Old Regular Baptist

Thanks, Bro. Jeff. I ran by that and didn't notice. Those statistics are probably for one association. In 1985 the New Salem association had about that many members, but not quite that many churches. In the 1990 Churches and Church Membership in the United States, by Glenmary and ASARB, 17 Old Regular Baptist associations were counted, with 326 churches and 15,218 members.

 

Bro. Robert

Thanks. Those numbers are more in line with my experience on the matter. I would assume that they do not include statistics for the "Union" Baptist bodies. BTW, do you have any recent numbers for those churches. I have some of them but they are out of date.

 

Bro. Dallas:

I agree with Bro. Vaughn that the association name is "Sovereign Grace", but they are Old Regular Baptist. They may be heavily calvinistic compared to some other ORBs but I'm assuming that that is their title, and they are not a different form of ORB.

Bro Vaughn:

And I would assume that they are called "Sovereign Grace Association of Old Regular Baptist Churches of Jesus Christ" as well.

 

Also, here are the stats on ORBs that I found on adherents.com:

Total churches
326

Total Membership
19257

I don't how accurate it is, though.

 

I suspect that their statistics are toward the low end. I base this on their listings for Primitive Baptists which are under counted. Old Regular Baptists, in my experience, tend to be more elusive than we are.

Jeff

 

On the issue of the Sovereign Grace Old Regular Baptist Association. I have no knowledge of this body, however, the Bethel Association, which last account I had was not in correspondence with any other ORB body, was very nearly identical to Primitive Baptists, and some years ago there were discussions with them about switching over to a Primitive Baptist chain of fellowship. It fell through, however.

 

Bro. Jeff, I'll try to look when I get home, and see what I have on the Union Baptists. I would expect the Old Regulars are undercounted, but, IMO, probably not as undercounted as Primitives, based on the simple fact that there are more Primitive Baptists than Old Regulars. The count for the 17 associations in the study is accurate, because it is based on the records of those associations. The question, though, is just how many other associations and churches there are out there we don't know about.

Bro. David, the numbers on adherents.com is from the same source as I gave above - Churches and Church Membership in the United States 1990. The difference is that the number I gave is from the "baptized members" column and their number is from the "adherents" column. The study creates these two different columns of numbers for the purpose of comparisons between denominations. Membership in denominations that practice infant baptism and those that practice adult baptism only are not of the same type for comparison purposes. Baptists, and especially the "primitivistic" ones, will have a lower number because of people "involved", attending, etc. but not actually members. The "adherents" column trys to bridge that gap by accounting for the children and others who are similarly attending Baptist services but not counted by Baptists, while other groups are counting them as part of their church. This off the cuff non-scholarly explanation may make absolutely no sense. I'll try to look up the way the study explains it and post that later.

I also have a "guess" about the Sovereign Grace Association. I have never seen that name in anything about Old Regular Baptists. That makes me assume that they are a new association (but they could be just an old "undiscovered" body). Assuming they are new, I would guess that they have separated from the other Old Regular Baptists to follow a stronger "Calvinistic" position (based on the usual emphasis of the term Sovereign Grace). Just something to think about, but totally guesswork.

 

How true. I find that elusiveness in the United Baptists, too. Right now, I'm finding out about more associations than I knew existed.

Communication between fellowships is lacking. What I admire about the Primitive Baptist is their tenacious work in keeping their history together. Even the ORB history has been documented better than Uniteds.

I guess that means there's some work to do.

 

Bro Vaughn:

I will try to contact one of the SGAs elders to see what they officially go by.

 

No to belabor this point, but Baptists of various flavors stripes are not the only groups which use or have used words only hymnals. I have examples from Methodist, PResbyterian, Congregational, Episcopal, and several other denominations which have no musical notation what ever. Yeah, I collect hymnals.

 

Here is a little "update" based on information from one of the elders in the SGA. The Sovereign Grace Association of Old Regular Baptists is a fairly recently organized association (didn't get the date), made up of three churches (and one recently organized one) which withdrew from the Northern New Salem Association based on what they felt were modernizing and arminian tendencies in the old association. This included an attempt to make all the churches change their element in the Lord's supper from wine to grape juice. They were "armed off" by the Mountain Liberty Association, so I assume they are in correspondence with them. "Sovereign Grace" is simply the name of the association like Northern New Salem, Mountain Liberty, Bethel, Thornton Union, etc. But it does have an interesting origin not particularly connected with any "Sovereign Grace" movements among other Baptists. The name comes from the second verse of "Every moment brings me nearer", a popular hymn (No. 315) in the E. D. Thomas hymn book.

Soon shall I be gone to glory,
Join the bright, angelic race;
There repeat the pleasing story,
I was saved by sovereign grace;
And forever,
View my loving Saviour's face.

This hymn is not too common in the books I have, but it is also in D. H. Goble's Primitive Baptist Hymn Book and the one compiled by Wilson Thompson. I would figure that Thomas may have drew heavily on Thompson for his hymn book, but that is just a guess.

The elder also said they consider themselves very close to old-line Primitive Baptists and "orthodox" United and Regular Baptists.

Brother David, I'm not trying to pre-empt you; I had e-mailed someone right after I first saw this thread, and just heard back today.

 

Brother Dallas, I don't mind your quoting my posts on FGF forum. I would be interested to know what forum that is. I'm not familiar with the initials.

About the name - I think Vaughan, Vaughn, Vawn, Vaun, and probably even Baughan are probably all of the same origin. I've always heard that the Vaughns and Vaughans were originally the same family. And, though I've heard our name pronounced different ways, I'm not aware of any difference in pronunciation based on the spelling. Here we pronounce it "von", kind of like the German "von Trapp" etc. Some people pronounce it "vawn" as would rhyme with "lawn". I even get called "Bond" sometimes.

Squire, I would wonder if the grape juice view isn't predominantly an American thing spawned from the temperance movement?

 

Squire

Your recollection matches mine on the Welch's issue. Don't know if it is common rumour or truth though.

Jeff

 

I received an email from Elder Slone. He said that I can post what he told me.

Our Association name is Sovereign Grace Association of Old Regular Baptist of JESUS CHRIST.

We are Old Regular Baptist that hold to the original doctrine, faith and order of the Old Regular Baptist.

8/01/1998 an arm from the Mountain Liberty ORB ASSN.

We correspond with both Old Regular and Regular Primitive Associations, we preach with orthodox ministers of like faith( Old School Baptist) some associations we correspond with Sandlick, Bethel, Mountain Liberty, Thorton Union, Mountain Valley, we have an open door on correspondence with in the Old Baptist ranks , if an association or church has like articles of faith and holds to an Old School practice(old United, Regular, Primitive)