Recent events in the Seventh-day Adventist Church have witnessed cases in which certain local Conferences, administrators, and pastors have indulged in bad behaviour of one sort or another. Some have responded to these misdeeds with what appears to be a recommendation for congregationalism as a better form of church government than the one now practiced by the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. These folks lament how ecclesiastical power in our present Adventist context is subject to abuse, and when this occurs, there is little or no recourse for the congregation so affected.
While those of this mindset may not openly advocate congregationalism in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, one senses a suggestion between the lines that current conditions are presumably so bad that congregationalism should be considered. In light of some of the recent cases of ecclesiastical misconduct, this appears to be a question a significant number are asking.
The question can be answered in two ways: one, a logical approach, considering the history of why we are not a congregational church, and the practical implications if we were to became one. The other approach is to ask, what do the inspired sources say? Because God is a God of order, we find that the inspired sources and logic agree.
Congregationalism
Let’s look for a moment at the history of congregationalism in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. We were formed by people coming out of other denominations—some of which were congregational in nature—because of their opposition to the messages of William Miller regarding the second advent. So a number of our founders brought elements of congregationalism with them.
Yet we saw that strict congregationalism has its downsides. Which is why we set up a hybrid system that tried to embrace the best of all worlds with regard to ecclesiastical organization [1] It would appear that we were trying to reach a balance between a fully hierarchal organization like Roman Catholicism or the Church of England, in which doctrinal orthodoxy is enforced from the top down, while at the same time wanting to avoid the chaos of a fully congregational system as practiced by such as the Baptists.
Observation of the Baptists indicates that a fully congregational model has its downsides, with their history being one of constant splitting [2]. Some in our midst would envy the doctrinal orthodoxy of some of the more hierarchical churches. Years ago I had a discussion with a Jehovah’s Witness friend about our respective churches. He commented how they did not have any problems with heresy creeping into their congregations. Everyone was on the same page. It made Adventism look as chaotic as the Baptists. Yet as we know, the homogony and certainty their congregations enjoy is based on error. This homogeneity is maintained by one of the most hierarchical church structures outside of Rome [3].
To some extent our system, which incorporates many aspects of a Presbyterian structure [4], something we share to a degree with Pentecostal churches [5], can seem a little loose to some people. Yet I believe this “looseness” has been deliberately left there by God, in that true faith consists not in blindly following leaders, even if they are sharing truth, but in studying and inwardly digesting truth for ourselves.
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4).
Other verses allude to the word needing to be inwardly digested to be of value (see Jer. 15:16). In other words, maybe God does not want us to sit back and enjoy the “comforts” of an enforced doctrinal orthodoxy, but rather, wants an orthodoxy that is truly communal and where adherence thereto comes from the believer’s heart.
It is hard to find direct statements from Ellen White on the topic of congregationalism; however, the large volumes she has written on church structure seem to push for a middle road between full ecclesiastical power and full congregationalism [6].
Conclusion
In the South Pacific Division, for example, there have been, in the past, cases of administrative heavy-handedness similar to what is being observed in other settings just now, with various groups of members responding by leaving and forming their own little churches based on congregational lines. None of those churches have survived. It would appear that what was established in our denomination in its pioneering days was of God, and therefore, while perhaps becoming battered around the edges, represents both the way He has led us in the past and how He wishes to lead in the future.
As we have seen in recent events, even the best designed systems can go wrong in this world of sin. However, that doesn’t justify abandoning them for a different model. Recent examples of ecclesiastical authority being misused do not justify consideration of a different template for church government. Just as parents can be abusive in their exercise of God-given authority, so church leaders can do the same. But in neither case does abuse justify the creation or contemplation of a new structure of authority.
REFERENCES
1. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=6C18
2. https://sbcvoices.com/the-long-history-of-baptists-and-division-luke-holmes/
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_structure_of_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses#:~:text=Jehovah's%20Witnesses%20operate%2087%20branch,back%20to%20the%20Governing%20Body.
4. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=6C18
5. https://ag.org/Beliefs/Position-Papers/Leadership-and-Governance-in-the-Local-Church
6. https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2010/02/spirit-driven-leadership
Tony Rigden, a former atheist/deist, came into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1980 as the result of a miraculous conversion and the reading of the book The Great Controversy by Ellen G White. He has since been a regular Sabbath School teacher, very part-time lay preacher, elder and briefly head elder. Formerly an electronics technician and computer programmer, Tony is currently still part-time programming but mostly retired. Former hobbies included diving and private flying. Currently he is a volunteer guard (train conductor) for one of New Zealand's leading vintage railways.