What Constitutes Sound Polity in the Local Church?

Introduction

Sound polity in the local church is essential for a healthy ministry marked by faithfulness to Christ and His gospel, for polity determines how a church is structured, led, and connected to other churches. From a Presbyterian perspective, sound polity is characterized by covenantal membership, governance by elders and presbyters in graded courts, and binding association with other churches for accountability and mission. This short essay will examine the characteristics of polity and how they are understood by Presbyterians, while engaging the Baptist perspective.

Briefly, Baptists understand sound polity as comprising regenerate membership, congregational and autonomous government, and voluntary association with other churches. Therefore, they have some common ground with Presbyterians. Chiefly, both denominations view the church as Christ’s body; He is the head of the church. Keeping Christ’s headship central, the next paragraph will examine membership as a mark of sound polity.

Membership

One of the characteristics of sound polity is membership. While Baptists view membership as necessitating regeneration (i.e., regenerate membership), Presbyterians understand membership more broadly, emphasizing both covenant inclusion and credible profession for adults.¹ In other words, they agree with the Baptists that adult members must be baptized and regenerated, yet they also include the offspring of believing parents in the covenant community. Thus, for Presbyterians, there are two tiers of membership—baptized members and covenant partners—in which the former participate in the life and worship of the congregation without the capacity to vote congregationally. At the same time, the latter membership category has voting privileges. Including both professing, baptized, and regenerate adults for membership and their offspring is reflective of Peter’s words at Pentecost: “And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself’” (Acts 2:38-39).² In other words, this broader understanding of membership keeps with the covenant continuity between the Old and New Testaments (Gen. 17:7; Isa. 44:3).³

Despite these differences, Baptists and Presbyterians find resounding common ground in who members are joined to. Scripture posits, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:12-13). Not only do these verses demonstrate that members of the church are Christ’s body and united by the Spirit, but they also share that the body is joined to the head and the head is the supreme authority of the church.

Governance

Another distinctive of Baptist polity, and Protestantism as a whole, is the priesthood of all believers, and this ideal presents a compelling argument for congregational governance.⁴ Baptists, and others who practice congregationalism, often root their argument in Jeremiah 31:31–34, positing that since the Spirit has been dispersed upon all and sacrifices have ceased, the people of God no longer require the system of government in the Old Testament, “a tribal-representative structure.”⁵ Presbyterians view the tribal-representative system not as functionally mediatorial in perpetuity but as a type fulfilled in Christ (Matt. 5:17). This means that while mediatorship is fulfilled by Christ alone (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 8:6-13), the principle of representation remains in the form of elders and shepherds, whose role is not mediatorial but ministerial and declarative. Moreover, these elders compose governing bodies of congregations in Presbyterianism called sessions, and through presbyteries and the general assembly of a particular denomination, they provide the means by which churches remain connected, unified, and accountable.

Association

Association with other churches is another characteristic of sound polity. Baptists practice association through voluntary and advisory means, while Presbyterians see communion with other churches as binding, bringing unity and agreement in doctrine and mission. This Presbyterian ideal is rooted by example in the Jerusalem Council, in which the apostles made a doctrinal decision regarding the requirement of circumcision on behalf of many churches (Acts 15). Presbyterians seek to reflect this practice in the form of their denominational governing bodies—presbyteries and general assemblies—where elders from various congregations gather to make decisions on behalf of the universal church. Thus, association is a binding, cooperative effort that reflects the church’s catholicity under the headship of Christ.

Conclusion

In summary, while Baptists define sound polity as regenerate membership, congregational government, and voluntary association, Presbyterians view membership through a covenantal framework, government through representation, and association with other churches as binding. However, as Edmund Clowney wisely posits,

Some forms of government reflect these principles better than others, yet even the best form of church government is an empty shell if these principles do not grip the hearts of those who lead and those who follow. Better by far are imperfect structures in the hands of devoted servants of Christ than the most biblical form of church government practiced in pride or in a loveless and vindictive spirit.⁶

Thus, Christians of all denominations, whether they be Baptist or Presbyterian, must seek to practice sound polity by being devoted to the head of the Church, the Savior Jesus Christ.

Bibliography

Clowney, Edmund P. The Church. Contours of Christian Theology. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995.

Dever, Mark, and Jonathan Leeman, eds. Baptist Foundations: Church Government for an Anti-Institutional Age. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2015.

Footnotes

1. John Hammett, “The Why and Who of Church Membership,” in Baptist Foundations: Church Government for an Anti-Institutional Age, eds. Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2015), 173-177. ↩

2. Unless otherwise specified, all Scripture references are to the English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016). ↩

3. Logan Lancour, “Why I am not a Baptist: Paedobaptism and Baptismal Efficacy,” a paper submitted for HT 3110 Baptist History, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, April 2025. ↩

4. Logan Lancour, “Congregational Polity: Biblical Foundations, Historical Development, and a Presbyterian Critique,” a paper submitted for HT 3110, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, April 2025. ↩

5. Stephen J. Wellum and Kirk Wellum, “The Biblical and Theological Case for Congregationalism,” in Baptist Foundations: Church Government for an Anti-Institutional Age, eds. Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2015), 53. ↩

6. Edmund Clowney, The Church, Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 202. ↩