An overview of Northwest Baptist history

Baptist History and Heritage, Summer-Fall, 2004 by Cecil C. Sims

I make no claims to being a historian. I am probably nearer to "being history" than being a historian, but I have been an active observer of Baptist life in the Northwest for fifty years and know something of the history of Baptists in this area. As a means of introducing readers to the Baptist landscape in the Northwest, I have posed several questions and provided the answers.

First, in the eye of the average northwesterner, who, what, and where are he Baptists? A hundred years ago, every average-sized northwestern city and town had a "First Baptist Church." The Baptists were regarded as one of the mainline Protestant denominations, even though a real Baptist denied being a Protestant. In the larger cities, Baptist pastors were regarded with respect and in some areas looked upon as community leaders.

As time passed and the area was affected by two postwar migrations, those of us who came to the Northwest fifty years ago found a different attitude toward Baptists. On more than one occasion, I found myself having to prove I had common sense, was not a rigid negative legalist, and did not handle snakes or jump pews. Another accusation hurled at some of us because of the pronouncements of some of well-known eastern cousins and some of the guest lecturers at certain seminaries was that we Baptists were "liberals."

A recent sample survey that I conducted gives interesting insights into the general public's attitude toward Baptists today. I phoned ten residents in my city and asked them two questions: (1) Could you tell me the location of a Baptist church? Eight residents replied "no," and two replied "yes," and proceeded to do so. (2) When you happen to see a Baptist church, are your feelings positive, neutral, or negative? Three residents replied "positive," while seven replied "neutral."

From this limited survey and my observations, I have concluded that Northwest Baptists have a long way to go before catching up with their Mississippi cousins, of whom it has been said, "the Baptists and the kudzu are taking over the country." In spite of our low profile and questionable social standing, however, we are in no danger of disappearing.

Even though most Northwest Baptists do not count nickels and noses with the same vigor as Southern Baptists, we can identify 1,300-plus churches and church-type missions, with somewhere between 140,000 and 150,000 members, operating under about a dozen different banners. When asked why so many different kinds of Baptists, I reply, "Why so many different kinds of banks? Why so many different kinds of supermarkets?" Even with 1,300-plus churches, there are towns and villages with no Baptist church.

Another question worth considering is, "Who are Baptists in their own eyes?" The two largest groups of Baptists in this area are the Northwest Conservative Baptist Association (NWCBA) and the Northwest Baptist Convention (NWBC).

The conservative association was born out of doctrinal controversy with the American Baptist Convention in 1948. When the association was organized, it consisted of forty-eight Oregon churches. Today, within the northwestern region, the association has 270 churches, with approximately 57,000 members. These churches stress a strong evangelical commitment, a fundamental theology, and the pre-millennial position in eschatology. This group of churches looks to Western Baptist Seminary as a primary source of leadership development. The seminary currently has 626 students and an annual graduating class of 110. One of its primary support systems is the churches of the NWCBA.

The churches of the NWCBA are currently involved in a self-study and are reexamining their doctrine, polity, philosophy of ministry, and orthopraxy so that they might help churches become mature relational communities. The NWCBA expresses its Great Commission commitment through seventeen various agencies controlled or approved by the national Conservative Baptist Fellowship.

The second large group of Baptists in the region, the NWBC, grew out of an early attempt by Baptist immigrants from the South to relate to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). This attempt was rejected in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

Many of the NWBC churches began as Landmark fellowships prior to the 1940s. Some of these Landmark churches called as pastors men who had been trained in Southern Baptist schools. The presence of Southern Baptist-educated pastors, coupled with the migration of Baptists from the South to work in wartime industries, produced a considerable interest in another effort to relate to the SBC during the late 1940s. The return of R. E. Milam to the Northwest was perhaps the spark that ignited a second vigorous effort to relate to Southern Baptists. In 1948, under Milam's leadership, a new Baptist entity was formed and ultimately was renamed the Northwest Baptist Convention and accepted in 1949 as a cooperating fellowship by the SBC.

The NWBC began with fifteen churches, but today counts over 400 churches and church-type missions with a resident membership of about 54,000. Several factors have contributed to the rapid growth of NWBC churches. In the 1940s, wartime industrial workers and military personnel started a number of churches. In the 1950s, many of the people who had formed these churches returned to the South only to find that the family farm could no longer support them, and they soon returned to the Northwest. By the time of their return, the new NWBC, with the help of the SBC Home Mission Board, was ready to take advantage of the greatest migration to the region since the days of the Oregon Trail. The formation of a strong regional denominational structure assisted in strategy development and church starting. Convention leaders early realized the demands of institutional development, and they chose to shed the convention of departments and agencies that detracted from its primary mission of evangelization and church development.