James MacDonald has written a very interesting (and certainly controversial) article on church government. Though I agree with his reasons for moving away from Congregational polity (our church recently moved to an elder form of church governance), his tone is stronger than anything I’ve ever used. Here is an excerpt:
When church life is going well, the leaders of a church struggle to get a quorum for decision making. When things are going wrong, every carnal member lines up at a microphone to spew their venom and destroy the work of Christ in the church. I saw it growing up, and I have seen it since in churches that are fighting to survive and do something courageous for their future. Good people being held hostage by bad people, minorities hijacking the majority because a set of ‘by-laws’ get higher regard than the Scriptures. Satan does want to rip church unity to shreds like a devouring lion (1 Peter 5:8). He is accomplishing that again and again through a system of church government which elevates the fleshly and the worldly—often even those who no longer attend—to a status of influence equal to the most spiritually and biblically-minded in any congregation.
Please read the entire post here.
Been there, done that? Yeah, me, too. Could it be that Satan really is at work in the church by using one of the most popular forms of church government among Evangelicals? Based on my own experience and the teaching of Scripture,..just might be.
What do you think? Agree or disagree?
(NOTE: This does not argue against the autonomy of each congregation, only the form of government within each autonomous, local church).
UPDATE: Read the 9Marks response to McDonald here. (Make sure you read the comments, too.)
