Baptism and voting...and independency

[Pergamum]

Hello,

I believe in the church polity of independency.

However, at what point should members (who are baptized) be able to vote?

Does it show a great inconsistency in my ecclesiology of independency if my 6-year old son was baptised upon a confession of faith but he is delayed from voting until age 18 in the church?

Are those "whole church with one accord" passages in the New Testament evidences of a congregational vote or merely assent to the decisions of the elders?

 

[Pilgrim]

This is one reason why some oppose the baptism of young children. This is because they see no two tier membership--either a person is a full member or he is not one at all.

With regard to voting, I have heard of churches (that baptize younger children) setting an age for voting, such as 16.

If I'm not mistaken, in the distant past, only men voted as well although I don't know that it was the universal practice. A few churches still do this. Some Lutheran and Reformed groups have only men voting as well. There has always been a question in my mind if women voting constitutes women ruling in some sense. My guess is that this consideration is a big reason why those groups limit congregational decision making to men.

Some churches have total elder rule and never vote on anything at all. I suppose some Reformed Baptist churches do this. I have heard some disagree with the Confession with regard to election of elders by common suffrage. But in my experience it's more common in independent Bible type churches e.g. MacArthur, churches pastored by DTS graduates, etc. But even in some of those cases they do vote on the annual budget.

 

[Pergamum]

Chris,

But don't paedobaptists do the same thing with the Lord's Supper? Get baptized early, and then wait for years to partake of the Lord's Supper.

 

[Pilgrim]

Chris,

But don't paedobaptists do the same thing with the Lord's Supper? Get baptized early, and then wait for years to partake of the Lord's Supper.

That's true. But that practice (non-communicant membership) is frequently attacked in antipaedobaptist polemics as being inconsistent and unwarranted. In the Baptist case under consideration here, you have a communicant member but not a voting member. I think most Baptists would say partaking in the sacraments is more important than voting, regardless of the charge of not being completely consistent. Many would simply argue that some of these matters are not explicitly spelled out in the NT and that there is therefore some leeway.

It's a question that many have, no doubt. You may want to check and see what 9 Marks and some other sites have to say about it. But 9 Marks, having been started by Mark Dever, is likely to argue for waiting until perhaps the mid teens (or at least 12 or so) before baptizing. But there's probably some other material available elsewhere too. The Reformed Baptist group on FB would be a good place to ask the question.

I haven't thought about this particular issue in much detail other than realizing that it is one consideration with regard to waiting (or not) to baptize until later. I think the vast majority (if not all) churches that baptize younger children (i.e. younger than 12 or so) would have a minimum age for voting. Many of them have a minimum age anyway. I've heard several people state that the limit at their church is 16.

I've never been a member of a Baptist church that had baptized children this age so I have never seen it play out firsthand. In earlier years it didn't really concern me so I wasn't aware of the practices of many of the churches that I have been a part of. One of them never voted at all and others voted only rarely.

 

[Pergamum]

Would the problem be solved by restricting voting to heads of families?

What was the practice or earlier baptists?

 

[Pergamum]

Would the problem be solved by restricting voting to heads of families?

What was the practice of earlier baptists?

 

[Pilgrim]

Would the problem be solved by restricting voting to heads of families?

What was the practice of earlier baptists?

I'd be interested to know if there's a good paper or book that addresses this issue in Baptist churches. Some Baptist churches do restrict voting to heads of households, but I'm guessing that's a minority even among "Reformed Baptist" churches. I believe that only men vote in Wisconsin Synod Lutheran (WELS) and Reformed Church in the US (RCUS) congregations as well. I used to go to a sovereign grace baptistic church that decided things with "men's meetings." (On Wed. nights the men and women prayed in separate rooms too. I know they later abandoned the latter and I think they probably abandoned the voting practice too from what I have pieced together after I left.)

As I noted earlier, I think the practice of restricting voting to men was much more common in the past but I don't know if it was universally practiced. (Those favoring deaconnesses point to B.H. Carroll as favoring them. But I read somewhere that he opposed women voting in the congregation as well.) Over the years I've also wondered whether a woman voting on things like calling a pastor, firing a pastor, nominating officers, approving the budget, etc. constitutes ruling in some sense. I think that an argument can be made that it does. If the majority of the congregation is women, as it often is, and hypothetically they were to vote as a bloc, who is in charge? And this is not limited to congregational and Baptist churches. Much of the above would take place in Presbyterian and other denominations as well.

 

[JoannaV]

Isn't the idea that through study of the Scriptures and much prayer a near-unanimous decision is reached, and then the whole church unite behind it? Which of course can in practice play out in all kinds of ways, sometimes undesirable, but we do not base our ecclesiology on a meta-study of how to avoid bad outcomes
In practice you can get congregations where the elders basically make all the decisions and the other members just agree without even thinking about it, and congregations where two factions engage in epic political battles to the death. But we can warn against such things without having to adjust our ecclesiology...

 

[ClayPot]

Chris,

But don't paedobaptists do the same thing with the Lord's Supper? Get baptized early, and then wait for years to partake of the Lord's Supper.

I'm not sure this is a fair criticism. The paedobaptists I have read argue that there are different standards for being baptized and for the Lord's supper. For baptism, the standard is that one of the parents is a believer. But for the Lord's supper, the individual themselves must be a believer according to requirement of self-examination in 1 Cor 11.

 

[JML]

My belief is that each household should have a vote. This view is not against women voting as others are. If the household is a single female or a single mom then they would have a vote. In a married couple with or without children, the head of the household should receive input from his spouse and even children before acting as the head. If he does not seriously consider the opinions of his family then there are some major issues with the man as a husband and father.

 

[Frosty]

My belief is that each household should have a vote. This view is not against women voting as others are. If the household is a single female or a single mom then they would have a vote. In a married couple with or without children, the head of the household should receive input from his spouse and even children before acting as the head. If he does not seriously consider the opinions of his family then there are some major issues with the man as a husband and father.

+1

 

[JoannaV]

Hypothetically, how would this work when the only person attending church from a particular household is a child?

 

[JML]

Hypothetically, how would this work when the only person attending church from a particular household is a child?

I think we could come up with an endless amount of "what if" scenarios that would really be extremely rare occurrences. What if a member develops Alzheimer's but still faithfully attends all church meetings?

At some point the elders would give guidance on the situation at hand.