The Being of Churches: A Neo-Congregational Polity

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Author: J. Alexander Rutherford
ISBN: 978-1-989560-73-0 (Paperback); 978-1-989560-74-7 (Hardcover)
Series: Teleioteti Technical Studies
Publisher: Teleioteti
Place: Cambell River, BC Canada
Date Published: October 6, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.60080/eikd5738
Pages: 272
Cover Design: J. Alexander Rutherford

This book is forthcoming, slated to be released in September or October 2023

To Request a review copy, please email us at admin@teleioteti.ca.

What is a church? Are denominations churches? Who has the authority to ordain ministers of the Gospel? How do we determine what a church gathering should look like? These are questions of “polity”,” or the principles and foundations for the organisation and conduct of a church. Nearly 400 years ago, Christians in New England produced a clear articulation of polity based on the Bible, called The Cambridge Platform of Discipline. This document offers much insight into the way God would have churches act. In this book, the author engages with the Bible in the tradition of the Cambridge Platform to offer a new congregational polity, an account of the being and conduct of churches that retrieves the best insights of the Cambridge Platform while attempting to improve upon it in light of the later failings of American congregationalism and the 400 years of Christian reflection on the church that has followed that document.

It is the author’s prayer that this book would help churches engage with the Bible as they think about what it means to be a church and would have the tools to do so with faithfulness and clarity.

View the outline of its contents here.

Read on Google Books (Coming soon)

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