This made me think of something. Your rural church is an exception to this, but there are too many churches in America. We have gone to Independent Baptist churches for about 14 years. There is another church almost exactly like mine 12 minutes away from my church, another one 20 minutes away, one 5 minutes from my house, and who knows how many others. In the city I’m from, I can quickly think of 8 Independent Baptist churches. They have the same doctrine, same polity, same service style, and most the staff went to the same bible college. My point is they could easily consolidate their efforts and do more for Christ.
It would almost be nice to be untethered from the government. It would allow preachers to say, “the Democrat Party is trait out of the pits of Hell!” And it would be true/biblical. They can’t say that now. They can talk about abortion, homosexuality, communism, rebellion against parents and authority, but they can’t name the organization that’s pushing these abominations on the country.
I see your point. Churches are often split by trouble makers. There is one large church in my area that split because they leaders were split over which hymn books to use. It was over something silly like which musical symbol notes would be used. They actually split over something like that. It is what it is.
The churches can unify without being in the same building. There are church affiliated groups that research candidates before elections and state the preferred candidates (the one that agree with them on most moral issues.). There are printed copies available to attendees. It is very clear to those that attend our church where we stand politically.
I’m Independent Baptist also, I thought that most Independent Baptist already don’t claim tax-exempt status for just that reason. I know that Lester Roloff and his ministries didn’t. They also don’t get involved in politics, the Moral Majority was evangelical, not fundamentalist.