I think what you're chiefly arguing for is church policies that provide a procedure by which a congregation can easily secede from its denomination, when the national denomination moves in a direction that the congregation disagrees with.
Where the congregation owns its own building, and the governing entity (which could be a presbytery, classis, regional synod, conference or annual convention) and the governing entity makes a material change to doctrine or liturgy without consent of the congregation, I regard this as a breach of trust between the congregation and governing unit on the part of the latter. Conversely, if the congregation makes a material change to doctrine or liturgy, and violates the statement of faith under which it joined or was created as part of the governing unit, or that it had assented to, this is contumacy on the part of the congregation.
Possibly, you're arguing for congregational polity.
Not at all. Although, that being said, I do believe that congregational and episcopal polity are the two approaches with the most scriptural support, insofar that a mission diocese with just one church is effectively congregationalist, whereas megachurches with multiple campuses really should be reorganized as dioceses with parishes or broken up into separate local churches (I believe some of these are members of the SBC and I would argue that this is a problem for the SBC insofar as these entities contradict the local church ecclesiology that is a traditional Baptist value).
Rather, my view is that in the context of the SBC, the congregational governance and the ability of churches to freely join and leave the conservative SBC, the moderate CBF or the mainline left-wing ABC, means that without criticism, local churches should be free to associate with whichever of these conferences, or indeed other Baptist conferences with more specific doctrines, of which there exists a great variety, particularly in the Southeast, on the basis of whichever Baptist denomination agrees with their worldview. Likewise, the Baptist conferences have recourse to remove congregations which are drifting away.
In the case of an episcopal polity, my view, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in the case of the Diocese of Fort Worth, in which it emerged that the ECUSA’s attempt to retain the real estate was unlawful (in retrospect, its a pity the Diocese of San Joaquin just capitulated on this point rather than litigating), is that each diocesan bishop should have the same authority that he would be granted by the early Church, or most Orthodox Churches, which is to say, very strong authority in his own diocese, no authority outside of it, but accountable to his brother bishops in the Holy Synod or an autonomous regional Synod presided over in either case by an Archbishop, Metropolitan, Catholicos, Pope or Patriarch, but these Archepiscopal presiding bishops should be just that: the ceremonial primus inter pares and president of the Holy Synod, without the authority to celebrate the liturgy or do anything in the diocese of another bishop without their consent.
I particularly like the story of the Coptic Pope who dared to begin celebrating the liturgy in the absence of the local bishop when the latter was unavoidably detained: when the bishop arrived, he smashed by stomping upon it the Pope’s mitre, and the Pope accepted this rebuke as he realized he had grievously transgressed upon the local bishop.
So, from this, we can say that the local parish or diocese has a relationship to the parent denomination that can be violated by either party if one or the other changes doctrine or otherwise engages in heresy, or changes the liturgy without consent in a manner exceeding the prerogatives the parent denomination or diocese allows. In the case of a Congregational polity, the simple solution is for the relationship between local church and denomination to be terminated. In the case of an Episcopal polity, the relationship between the diocese and the Holy Synod is much the same, except that if the bishop is the one who is changing the doctrine, if the bishop is preaching heresy by contradicting Scripture or the faith as set forth in the Ecumenical Councils, he should be deposed, but if the denomination decides to change its doctrine, which the Episcopal Church did, then the bishops who dissent should be free to leave with their dioceses.
When it comes to parishes, my view is basically the same: an heretical priest can be deposed, removed and replaced, but if the congregation is objecting to new or changed doctrine or the imposition of liturgical changes, the experiences we have seen with many avoidable schisms due to imposed liturgical changes* makes me believe that in tnose circumstances, parishes should be allowed to leave the diocese and affiliate with a different jurisdiction, provided the parish owns their own real estate, as opposed to it being a mission church, cathedral church or some other church actually owned by the diocese.**
As far as what is meet and right in the case of presbyterian polity, I am not sure, as I find that polity complex, but I appreciate the Gracious Dismissal approach taken by the PCUSA in allowing parish kirks to leave and join Eco or other denominations (hopefully some joined the PCA), and this seems appropriate given that the PCUSA acknowledged it had made doctrinal changes. On the other hand, the PCA’s intervention in Coral Ridge on behalf of the daughter of Dr. James Kennedy, may his memory be eternal, who, along with supporters of the wonderful classical music program established by Dr. Kennedy were cruelly forced out of the church by Tullian Tchiavidian (if I recall, the local Presbytery reversed his banning them from the property, and Tchiavidian was later forced to resign in disgrace due to adultery - perhaps the moral of this story is to not hire a pastor whose first name is that of a notorious heretic, Tertullian, whose fall from orthodox grace into rigorism and then the Montanist heresy was one of the great personal tragedies in the Ante Nicene Church).
*Prime examples of disastrous schisms deriv with the Episcopal Church in 1979, the Roman Catholic Church in 1969, the Greek Orthodox change to the liturgical calendar in 1919-1921 (which led to the Old Calendarist schism), the Russian Orthodox in the 1660s with the Nikonian reform to the liturgy, and if we go even further back, the schism caused when Nestorius sought to suppress the veneration of Our Glorious Lady Theotokos.
**In these situations, I believe it is ideal that the Bishop be Rector, and the priest be Vicar, whereas otherwise, if the Parish is self-sustaining and owns its own real estate, the principle priest ought to be vicar.
