Whatever happened to associating?

Abstract

"In his 1986 study, A question of identity, Brian Haymes observed that ‘it is a disturbing feature of our present Baptist ways that association life is marginal to most congregations’. Over 20 years later, it seems little has changed, since he and two colleagues have recently commented that ‘more attention should by paid by local churches to the associations of which they are members’. This immediately provokes the question of why Baptists find little time or desire to associate with one another. In answer to the question Barrie White claims that ‘across three and half centuries, if Baptists have to choose between the independence of the local church and cooperation in fellowship with an association, they have chosen independence’"