"The IFB movement itself is built on pride of being the most pure and correct among all other Christians"

seemingly knows nothing of Fundamental Baptists like B. Myron Cedarholm, Monroe Parker, James Singleton, Ed Nelson, Richard Clearwaters, the founders of the GARBC, et al. I assume this as he posits the late Mr. Hyles, FBC Hammond, and HAC as representing the core of Fundamental Baptists. When in fact they only represent a slice and not even a majority slice of the movement. For example, Hamilton Square Baptist Church was founded as a non convention church forty five years before the birth of Mr. Hyles.

What would have men do in the period 192x-194x, stay in the apostate Northern Baptist Convention? There was a cause and it wasn’t men’s egos.

Parse it out and there is nothing wrong with any one point:

1. “Independent” … well most non-denominational Baptist and Bible churches are independent. I would for example include GARBC churches
2. “Baptist” … a great tradition (sadly corrupted by the Westboro Baptists and others)
3. “Fundamentalist”: The term has morphed to be more than the original Fundamentals

So

• Yes the author correctly calls Hammond “IFB” but
• There are many others (probably the vast majority of others) that are not man-centered.

What would have men do in the period 192x-194x, stay in the apostate Northern Baptist Convention?

What would the author have men do in the period 192x-194x, stay in the apostate Northern Baptist Convention?

Hi Rob,

I am more familiar with the Hyles wing of fundamentalism than the Cederholm, Parker, Clearwaters, etc…wing.

If I broad brushed, it’s because the majority of churches that call themselves IFB are of the Hyles’/Sword/PCC crowd that holds to all kinds of error. They have the great majority of churches. Just a phone book search in any given town under the IFB heading will prove that. There’s no way that the very few IFB churches that are faithful like Hamilton Square San Francisco and Mt. Calvary Baptist Greenville are the majority. They are wonderful churches…I know the pastors at Hamilton Square personally and love them. But they are more of an exception than the rule.

Regretfully, by doing so you ignore the segment represented by (using schools as a sort of short hand) Maranatha, Northland, Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Calvary Baptist Theological (Lansdale, PA), International Baptist College and Graduate School, and others. Then, you write off a lot of the FBFI and the GARBC. As for the pastors of HSBC, Arno Wenigar, Sr. was the pastor when I first joined back in 1973.

I’ve never claimed we were a majority. I’ve only tried to point out we’re a large enough segment that we should not be rolled in with the Texas crowd. (I say Texas crowd as that’s where John R. Rice and Jack Hyles are from).

I see from your blog profile you’re located in Fremont. Good night, since when did the Hyles crowd get so strong in the Bay Area? I know they’re out here. (I live a block from one.) But most of the IFB churches I know of fellowship with the FBFI (thanks to the old San Francisco BTS). Though, I know the GARBC has more than a few churches in the area. Those two groupings are hardly fertile soil for the folks you’re rightly concerned about.

FYI, the largest Independent Fundamental Baptist I know of in NorCal (besides Jack Trieber’s work) runs 400 on Sundays (am and pm). It is Independent Baptist Church on the north side of Sacramento. You’ll need a translator as it is a Russian language church.

[WilliamD]

Hi Rob,

I am more familiar with the Hyles wing of fundamentalism than the Cederholm, Parker, Clearwaters, etc…wing.

If I broad brushed, it’s because the majority of churches that call themselves IFB are of the Hyles’/Sword/PCC crowd that holds to all kinds of error. They have the great majority of churches. Just a phone book search in any given town under the IFB heading will prove that. There’s no way that the very few IFB churches that are faithful like Hamilton Square San Francisco and Mt. Calvary Baptist Greenville are the majority. They are wonderful churches…I know the pastors at Hamilton Square personally and love them. But they are more of an exception than the rule.

Well, even though those IFB’s are much better than the Hyles/Sword/PCC IFB’s, the 20/20 article involved alot of people from those camps as well.

The main point is, most of these IFB’s are a “good ole boys” club of self affirming leaders who are accountable to almost nobody and have a network of friends to cover for them.

As for the Bay Area or NorCal…it’s a stronghold for IFBism of the extreme type. I could list many churches that run more than 200 and most are not GARB or FBFI…those are usually pretty small

I live on the Northern Peninsula. I am familiar with churches down to Hwy 92. That’s a fair sized portion of land and population. And I’m just not seeing what you’re seeing. On the other hand, I’m a Northern San Francisco Peninsula kind of guy. I almost need a passport and two visas to shop at the Ikeas in Emeryville or East Palo Alto.

There was a time where it seemed that there was a Sword of the Lord church on every block. They are now few and far between, at least around here, and I’ve heard many warnings about the Hyles crowd from IFB pulpits in the past few years.

And if Hyles and company were ever truly faithful Fundamentalists, I’m Paris Hilton. Just because someone adopts a name/label in order to gain respect and influence doesn’t make them part of that crowd. I can go around claiming that I’m a supermodel, but I just don’t fit the description! Sadly, there are too many folks in churches today without enough spiritual knowledge and discernment to know the difference between a shepherd and a charlatan.

I agree we need to be careful not to broadbrush. It is hard because the IFB movement is a many-headed phenomenon, for sure. But it still is a movement, more or less.

I’m with Will on the majority, however. All the schools mentioned on the “mainstream” non-hyper side of the fence are quite small in comparison to the schools on the other side of the fence. Schools such as Hyles Anderson, PCC, Oklahoma Baptist College, West Coast Baptist, Crown College. The list goes on and on, and when you add up all the students in those schools - it seems that the majority does lie with the not-so-sound wing of the fundamentalist movement.

Furthermore, many of the IFB churches that are sound are beocming more open to being independent of the fundamentalist name and label. To use Tetreau’s taxonomy, the Type B’s are more and more likely to become Type Cs. The youth of the Type B churches are leaving and becoming Type Cs. There is less and less of a difference between reasonable sound fundamentalist Baptist churches that use the NASB and have tamed-down contemporary-ish music and the churches in the John MacArthur and John Piper camp. So it seems the solid wing of the IFB movement is becoming smaller, and the Jack Hyles-like wing (the KJV only, old-fashioned variety of IFB) is on the up-tick — although not as much as in years past.

Those are my own thoughts. It would be very interesting to see any kind of scientific numbers on all of this - some kind of poll or comparison. As it is, we need to be careful not to over-generalize.

Hi Rob,

There are alot more Sword/Hyles type churches in NorCal than you might think…here’s a sample of the larger ones:

Of course you already named the grand pu-bah of fundy churches in Norcal: Santa Clara - North Valley Baptist

San Jose - Liberty Baptist

Morgan Hill - Shadow Mountain Baptist

Redwood City - Redwood Baptist

Newark - Bay Area Baptist

San Leandro - Heritage Baptist

Pleasanton - Lighthouse Baptist

Outside the Bay Area:

Manteca - Central Valley Baptist

Tracy - Pleasant Valley Baptist

Modesto - Mt. View Baptist

Stockton - Stockton Baptist

Fairfield - Calvary Baptist

Woodland Hills - West Valley Baptist

Chico - Pleasant Valley Baptist

Napa - Hopewell Baptist

Roseville - New Hope Baptist

Vacaville - Fellowship Baptist

There are a bunch more that are relatively small…these would have between 150-200+ as far as I can tell.

As for churches that are 400 as you first mentioned would be a lot less. Yet, all the GARB and FBFI churches in Nor Cal would probably be equal in attendance to two or three of the above churches combined. The ones I know of well in the East Bay are pretty small (including ours) or dying.

I’m so provincial.

HSBC is over 131 years old. How many of the churches you cited will exist past their 50th anniversary?

[Rob Fall]

I’m so provincial.

I don’t know the GARBC in California, but I do know the GARBC in the Midwest (Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio), which is where the majority of GARBC churches are located. I believe there are almost 1,300 churches within the GARBC altogether. Their are a few churches that are large within the GARBC (Blythefield Baptist Church of Rockford MI comes to mind with almost 3,000 people), but some of the really large churches within the GARBC left the GARBC as they transitioned from type B fundy to Type C., especially in Indiana (College Park Church of Indy, Bethel Church-Crown Point, Blackhawk Baptist-Ft. Wayne).

Not many that’s for sure. God bless HSBC!

Our church over here in Fremont is 57 years old, but almost died in the past 10 years. Since I’ve been the pastor, I took it from type A to type C (to use that analogy).

It also means I take what to others is a very long term view of the state of affairs. How many of theses churches will be around in 2025 in their present form if at all?

[WilliamD]

Not many that’s for sure. God bless HSBC!

Our church over here in Fremont is 57 years old, but almost died in the past 10 years. Since I’ve been the pastor, I took it from type A to type C (to use that analogy).