Steven B. Cowan “But we’ve never done things that way.” The woman with whom I was speaking was a member of the church I pastored. She was objecting to my proposal that we modify our church polity in light of what I and others took to be the biblical teaching on church government. I replied, “But the question has to do with what the Bible teaches on the matter, doesn’t it?” “But it’s not Baptist.” The church was a Baptist church, and the proposal for changing church government required