The Society is planning its first virtual conference in May of 2024. Please watch here for updates!

Theme: New Developments in Protestant Church Polity

Description: Protestant churches around the world face any number of challenges, and this is especially so in the last several decades. Some churches are facing declining numbers and having to establish new structures and fresher expressions of church in order to most effectively reach a secularizing culture. Some churches are dealing with an increase in polarization, and not necessarily on theological issues but social issues which have impacted churches. Some churches are dealing with schisms, and others are dealing with further collaborations and mergers. Some churches are dealing with how civil law interacts with church law. Still other churches are still in the process of recovery from the colonial period and are working to help make their church structures and processes more culturally authentic and conversant. And many churches are facing some combination of these and more.

Against this background, a large number of ecclesiological/church law themes demand new thinking. These include, for example, the specifics of one's tradition in an ecumenical perspective, membership, the position of the offices in the organization, the administration of a congregation, property law issues, forms of congregation, the relationship between local and supra-local, ecclesiastical jurisdiction, as well as the appropriate church order form.

This conference will seek to explore some of these themes and new thinking and new developments that they demand. By exploring these together, church polity scholars and practitioners from different contexts around the world can learn from one another and provide insight into thinking about their own context.

Date: 27-28 May 2024

Time: UTC 13:00-18:00 Please check for your own local time.

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Proposals: 1 March 2024