Baptists of past generations were famous, not only for the frequency with which they excluded members, but for the variety of offenses that were considered worthy of exclusion. One of those reasons receiving renewed attention is non-attendance.
In this article, I will walk through some highlights from the Minutes of four historic Baptist churches in Washington DC: Second Baptist in Navy Yard, E Street in Chinatown, Metropolitan on Capitol Hill, and Berean Baptist in Northwest (three white, one black). In doing so, I will examine their practices with regard to discipline for non-attendance, before drawing some conclusions on the widespread practice of “dropping.”
ATTENDANCE AS COVENANT OBLIGATION
Baptists disciplined for non-attendance because they believed attendance was part of the covenant obligations of church membership. In fact, the promise to attend church gatherings sat atop nearly every church covenant. Clearly, church membership wasn’t like a newspaper subscription you could pay for and not use; it was a formal commitment to relationships of mutual obligation which, if neglected, resulted in public censure. Consider the covenant of E Street Baptist Church (1842):
It is an indispensable duty to assemble ourselves together on that day, and to worship God in a public manner, by
To continue...read the full-length post originally published on this site.
