Baptist Polity: As I See It

I wish I would have read this book in Seminary. This books answered allot of questions I had about Baptist Polity. It brought insight and understanding to why we as Baptist function the way we do and the spiritual significance to decision making and denominational structure. Another great book is "more than just a name, preserving our Baptist identity" by Stanton Norman. A must read!

I NEEDED TWO BAPTIST POLITY I ORDER ONE FROM YOU AND ONE FROM ANOTHER THE ONE I ORDERED FROM YOU CAME RIGHT ON TIME THE OTHER CAME ABOUT A WEEK TOO LATE

Synopsis James Sullivan has written the definitive textbook on Southern Baptist polity. By calling upon his fifty years of Southern Baptist Convention service, Sullivan formed a comprehensive survey of how and why Baptists do the things that they do. He began by surveying the forces that forged the mettle of Southern Baptist life, faith, and practice in the years before and after the convention's formation in 1845. He examined the foundational element of Baptist life--the local church--especially as it relates to the lordship of Jesus Christ and the priesthood of the believer. He affirmed that the local church is the center of Baptist life for individual members and is the nexus for all other denominational activities. This fierce independence drew deep roots in the early years of the development of Baptists as a denomination. However, the autonomy of the local church allows room for cooperative effort between churches as they seek to do together what they could not effectively do individually. Thus, Baptist churches cooperate through local associations, as well as state and national conventions, to accomplish the work of missions and evangelism. Sullivan artfully reviewed several myths regarding Baptist polity. He detailed the four building blocks of Baptist polity: tradition, law, sound organizational principles, and theology. He compared and contrasted the Baptist denominational structure vis-à-vis other typical kinds of denominational structures. He concluded, of course, that the Southern Baptist organizational structure is preferred because it is more scriptural and maintains as sacrosanct the autonomy of the local church as it relates to every aspect of denominational life and practice. While Baptist draw their polity and structure from the New Testament church, the system by which Baptists have conducted their business as seen some refinement over they years. In the last half of the book, Sullivan reviewed the inner workings of the Southern Baptist Convention, its agencies, boards, committees, trustee system, and financing. The reader is given a rare glimpse into the skeleton that supports the body of the Southern Baptist denomination. Sullivan demystified the process for conducting convention business. In doing so, he assured his readers that checks and balances are in place to prevent the convention from usurping local autonomy or moving away from the fundamentals of Baptist beliefs. Analysis A few issues are worthy of comment. First, Sullivan served for twenty-two years as the president of the Baptist Sunday School Board. His bias for that agency is clear, especially with regard to the supposed inequities arising from the structure of the Interagency Council. He alleged that these inequities "created an environment which made the present agonies of the Southern Baptist controversy psychologically possible..." (84). However, he does not clarify or warrant his assertion. He seemed to be concerned that the Sunday School Depar