–87.
[34] Stetzer.
[35] Henard.
[36] Randy Pope, The Prevailing Church: An Alternative Approach to Ministry Design (Chicago, Ill: Moody Press, 2002).
[37] Allison.
[38] Murray, The Reformation of the Church.
[39] Dever, Polity.
[40] Charles W. Deweese, Baptist Church Covenants (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1990).
[41] William Latane Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, ed. Bill Leonard, Second Revised (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2011).
[42] Alfred Link, “A History of Democratic Church Polity” (New Orleans, LA, The Baptist Bible Institute, 1929).
[43] Winthrop Hudson, ed., Baptist Concepts of the Church: A Survey of the Historical and Theological Issues Which Have Produced Changes in Church Order (Philadelphia, PA: The Judson Press, 1959).
[44] James L Sullivan, “Polity Developments in the Southern Baptist Convention (1900-1977),” Baptist History and Heritage 14, no. 3 (July 1979): 22–31.
[45] Edwin S. Gaustad, ed., Baptists: The Bible, Church Order and the Churches : Essays from Foundations, a Baptist Journal of History and Theology., The Baptist Tradition (New York: Arno Press, 1980).
[46] Gregory A Wills, Democratic Religion: Freedom, Authority, and Church Discipline in the Antebellum South (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
[47] C Douglas Weaver, “Baptist Ecclesiology in Historic Perspective: The Mid- to Late-Nineteenth Century,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 41, no. 3 (2014): 277–95.
[48] Henry C Vedder, A Short History of the Baptists (Philadelphia, PA: Judson Press, 1978).
[49] H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1987).
[50] Robert G. Torbet, A History of the Baptists, Third (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1980).
[51] David Bebbington, Baptists Through the Centuries: A History of a Global People (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010).
[52] Iain Hamish Murray, Evangelicalism Divided: A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950 to 2000 (Edinburgh, UK ; Carlisle, Pa: Banner of Truth Trust, 2000).
[53] Thomas S. Kidd and Barry Hankins, Baptists in America: A History (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).
[54] Anthony L. Chute, Nathan A. Finn, and Michael A. G. Haykin, The Baptist Story: From English Sect to Global Movement (Nashville, TN: B & H Academic, 2015).
[55] Robert Wring, “An Examination of the Practice of Elder Rule in Selected Southern Baptist Churches in the Light of New Testament Teaching” (Ann Arbor, MI, Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, 2002).
[56] Ibid., 211-212.
[57] Wring, “An Examination of the Practice of Elder Rule in Selected Southern Baptist Churches in the Light of New Testament Teaching,” 216.
[58] Joseph Michael Silvey, “The Role of Elder in Church Leadership: A Historical Analysis,” ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (Ph.D., Ann Arbor, Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, 2019), ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global: The Humanities and Social Sciences Collection (2468703744).
[59] Silvey, “The Role of Elder in Church Leadership: A Historical Analysis,” 138-185.
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Holding the Line 