4 Features of Successful Baptist Associations
Learning to cooperate well from the successes of the past.
Separates in the New World
During the early days of Baptists in North America (1600s and early 1700s), it became vital for local churches to affiliate with some sort of Protestant denomination. The Puritans, the Anglicans, and the Presbyterians had all migrated from Europe and had begun carving out various localities among the American colonies where their particular denominational order would be the majority. All of these groups established ecclesiastical and civil charters for the geographical areas where they were the most numerous.
Most prominent in New England were the descendants of the Puritans, which were called the Standing Church or Congregationalists. In general, Baptists were a tiny minority until during and after the time of the First Great Awakening (1740s, 60s, and 80s). Baptists from England had already migrated to the New World, and these became known as “Old Baptists.” But during and after the Awakening, many church members and pastors of the Standing Church began to separate. These “Separates” were all paedobaptists at first, and their only difference with the Standing Church (though a significant one) was that the Separates believed the Standing Churches had become too lax in their practice of meaningful church membership.
Once these Separates began to form their own churches, the Standing Church was reluctant to grant to them the same exemptions and toleration that they had already been giving to other minority denominations among them (like the Anglicans and the Old Baptists). The Separates were not sufficiently distinct in their beliefs and practices from the Standing Church to demonstrate a civil exemption from taxes that supported (among other things) church buildings and pastors.
Separate Baptists
A new wrinkle occurred when many of the Separates who broke from the Standing Church soon became “Separate-Baptists.” These new Baptists were unlike the old ones in at least a few ways.
First, Separate Baptists were pietistic, proponents and beneficiaries of the First Great Awakening which emphasized a personal conversion experience (even if it lasted days, weeks, or months). They believed in the necessity of a credible profession of faith for those who would be baptized into membership, only baptizing those who already appeared to possess saving faith. And they also practiced church discipline more vigorously, formally and publicly removing unrepentant members.
Second, Separate Baptists were not satisfied with mere toleration from the Standing Church or Congregationalists. The often heavy burden of ecclesiastical taxes and the numerical growth of these “New Light” Baptists made them ache for liberty, not just an exemption. In fact, many of them perceived the exemption from religious taxes to be an undue burden all by itself, since they were required to attain the exemption by meeting various imposed standards.
Third, Separate Baptists were belligerent and ignorant outcasts in the eyes of the Standing Church, whereas the Old Baptists often enjoyed a perception nearer that of peers (though disordered ones, of course) with the leaders of the Standing Church. Old Baptists drew their ministers from the highly educated class, just as the Standing Church did. But Separate Baptists were almost entirely led by uneducated ministers or pastors. The first overtly Baptist college was not created (in old England or New) until the late 1700s, and the pietistic Baptists were more interested in converted and godly men than they were in academically trained men.
Nevertheless, Separate Baptists were hard-pressed to define their denominational boundaries. It was as though they were hammering out their ecclesiology and political theology on an as-needed basis. When a majority of the members of a local Separate church became convinced that believer’s baptism was the only biblical baptism, they often remained open to communing together with the other church members who continued to believe in paedobaptism. Over time, however, all of these Separate Baptist churches either split to form uniquely Baptist churches or excommunicated those members who would not adopt their strictly Baptist view of the ordinance.
This is not to say that the Separate Baptists were actually “new” in the historical development of theology or that they didn’t know what they believed. As a matter of fact, it was the norm for Separate churches (including Separate Baptist churches) to establish any new local church on the basis of a shared confession of faith and a shared (and signed) church membership covenant. So too, when Baptist churches formed cooperative fellowship with other Baptist churches, a fundamental basis of their fellowship was both a confession of faith and a charter which established the polity (i.e., authority and function) of the association.
Four Features of Associating Baptists
In his awe-inspiring work (both for its academic quality and historical content), William McLoughlin listed a number of features that he believes contributed to the success of the association movement among Baptists during the latter decades of the eighteenth century.
McLoughlin wrote,
“The success of the Warren Association (and of the association movement in in general) was due to its courageous and aggressive stand on behalf of separation of church and state, its ability to bring doctrinal harmony on a basically Calvinistic creed and to hold the line against innovations and heresies, its ability to bring peace among the churches and within the churches on broad questions of practice and discipline; its evangelistic zeal and its care for new and pastorless churches; its ability to avoid interfering in congregational autonomy either in matters of internal church discipline or in quarrel between churches, or between churches and pastors; its ability to sustain and improve the morale and the sense of unity and purpose in the midst of continued persecutions and during the faltering fortunes of war peace.”
McLoughlin, William Gerald. New England Dissent, 1630-1833: The Baptists and the Separation of Church and State. Vol. 1. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. 508.
Listing each of these in turn, we see four features for associational success.
One, church-state distinction.
This feature was especially important during the eighteenth century in New England, but it is not unimportant to the ongoing success of Baptist churches and associations. Baptists are an inherently a voluntary people, not willing to be compelled toward church membership or subdued by an ecclesiastical or political structure above the local church. As a broad principle, we might say that associational success among Baptists depends on a high regard for local church autonomy (which is the crux of religious liberty among Baptists).
Two, doctrinal harmony.
In every age, Christians must receive for themselves the faith once for all delivered to the saints, and they must also be diligent to hand it down to those who come after them. On those doctrines which are essential to Christianity, Baptists may join with their Christian brethren from across denominational lines and say a hearty “Amen!” But local churches depend on agreement in more areas than the mere essentials of the faith.
Local churches must decide who to baptize, how to be structured in their polity, and what will be the qualifications for their leaders (i.e., pastors or elders). These are some of the more important non-essential matters that every church will have to guard as vital for their own integrity and perpetuity. Any church that does not have agreement on such matters among its membership has only a matter of time before its inevitable demise.
Because of these non-essential doctrines and practices which are essential for the formation and continuation of a local church, cooperative associations of churches succeed when those uniting churches share in believing and practicing these secondary doctrines. Uniting with any association must be voluntary (at least for Baptists), but so too must any association draw stark lines between those beliefs held by the churches cooperating and those of other Christian organizations or churches. Success for a Baptist association will depend on promoting harmony of shared belief and holding the line against innovation and heresy.
Three, evangelistic zeal and care for weaker churches.
While some may think of evangelistic zeal and doctrinal strictness as opposite ends of a competing spectrum, it is better to understand that these two must always be joined (like two sides of the same coin). Zeal for evangelism is nothing but zeal if there is no distinct “evangel” to be proclaimed. So too, doctrinal strictness must both exclude those who do not share the same convictions and include those who may embrace them over time. Therefore, doctrinal strictness must be joined with evangelistic zeal so that the greater goal of seeing sinners converted and Christians matured will be realized.
Furthermore, the same sensibilities that animate evangelistic zeal will also motivate care for weaker Christians and churches. Too often, larger churches and parachurch ministries promote, celebrate, and finance those ministries that are already strong and prolific. But one of the main purposes of cooperation among churches is to care for those who are weaker. Pastorless churches and smaller churches, new churches and diminishing churches, these all need assistance of various kinds. And successful associations will depend on a demonstration of care and support for the weaker churches among the cooperative group.
Four, unity, morale, and a clear purpose.
If associations are good for anything at all, they ought to be the occasion for local churches to cooperatively unite around a common cause. The Scripture is clear that the local church is God’s evangelistic and disciple-making institution in the world. There is no other institution, person, or group that can ever replace the local church in God’s wise and effective plan to make Himself and His gospel known in the world. But an association can be an extra-biblical institution that structures and expands the kinds of efforts that local churches are putting into practice on the local level. When churches are able to combine their efforts with other churches (for church planting, church revitalization, or missionary efforts), then this can promote incredible success.
But associations must always be subservient to the local churches who cooperate to form them. Associations must always promote genuine unity among the churches, highlighting and encouraging shared convictions, shared goals, and shared methods. And associations must always encourage the kinds of relationships among local churches where weaker churches can be encouraged and helped by stronger ones, where stronger churches can be humbled and corrected by smaller ones, and where all churches can cooperate together for a purpose they all share together.
Conclusion
There is much evidence to show that Baptist associations and conventions are experiencing a re-settling on the American cultural, political, and religious landscape. It seems productive to revisit those features which made cooperative efforts and institutions successful in the past, and especially to focus attention on a historical period of cultural, political, and religions revolution. I commend this effort of re-evaluating and reforming cooperative institutions among Baptists, and I hope to see a rejuvenated future of cooperative Baptist efforts in the years to come.