Rusk County Baptists, 2020

Number of Baptist Churches in Rusk County, Texas in 2020: 49 or 97?

In researching for my Rusk County Baptist history, I became interested in the religious makeup of the population. I looked at the information from the data collected by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) for 2020. This is reported at the Association of Religious Data Archives site. A comparison of the number of Baptist churches I have located in Rusk County versus the data compiled by ASARB shows how far off our understanding of religious bodies in the United States is or can be. For 2020, ASARB identified 49 Baptist churches in Rusk County. I have identified 97 Baptist churches in Rusk County, that I believe existed in 2020 (even that is tricky, until I have contacted every one of these churches). I do not blame ASARB; they do not have the personnel and financing to do “boots on the ground” research for every county in the United States. They depend on reporting. However, the Rusk County Baptist History Project shows almost twice as many congregations and adherents as the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies found. [Note: I used estimation based on known numbers in order to come up with the number of adherents (church members) in each group for which I did not have statistics.] The ASARB count had 5 Baptist categories. I have added two that were missed. I have also changed National Missionary Baptist Convention (which is one specific convention) to National Baptist Conventions, in order to represent several conventions that have the name “National” in common.

Details and Explanations.

American Baptist Association. Total 16; count off by 6 churches. [Two of these have disbanded since 2020, and there is one new Hispanic church/mission, which I do not know whether it existed in 2020.] I estimated the total membership based on the average membership of the churches that were counted.

Baptist Missionary Association of America. Total 4; count off by 1 church, and no member statistics were given. I obtained my church member statistics from the 2017 BMAA Directory & Handbook, the closest date that I had to 2020.

Independent unaffiliated Baptists. Not counted. I identified 7 unaffiliated Baptist churches in Rusk County. One has disbanded (not sure whether that occurred before or after 2020). One of these may be in the BBFI (it used to be). I estimated the total membership based on the average membership of the similar churches (ABA, BMAA) in the county, but the total is probably high. I suspect that some of these churches tend to remove non-attending and non-resident members more so than the ABA & BMAA churches.

Primitive Baptists. Not counted. Even I did not know this church still existed until I started the Rusk County Baptist History Project. I thought they had disbanded, but the church simplyy changed meeting locations. I estimated the total membership based on the attendance.

National Association of Free Will Baptists. I used and repeated the ASARB count, but wonder if the Mt. Olive Church at Compton had already closed by 2020.

National Baptist Conventions. Total 36; count off by 31 churches. The African-American Baptist churches were severely undercounted. I lumped all these in one category since ASARB had only one category, but some of these churches probably participate in different National or General bodies than others. I estimated the total membership based on the average membership of the churches that were counted.

Southern Baptist Convention. Total 29; count off by 2 churches. Southern Baptists usually collect statistics diligently and accurately (as best we Baptists can). The count difference between mine and theirs might occur for any number of reasons. For example, two Kilgore churches are just barely in Rusk County and participate in the Gregg Baptist Association. They might have gotten counted with Gregg County (it takes a bit of carefulness to determine which county these two churches are in). One SBC church in Henderson merged with another church. I estimated the total membership based on the average membership of the churches that were counted.

According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the total population of Rusk County, Texas was 52,514 in 2020. If my estimation is reasonably accurate (which I think it generally will be) and if my math is correct (which it often is not), Baptists make up about 38% of the population of Rusk County.

Note: This is a preliminary finding, which I may need to adjust as I move this work forward.

Book review of Smyrna history

A History of Smyrna Baptist Church, 1873 – 2008. By James W. Griffith and Robert Lee Vaughn. Mt. Enterprise, Texas: Waymark Publications, 2009. 115 pp. 

In the words of that old song “brighten the corner where you are,” the church at Smyrna has been fulfilling its mission in south Rusk County, Texas for well over a century. First, the authors show proper deference to the congregation’s Georgia roots, home of half of the charter members coming from the Powell Creek church dating from 1786. Organized in 1873 at Chinquapin Spring, Smyrna’s initial action was to launch into a protracted revival meeting for several days, which added more new members. A spirit of local cooperation ensued from the start with fifth Sunday meetings and association and district meetings. Smyrna even invited visiting brethren to monthly business meetings. 

For its first fifty years, frequent mention is made of church discipline for sins great and small. Nevertheless, these were the days of ALL day church sings, dinner on the grounds, free will offerings of money and food for the needy, and visits from overseas missionaries from as far away as Syria. Since Smyrna evolved slowly into becoming a missionary Baptist church, the authors devote some time to the controversy of the day between the Board Party Faction and the Mission Party Faction. To students of Baptist history, this book opens a small window into how missions were funded and the controversy between R.C. Burleson and B.H. Carroll and those who opposed mission boards. The authors conclude that “unended bitterness” resulted from the early twentieth-century schism between Baptists. In 1892, the church moved a few miles and by 1907 had located in the Oakflat community where it is today. Over time it has often shared its facilities with the Methodists. 

Several customs and policies are worth noting such as the first women on committees about 1910 and one long-serving pastor between 1910 and 1930. Traditionally, pastors were recalled once a year by a church vote. In 1921, John Waller was so beloved that he was called to serve as pastor indefinitely. Other customs included the annual cemetery day, church reunions, third Saturday night church sings (including Sacred Harp music), and writing resolutions of respect for deceased members. In 1918, a resolution of support was offered for all their soldier boys in the Great War. 

In spite of strong emphasis on local control, Smyrna church was a key player in the Mount Zion Baptist Association and a big advocate of the associational missionary concept. Several young men were “liberated” (called) for the ministry in those early days. Shifting demographics saw a decline in church numbers as well as church discipline after World War II. Death and urbanization reduced membership, but these did not diminish the zeal for missions and the gospel. 

The research is good, and the writing flows fairly well. Leaders and church programs are covered equally well, and the appendices contain lists of former members, pastors, clerks, deacons, and current members. There is also a good historical representation through photographs. As the book of Revelation records, “To the Angel at the church in Smyrna write, ‘Keep the faith and pass on your traditions.’”—Reviewed by Don Brown, Adjunct Professor of History, Dallas Baptist University

Texas Baptist History: the Journal of the Texas Baptist Historical Society, Volume XXXII, 2012, pp. 87-89

Church naming conventions

When looking at our Rusk County history through the lens of Baptist history, one interesting feature is the church names – that is, the names by which one local Baptist congregation identifies itself as distinct from other local Baptist congregations. By far the most common are names based on Bible places and names based on the location of the church building (by town, street, etc.). Some names may incorporate more than one feature. For now I have categorized the church names into 9 divisions.

1. Auxiliary names.

Names that are auxiliary, that is they help distinguish with a simple identification often in reference to chronology, such as being the “first” church, “new” church, or “original” church.

First, Second, Greater, New, Old, Original. 

2. Bible names.

These names can be found in the Bible one way or another – most often from a place mentioned in the Bible. 

(Bible places) Antioch, Bethel, Calvary, Corinth, Ebenezer, Emmanuel, Enon, Macedonia, Mount Hebron, Mount Zion, Sardis, Smyrna, Zion; (Bible concepts) Grace, Middle Cross, Providence, Trinity; (Bible people) St. John, St. Paul.

3. Geographical feature names.

Features such as creeks, flats, hills, and valleys. There are quite a few “mount” names, but generally they are from Bible names (and may or may not relate to a “mountainous” land feature). Sometimes the geographical features become location/place names.

Beech Creek, Cool Springs, Gum Springs, Hickory Flat, Hickory Grove, Pine Grove, Valley Grove; (geographical feature + Bible name) Zion Hill.

4. Location or place names.

Just as described, the name is based on the where the church meets.

(communities and towns) Arlam, Glenfawn, London, Millville, Minden, New Salem, Stewart, Turnertown; (streets and roads) Longview Drive, Tyler Road, West Main; (neighborhoods) Highland Park, Shawnee Village (general direction/location) Eastside, Southside, Midway, County Line.

5. Personal/family names.

These are names that is based on the name of a person or family. There seem to have been only a few of these. St. Clark in Henderson may be one of these, but I do not yet know the origin of their church name.

Jameson Memorial (former name of First Free Will Baptist, named in honor of E. S. Jameson), Isabel Chapel (variant spelling of the Isbell family name), Mount Homer (former name of Henderson Primitive Baptist), perhaps after Homer Phillips or Homer Pool).

6. “Pleasant” names.

This is a term I am using for names often based on a biblical concept – such as “unity.” Some names combine the “pleasant” concept with another feature, such as geographical: Forest Home, Good Hope, Pleasant Grove, Pleasant Hill, Union Grove, and Union Spring.

Fairview, Fellowship, Friendship, Greater Love, Harmony, Heritage, Liberty, Maple Grove, Open Door, Unity, Victory. 

7. “Chapel” names. 

Chapel is a very common designation for Baptist meeting places in the United Kingdom, but it does not seem to be used as much in the U.S. 

Chapel Hill, Christian Chapel, Crims Chapel, Isabel Chapel, Jacobs Chapel, Owen’s Chapel, Smith Chapel.

8. Miscellaneous/uncategorized names.

(Texas history) Fredonia, Lone Star; (denominational/theological) Bible Baptist, Landmark; (patriotic?) Mount Vernon.

9. Spanish names.

The Spanish church names currently are “auxiliary” (Primera/First), “Bible” (El Cordero de Dios/The Lamb of God; El Camino/The Way) and “pleasant” (Nueva Esperanza/New Hope).

Another aspect of church names is the “sub-denominational” name (a name that tells what kind of Baptist). Many Baptist churches in their church names identify and denominate themselves within a certain type or affiliations of Baptist – Bible Baptist, Free Will Baptist, Missionary Baptist, Primitive Baptist. Southern Baptists usually give a clue on their signage as to their being Southern Baptist (SBC initials, the SBC logo) and churches in the ABA and BMAA sometimes do that as well. The group name “Primitive” was first a designation after an 1830s division of Baptists in the United States, “we are the original or primitive Baptists.” It came to be used as a sub-denominational identifier. Some earlier group identifiers are no longer used in Rusk County, such as Colored, Free, Predestinarian, Separate, and United.

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Note: A sub-denomination is a “subordinate denomination or class,” that is, Baptist being the denominational name of churches holding a common denominator of beliefs, and the sub-denominations being those who diverge from one another because of other distinct doctrinal differences.