Of Pastors and Presbyters

When historians turn to consider the early twenty-first century in Southern Baptist life, a number of momentous events from our annual meeting will figure prominently. The revision of the Baptist Faith & Message in the year 2000 marked a turning-point in the history of our confession of faith and will be remembered as a milestone in the story of the Conservative Resurgence. The 2006 election of Frank Page later propelled him into his current role at the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, and the meeting (its prelude and its aftermath) launched Southern Baptist blogging. The 2012 election of Fred Luter as the first African-American President of the Southern Baptist Convention stands head and shoulders above all of these other historical events as a key element of a story that reaches all the way back to the convention's formation in 1845.

But something else has been happening in the Southern Baptist Convention—something that has not appeared on the agenda of any of our annual meetings—that will also figure prominently in our recollection of this moment in our history. This is the era when Southern Baptist churches in large numbers began to change the governance of our churches. This is the day of the "elder-led" movement in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Causes

The previous form of church government—congregationalism with varying levels of pastoral leadership and responsibility—held sway over Southern Baptist life for a century and a half. What factors have led to its precipitous decline?

The rise of the New Calvinism is one important factor. Groups like Mark Dever's IX Marks have championed the transition to elder governance as an important means to increasing church health. Other groups among the New Calvinists, even if they have not been as focused on ecclesiology as Dever's group has been, have lifted up a number of Presbyterian or presbyterial voices as heroes to younger Southern Baptists. The correlation between the elder-led movement and the New Calvinism is tight (although Southern Baptists from more than one soteriological viewpoint are embracing the elder-led option), and when the soteriological pendulum swings the other way, the most lasting impact remaining upon Southern Baptist churches by this movement may very well be the structural changes that it made to local churches by means of the spread of elder-led polity.

The sorry state of congregationalism in many of our Southern Baptist churches is another key factor. For decades nobody in the Southern Baptist convention SAID anything nice about congregational business meetings, and in too many dysfunctional churches it had been at least that long since anyone had DONE anything nice in a congregational business meeting. Furthermore, congregationalism had, in too many places, ceased to enjoin entire congregations in the search for God's will and had become the vehicle by which mean-spirited tyrants—too many of them unconverted—lurked in the shadows and dominated the church as covert power brokers. I previously wrote about this phenomenon in my blog post Pseudo-Congregationalism Is from Satan. Most of those who experienced these abuses first-hand, plus a number of those who heard the stories, were ready for an alternative.

A related matter is the weak and sorry state of the office of pastor/elder/overseer in so many of these dysfunctional churches. Bad congregationalism had eviscerated and emasculated many a minister of the gospel. A sizable number both in pulpit and in pew knew that something was amiss in an arrangement in which the pastor is little more than a hired speaker forced to cower in his corner in the meeting house.

A final factor to consider is the incongruity between what we as Southern Baptists said about the office of deacon versus what our deacons actually did. Much of the Southern Baptist preaching about deacons in the last half of the twentieth century would meet the formal definition of a riv (a literary device from the Old Testament prophetic books in which God formally airs his grievances against His people). The comparison and contrast between deacons and elders has been a mainstay in this conversation as Southern Baptist churches have considered the change to elder-led polity.

Objectives

What have the advocates for elder-led polity hoped to accomplish for Southern Baptist churches? Some, before enumerating perceived pragmatic benefits, have simply advanced the case that elder-led governance is the most biblical form of church polity. Southern Baptist congregationalism was made much more vulnerable to these attacks by the abandonment of the word "elder" in Southern Baptist parlance near the beginning of the twentieth century. Since the word "elder" is spread throughout the pages of the New Testament, and since Southern Baptists, having chosen the word "pastor" to the exclusion of "elder," appeared to the casual observer not to have any such thing as an elder, the moment was ripe to make the case that the "People of the Book" had abandoned something biblical.

Proponents of this change in church polity also reminded Southern Baptists that the elder-led pattern can be entirely compatible with Baptist belief, and indeed, can be identified in Baptist history. Particularly among Particular Baptists, plural-elder congregationalism appears in church minutes and confessions of faith as the practice of many early Baptists.

Among the pragmatic appeals was the suggestion that a transition to the elder-led pattern would liberate pastors from the tyranny of loneliness in an overwhelming task. "God never intended for one man to try to do this job alone" is a winsome slogan to the ears of a group of people who, in survey after survey, are highly isolated and overburdened. To impanel a board of elders is to call for backup, so they say.

Another winsome feature spanned both pragmatism and biblical fidelity: the prospect of elevating the station and power of pastors/elders/overseers in the church. Pastors in beleaguered situations knew that they should have more power to lead and they wanted that power, confident that the church would operate more smoothly and accomplish more ministry once their congregational roadblocks were out of the way.

Causes for Concern

As someone who despises so much of what has passed for congregationalism in Southern Baptist churches, I welcome and embrace the new openness in our churches to revisit our polity and make it better and more biblical. Also, I acknowledge that some of the more careful and faithful implementations of polities more dependent upon the leadership of pastors/elder/overseers in the local church have been both a success and a blessing. Nevertheless, in the broader movement, I see some causes for concern.

1. The Lapse into Presbyterianism: I've been blogging for a long time now, and I hope that my readers recognize me as a cordial interlocutor with my more Calvinistic brethren. Specifically, I am not among those who reflexively cry "Presbyterian!" at every juncture when someone discusses his soteriological convictions. Permit me to air my view that the elder-led approach, if done carefully and well, can be done in a way that is more Baptist than Presbyterian. I am no opponent of these implementations.

   And yet, although everything I read from the hand of Mark Dever is unmistakably Baptist, when local churches put down their copies of Nine Marks of a Healthy Church and go about implementing what they think they've read, the results sometimes look a lot more like John Knox than Mark Dever. Some of the individual points listed below will serve as the specific indicators of this diagnosis, but I'm going to leave it unsubstantiated for the moment in order to free this space in the essay to speak about the general phenomenon.

   A lot of interaction is taking place at this moment between Southern Baptists and Presbyterians or quasi-Presbyterians. Some of this is due to the facts of American Evangelicalism; some of it is due to the unique influence of men like Al Mohler. At least some movement of pastors between Southern Baptist life and Presbyterian life is taking place—Southern Baptist pastors becoming Presbyterian and Presbyterian pastors becoming Southern Baptist. In saying this I am not alleging a wrong (Southern Baptists ought to talk to more people than just Southern Baptists) so much as I am observing a trend.

   Because of this interaction and familiarity with Presbyterian life, when local Southern Baptist pastors start out to implement elder leadership in their local churches, the Presbyterian model may be more familiar to them, being as widespread as it is, than is the subtle nuance of the more Baptistic varieties of elder-led polity. Indeed, whether unwittingly or deliberately, "elder led" often becomes something more like "elder ruled."

   Since the move to elder-led polity is indisputably a movement TOWARD Presbyterianism, it is perhaps not surprising that the move sometimes fails to stop short of full-fledged Presbyterian polity.

2. The Cleavage of the Presbytery: Although a less-noble author might have used that subtitle for a condemnation of immodest female preachers, I'm talking about the unsettling tendency among elder-led Southern Baptists to set aside our unified presbytery for a divided presbytery. A divided presbytery has a bifurcation between preaching elders and lay elders. A unified presbytery holds all pastors/elders/overseers to be occupants of the same biblical office without distinction. After all, the New Testament does not give qualifications for two kinds of elders, does not enshrine terminology for two kinds of elders, and does not assign tasks to two kinds of elders. A misreading of I Timothy 5:17 lies at the root of the error of a divided presbytery.

   I've spoken with Mark Dever about this topic (although he may not remember and probably doesn't have any idea who I am). He affirms a unified presbytery and does not agree with the bifurcation of preaching elders and lay elders that is a prominent feature of the Presbyterian system. And yet, is the bifurcation of staff elders and non-staff elders not a bifurcation just the same? Doesn't it appear important to the IX Marks system that some of the elders be people who are not paid at all? And yet, doesn't I Timothy 5:17 seem to suggest that all of the elders are paid something, just not all the same thing?

   If a careful, conscientiously Baptist, elder-led Southern Baptist church of the new type were suddenly to receive a windfall and were able to provide full-time income to all of its elders, would it feel compelled to go out and elect more elders, just to make sure that at least some of the elders were non-staff? I think a good many of them would. Although there is a strong, biblical case to use the term "elder" to refer to pastors/elders/overseers, and although there is a strong, biblical case to permit multiple elders to serve in a single congregation, where is the biblical case for insisting that some of these elders be unremunerated by the church, or for making any cleavage between different subcategories of elders?

   As a final word of clarification, if straitened financial circumstances cause one or more (or ALL) of a church's pastors/elders/overseers to go unpaid, I have no problem with that. I become concerned when the choice to have unpaid elders is strategic rather than circumstantial.

3. The Demotion of Pastors: Another remarkable feature of this movement is related to the insistence upon non-staff elders. In many of the congregations that are adopting elder leadership, pastors other than the top pastor in the organization chart—men we might refer to as "Associate Pastor" or "Assistant Pastor" in the traditional parlance—are being excluded entirely from the elder board. And so, in selecting elders, these congregations are passing right over men who have already been ordained into the pastor/elder/overseer ministry, have trained and have been credentialed, and are serving in the role of pastor/elder/overseer in that local congregation. The congregation is passing over these men and are elevating onto elder boards laypeople from the congregation.

   I had a recent conversation with a young man being called to one of these churches. After talking with me, he approached the lead pastor of the congregation and asked, "Hey, if I'm the Youth Pastor, and if pastors, elders, and overseers are all the same thing biblically, then why don't I get to come to the elders' meetings?" The lead pastor replied, "Wow! I hadn't thought of that. I just read IX Marks of a Healthy Church, thought it sounded good, and started implementing it here as best I could, but I never considered that other staff pastors might need to be elders. We probably ought to change your job title to take the word 'Pastor' out of it."

   As an editorial note, it is remarkable to me that a movement holding out the promise to elevate lead pastors out of situations of bad congregationalism—situations that did not accord to them the rightful and biblical respect and leadership role that pertained to them—would then be used by lead pastors to deny the rightful and biblical respect and leadership role that pertains to other pastors in the congregation. Every pastor ought to be considered a full-fledged elder in our congregations. Indeed, ONLY pastors ought to be considered elders in our congregations.

4. The Dismissal of Pastors: I know of two pastor-friends in recent months who have been fired by elders whom they themselves installed into the office of elder while the pastors were trying to transition the churches to elder leadership. In case you missed what happened there, these pastors (a) decided to adopt the elder-led model, (b) hand-picked leading laypersons in the congregation to serve as elders, (c) saw to their election as elders in the congregation, and (d) were promptly sent packing by the elders they had selected. In both cases there was no congregational vote involved (unless I've somehow misunderstood).

   I asked one of them, "If you hadn't made those guys elders at your church do you think they would have done this or even COULD have done this to you?" The answer? No.

   History guys should stick to talking about the past and should avoid prognostication about the future, but I'm going to go there: I predict that the stories of bad Presbyterianism that will come out of this new polity in Southern Baptist churches will make the old stories of bad congregationalism look like a church picnic. Why? Because the selfsame people who did so much damage through the congregational system will be the very ones who worm their way into the local presbytery. You think they were formidable when they held no official position at all? You think they were formidable when they were deacons? Wait until you encounter them as constitutionally empowered ruling elders of the congregation!

   Of course, a great many of the churches making this transition are more fortunate for now. After all, a great many pastors will pick people to serve as elders who will not, in fact, turn around and fire them. But this is the rosiest season for the elder-led movement—the season in which first-generation elder-led pastors get to serve with the elders that they have picked for themselves. The test of the movement will come after a few pastoral transitions, once pastors are coming into service alongside a PREDECESSOR's hand-picked elder board.

Proposed Solution

Those who are exploring the biblical role of the elder in Southern Baptist life should take the following biblical steps if they choose to implement elder leadership in their churches:

1. Extend the office of elder to all pastors, since biblically the pastor, the elder, and the overseer are the same person.
2. Restrict the office of elder to only pastors, for the same reason.
3. Protect the authority of the voting congregation to select its own pastors/elders/overseers.
4. Make it the goal of the congregation to pay all of its pastors/elders/overseers at least something.
5. Require all pastors/elders/overseers to do at least some work at preaching and teaching.
6. Make it the goal of the congregation to pay more to those pastors/elders/overseers who work harder at preaching and teaching.
7. Charge pastors/elders/overseers to keep the congregation informed and to build congregational consensus behind key decisions.

If the elevation of pastors/elders/overseers in Southern Baptist churches will take place along these lines, it can be an opportunity for us to revisit our polity and strengthen it, making our churches healthier and more effective in the accomplishment of our mission.

Pseudo-Congregationalism Is from Satan

The First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs, Mississippi, has become the pariah of the Southern Baptist Convention. On the eve of their wedding, Charles and Te'Andrea Wilson were forced to relocate their ceremony to another church's meeting house in order to placate the objections of racists within the congregation. Shameful.

The title of this post refers to James MacDonald's blog post from months ago in which he declared that "Congregational Government Is from Satan." Indeed, for all I know, MacDonald might be reading about FBC Crystal Springs and thinking that the situation in Mississippi is a prime example of exactly what he was talking about.

But the real problem with FBC Crystal Springs is that it appears that they are NOT practicing congregationalism. Rather, they are suffering from a malady that I call "pseudo-congregationalism." Pseudo-congregationalism is a system in which the official structure of the church's polity is congregationalist, but the church actually functions in a manner that avoids the key components of true biblical congregationalism: submission to the lordship of Christ, prayer, free collaborative discussion, strong pastoral leadership, and decisive congregational voting. From what we've heard about the decision to relocate the Wilsons' exchanging of vows, it appears that there was no vote taken, no call to corporate prayer issued, no congregational discussion held, no courageous resolve on the part of the pastor, and (consequently) a decision came forth that was contrary to the will of Christ. Pseudo-congregationalism really IS from Satan, and he uses it to dastardly effect.

Let me explain why these key elements of biblical congregationalism would have made a positive difference in Crystal Springs.

1. A Decisive Vote: I choose to doubt that this congregation would have actually voted to deny the Wilsons the opportunity to marry in the church's meeting space. Because there has been no vote, there is nobody to take responsibility for this decision. Because there is nobody to take responsibility for this decision, everyone in the church is under suspicion.

   The victims instinctively recognize the need for congregationalism. In this interview (Be sure to watch the video; don't just read the text) Charles Wilson responds to the suggestion that only a troublesome minority in the congregation raised opposition to his nuptials: "When you talk about the minority…How many is the minority? Was it half of the church? Was it three-quarters of the church? I don't know. Honestly, I don't know!" The witness of this church is sullied and unclear, and even the local TV station opines, "Many believe there would have been no controversy if there had been a vote within the church."

   Of course, there's the possibility that a vote within the church might have favored some racist policy to exclude the Wilsons and other black people from being able to get married in the church. I think that's unlikely (for reasons I'll mention below, I doubt the troublemakers would even have spoken up in such a meeting), but it is possible—would have even been PROBABLE a century ago in the preponderance of churches throughout our nation. But even if the vote had gone the wrong way, at least the people behind this horrible decision would have to take responsibility for it. As things stand at present, the culprits are the anonymous "some people" who always dominate churches governed by pseudo-congregationalism.

   In contrast, the Apostle Paul was able to state definitively that "the majority" (2 Corinthians 2:6) in the Corinthian church had enacted punishment upon an errant member (the offender in 1 Corinthians 5, perhaps?). Biblical congregationalism facilitates biblical accountability.

   This church needs to understand that they are not riding out a storm by faith. That's the wrong metaphor here. The storm is of their own creation. They're facing a decision. They need to decide it. By a vote. With no ambiguity remaining once the matter has been settled.

2. Free Collaborative Discussion: When the people of the congregation know that they make all of their decisions through voting, they also know that they'll have to persuade their fellow congregants if they want their viewpoint to prevail. In most congregationalist churches, somebody is going to have to make the motion. Somebody else is going to have to second it. For decisions that are controversial at all, people are going to have to rise in the midst of the congregation and make a case for or against the policy.

   The result is that, whether shameful racism would have prevailed in the vote or not, individual members of FBC Crystal Springs either would have had to go on the record in support of racism or would have had the opportunity to declare their principled opposition to this proposed travesty. As it stands now, every member of the congregation is under a cloud of suspicion. Am I the only one who watched that video and wondered how many of the people who are publicly decrying the church's action NOW were among the people who were PRIVATELY supporting racism before? People act differently when they have to take public responsibility for their views. Business meetings can provide this kind of accountability, or you can wait for TV cameras to provide it.

   Wilson expresses his own frustration with the unavoidable uncertainty that hangs over this congregation now. He knows that the individuals responsible are extremely unlikely to identify themselves in an open vote: "How're they going to go in and have a head count? Ask the person, 'How are you going to have a head count? How are you going to stand up and say, 'Yes, I voted no."?'" Wilson's right: That's not likely to happen at this point. An honest discussion held among the full congregation would have provided the clarity he desires.

   In Acts 15, facing a strikingly similar question of race and the gospel, the Jerusalem church called a meeting at which full and free discussion took place. In the Jerusalem meeting, as far as we can tell from the biblical account, the opposition to Paul and the gospel, in spite of having caused so much trouble up to that point, didn't even have the courage to dare to speak their wrongful views before the apostles and the congregation.

   The first words of Acts 15 are "some men"—the anonymous "some men" of pseudo-congregationalism. The episode ends with an official letter endorsed by the apostles, the elders, and the congregation. Good congregationalism does that: It dethrones sinister cabals of "some men" and subjects them to the will of the Lord by the authority He has granted to His congregation. Light makes cockroaches scatter. Free collaborative discussion can be a balm to wage medicinal war against the sinful ills of human agenda in Christ's church.

3. Strong Pastoral Leadership: MacDonald's presumption is that congregational church government and strong pastoral leadership are mutually exclusive. Not so. In this case, a commitment to true biblical congregationalism would have empowered this pastor and would have bolstered his courage. Here's his mistake (and we all make them): He said, "I didn't want to have a controversy within the church." If we take Pastor Weatherford at his word, he was trying to avoid a messy conflict between racists and Christians in the church, knowing that each party had "strong feelings" on the subject.

   And let me say it, lest anyone be misled by my little article: Congregationalism is not the way to avoid controversy in the church. If you want to avoid controversy, you will avoid votes on anything but the mildest of questions. You will avoid public discussions unless everyone who speaks is guaranteed to speak on the same side of the issue.

   And yet, internal controversy is precisely what this church desperately needs if it will be healthy at all. Was there ever a better story to illustrate the truth of 1 Corinthians 11:19? "There must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you." Sometimes it is a pastor's job to love holiness more than peace. Clearly this is about pastorally loving the Wilsons enough to take a courageous stand on their behalf. Clearly this is about pastorally loving the innocent member of FBC Crystal Springs whose reputation is unjustly besmirched by this episode. Perhaps less clearly to all observing, it is also about loving the racist members of FBC Crystal Springs, whose primary discipleship need at the moment is that it "become evident among them" that they are not among "those who are approved."

   In a pseudo-congregationalist system, these few members have purloined unto themselves the right and authority to intimidate this pastor without any congregational mandate. Pseudo-congregationalism shuns the formal in favor of the informal, for the informal is so much easier to manipulate. In a true system of biblical congregationalism, a pastor can have the confidence to tell troublemakers to take it to the church or shut their traps.

   That's not to deny that sometimes even the majority of the congregation stands on the side of wrong. But even in those situations, congregationalism can provide the right environment for strong pastoral leadership to take place. A good friend who is a pastor recently resigned his church immediately following a particularly baleful vote in the church's business meeting. An associate pastor of the church was confronted for wantonly carnal behavior. All of the lay leadership of the congregation (their personnel committee, deacons, etc.) supported the ouster of this associate pastor, who really needed to go. But he was able to play upon the sympathies of the congregation and won a close vote that would otherwise have required his termination. My friend knew that he could not lead a church that would make such an endorsement (and neither could I), so he immediately tendered his resignation.

   Some might point to such an episode as a failure of congregationalism. In a sense, it is, since the action of the church departed from the will of Christ, who ought to be her head. Nevertheless, the action of the church formed the setting for one of the strongest actions of pastoral leadership that my friend has ever taken, in my opinion. My pastor-friend taught the members of that congregation—especially the ones who had barely lost their attempt to do the right thing—the importance of taking principled stands, even at risk to one's own livelihood, for the sake of the gospel and the church. My friend wasn't afraid of controversy; he was willing to stand up in the storm and do the right thing. It is in controversy that pastoral leadership is proven and put on display—or revealed to be lacking.

   In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul exercised his strong apostolic leadership to tell the church precisely what to do. He did not, however, presume to do it himself. He would settle for nothing other than the action of the congregation to discipline its wayward member. It is, after all, supposed to be pastoral LEADership, not merely pastoral DOership. In healthy congregationalism, congregational decision-making is a benchmark of discipleship. The pastor must lead the disciples so well that they see for themselves the wisdom of following Christ at each step of the church's mission and they take positive action to embrace those steps and take ownership of them as the disciples they are called to be.

4. Corporate Prayer: By "corporate prayer" I do not mean to signify, necessarily, the moments when a congregation gathers in the same room and somebody voices a prayer for them. Rather, I'm talking about those times when an entire congregation is praying, even if they are doing so individually in their prayer closets, with a united focus on the same question or matter of prayer. Pseudo-congregationalism makes rush decisions in the middle of the night to placate "some people" and avoid controversy. In contrast, true biblical congregationalism sets aside time for corporate prayer before addressing important or controversial decisions. At FBC Farmersville, we publish the agenda of our business meetings in advance for this very reason. Although a member may introduce any item of business in our business meetings, if it has not been placed on the agenda in advance (and any member can place anything on the agenda in advance), then our constitution prevents us from voting on it at that meeting, since we have not had time to pray about it.

   I don't doubt that Pastor Weatherford prayed about what to do in response to these graceless critics, whoever they were. I suspect that he prayed long into the night. But this is the key weakness of episcopal or presbyterial (or, worse, in this case, oligarchical) church polity: Even good, godly pastors sometimes can't pray enough when they're all alone in praying. We pray better for God's guidance when we all pray for it together than when the congregation is kept uninformed and denied the opportunity to seek the Lord for guidance.

   In the New Testament, the church was nimble to pray in moments of crisis. In Acts 12 the congregation convened on the very night that Herod was planning to bring Simon Peter forward to do him harm. God answered their prayers and miraculously freed Peter from the jail. When, after we kept what would have been our first adopted child for twenty-four hours, the birth-mother changed her mind and took him back from us, FBC Farmersville assembled for prayer on our behalf within a few hours. Even in times of crisis, when decisions must be made quickly or when circumstances are thrust upon us, we are better off when we all pray together before we act or react.

5. Submission to the Lordship of Christ: The goal of any worthy system of church polity is to have the church find and obey the will of the Lord. At this point it is important to clarify that the problem at FBC Crystal Springs is really only secondarily and tangentially a question of civil rights. Yes, wrong has been done to the Wilsons, but far greater wrong has been done to Jesus Christ. In pseudo-congregationalism, the need of the timid to avoid controversy, the need of the compliant to be liked by all, the need of the aggressive to dominate, the need of the marketer to project the right image, and the need of the financially dependent to safeguard the money supply all take a back seat to the RIGHT of Jesus Christ to be Lord over His church.

   It is here that congregationalism intersects with church discipline. If the membership of the church extends freely to those who are disinterested in the Lordship of Christ (not the same thing as those who just see things differently from me) because they have never submitted to His lordship by receiving the gospel or have demonstrated by their behavior that their carnality is leading them away from obedience to Christ as Lord, then gone is the one mechanism by which biblical congregationalism can work—the action of the Holy Spirit among genuine believers who are listening carefully to Him.

   Unless they repent, the members of FBC Crystal Springs who opposed this wedding on racist grounds need to be disciplined out of the church. So long as they remain in such a spiritual condition, they are not qualified to contribute to the mission of the church, to identify themselves as representatives of the gospel, or to aid the church in seeking the Lord's will. Congregationalism in which such people have ANY say is a recipe for disaster.

There are many victims of pseudo-congregationalism. Innocent members like the Wilsons are victims of it. Many suffering pastors are the victims of it. But among the greatest victims of psedo-congregationalism is true biblical congregationalism. So weakened is the wheat by the spread of this noxious weed that drastic measures are required to revive it. We cannot look too smugly in the direction of Crystal Springs. Pseudo-congregationlism holds sway in many congregations that haven't made this big of a blunder yet. May the tragic unfolding of this sin-drama in Mississippi awaken us all to the need to rise up and defend the Lordship of Christ against all challengers in our churches.