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.
Continue reading here: https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/columns/ad-fontes/why-is-it-so-hard-to-reform-baptist-denominations/
