056. A DEMOCRATIC CHURCH POLITY

A DEMOCRATIC CHURCH POLITY

Fifthly: It is our Baptist advantage that we have a polity analogous to that of our republic, and therefore adapted to win the increasing favor of loyal Americans. What I mean is that we represent in the Church that same principle of equality and freedom which we cherish so greatly in the State. Our church government is democratic or congregational. Since every member of the church is a member of Christ, he has a right to interpret Christ’s will for himself, and to have an equal voice in the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs. It is not wonderful that Baptist church government should agree with republican civil government, for Baptists had much to do with shaping our national Constitution. No man had greater influence in framing our fundamental law, and no man’s word as to the other influences which made that law what it is can be more authoritative than that of Thomas Jefferson. And yet Thomas Jefferson declared that "he considered Baptist church government the only form of pure democracy which then existed in the world," and that he "had concluded, eight or ten years before the American Revolution, that it would be the best plan of government for the American Colonies." Baptists had a large share in securing the adoption of that memorable article in our Constitution which provides that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." And finally, Baptists, more than any other denomination of Christians, by their persistent advocacy brought Congress to propose and the States to accept, just one hundred years ago, that famous first amendment to the Constitution which declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."