Who Runs the Church?

4 Views on Church Government

By: Paul E. Engle, Zondervan, Steven B. Cowan - editor

Narrated by: Jonathan Petersen, Jonathan Peterson

Churches have split and denominations have formed over the issue of church government. While many Christians can explain their church's form of rule or defend it because of its "tried and true" traditions, few people understand their church's administrative customs from a biblical perspective.

Who Runs the Church? explores questions such as: What model for governing the church does the Bible provide, and is such a model given for practical or spiritual reasons? Is there room for different methods within Christianity? Or is there a right way of "doing church"? And, finally, how (and by whom) should the church be governed?

Four predominant approaches to church government are presented by respected proponents:

• Episcopalianism - represented by Peter Toon
• Presbyterianism - represented by L. Roy Taylor
• Single-Elder Congregationalism - represented by Paige Patterson
• Plural-Elder Congregationalism - represented by Samuel E. Waldron

As in other Counterpoints books, each view is followed by critiques from the other contributors, and its advocate then responds.

Excellent Overview of 4 Views of Church Polity

This book was very informative and entertaining. Listening to the authors react and respond to each other’s perspectives certainly kept my attention. I began to feel bad for Peter Toon as the others decimated his argument in such a definitive way. I was a bit skeptical at first, but this book proved to be a great resource and I would recommend it to anyone looking to learn more about church government. 5 out of 5 stars