I appreciated my conversation with @bobsmietana today as a part of his research for this story. From one angle, it is interesting as a part of the conflict over race in American Evangelicalism. religionnews.com/2021/07/20/dav…
From another angle, the polity issues here highlight issues that more than one church is facing. Most normative-sized churches can manage issues over who may and may not vote just by looking around. The members know who the members are, and non-member voting becomes apparent.
That aspect of congregationalism becomes more difficult as churches scale up in size. Having multiple sites only increases that difficulty.
Also, COVID (as mentioned in the story) challenges some things we have taken for granted as to what constitutes attendance for matters of church discipline.
Mix all of these things together, and you have a case that will likely influence future deliberations of other churches about their polity.
There’s a tradition of taking some votes by “secret ballot” (especially votes about individual people, like calling pastors/elders/overseers). Although this is a tradition, it would be difficult to build a biblical or theological case for it.
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