Notes on Various and Sundry Baptist Groups

Man’s work is from sun to sun, but the Baptist researcher’s work is never done. I posted the lists of Baptist Groups in the USA and Holiness and Pentecostal Baptists in the USA on Tuesday. I have already found new information, information that I missed. Here are more comments, information, and links.

“Bad” Baptists. Some groups that show up intermittently in Baptist lists are actually “bad” Baptists – not in the sense of Baptist doctrine (well, maybe that too), but in the sense of not being what they claim to be. More particularly, some kind of swindle. Those of us who are actively trying to discover all the Baptist groups in the United States are susceptible to being fooled by groups that are organized for nefarious purposes rather than being legitimate Baptists. Hopefully, with all the information now available on the internet, we are less likely to be fooled or at least have more weapons at our disposal to ferret out the scammers. (Or, if not, maybe someone who was not fooled will report it to those of us who have been.) Here are two, below, of which to be aware.

The Colorado Reform Baptist Church, Inc. and the associated Reform Baptist Theological Seminary made it into the prestigious Encyclopedia of American Religions by J. Gordon Melton, as well as other lists. Our best information now indicates the church and seminary were “non-existent” tax evasion frauds. One web page reveals, “The ‘school’ was never accredited and never had any academic standing. He had it set up as a money-making venture and operated for about a decade, in the 1980s. It had no campus, no faculty, no library, just an address.” Another indicates “that Mr. Conklin [the organizer] ‘is an active participant in a widespread abuse of the revenue laws through the promotion of mail-order ‘churches’ based on findings of fact showing his connection to the Universal Life Church in Denver and various other ‘churches’.”

• Church of World Peace, Inc. v. Commissioner
• Mary Ann Tavery v. United States of America
• Michael L. Morgan v. United States of America
• Reform Baptist Theological Seminary

The Independent Baptist Churches of America is another possible sham church. I cannot assuredly say but the very basic website, beyond its doctrinal statement, mainly asks for membership fees – for a supposed school and, apparently, the church. Baptist churches normally do not charge membership fees. This body seems to have latched on to the name of a defunct Baptist denomination, the Independent Baptist Church of America.

If I remember correctly, I have never included the two above in my lists of Baptist bodies. Over the years, I have been a bit leery of the new General Association of Six-Principle Baptist Churches, Inc. (2.5b in the Baptist outline) – for the above reason, that they adopted the name of a Baptist body to which they were not related (either doctrinally or historically). Nevertheless, I have listed and continue to list this group, since they otherwise seem legitimate.

Extinct Baptists. According to Albert Wardin in The Twelve Tribes of Baptists in the USA: a Historical and Statistical Analysis, the Continental Baptist Churches association (4.2 in the Baptist outline) “ceased as an association in 2003.” Likely, many of the churches are still functioning, but the denominational body is defunct. This is a distinct group from Continental Baptist Missions, which was organized in 1942 as Hiawatha Land Independent Baptist Missions and is still in operation.

No Longer “Baptists”. One group, listed in the Holiness and Pentecostal Baptists in the USA outline, no longer uses “Baptist” in their name. The Evangelical Free Baptist Church (No. 1.4 in the Holiness outline) is now called the Evangelical Free Bible Convention. According to their website, “Evangelical Free Bible Convention was incorporated by the state of Illinois in Du Page County in 1978. The group was formed by churches that withdrew from the Southern Baptist Convention, following a doctrinal dispute in 1952. It presently has 22 churches and about 2600 members in the USA.” Their belief in “the ongoing operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit” may suggest the doctrinal dispute with Southern Baptists. The convention headquarters is currently in Aurora, Illinois.

Left out Baptists. It might be worth mentioning a few bodies that I left out of my list, since some folks may wonder why they are not there.

Organizations like Baptist International Missions, Inc. (BIMI), Baptist Mid-Missions, Lott Carey Baptist Mission Society, and others seem to be independent mission boards, not exactly structured as an association, conference, convention, or fellowship in the way of most of the groups on my list. National Baptist Evangelical Life and Soul Saving Assembly of the U.S.A. also seems to be a missionary organization, with most of the churches affiliated with other National Baptist Conventions. However, some bodies included in my list may not be much different from these organization. With some Baptist organizations, it can be hard to tell just where they fit in the grand scheme of things.

Additionally, I removed Liberty Baptist Fellowship, which was No. 23 in a previous outline. It appeared probably to be only a fellowship of Liberty University alumni. I decided both that it probably did not belong in the list in the first place, and that it might be defunct in the second place. Oddly enough, when regrouping to edit finish this post, I found that they have a website (which I somehow had missed before), and they are still in operation! The operate together as Liberty Church Network, whose website states, “The Liberty Church Network (LCN), formerly known as the Liberty Baptist Fellowship and the Liberty Church Planting Network, was formed in 1981 under the direction of our founder, the late Dr. Jerry Falwell. The purpose of our organization was to train new pastors and plant new churches in the United States. In the first three decades our organization planted 5,000+ US-based churches. This makes LCN one of the largest and oldest church planting networks in the country.” Should they go back on the list?

Man’s work is from sun to sun, but the Baptist researcher’s work is never done!