The Mill Creek Baptist Church

Side view of 1910 Mill Creek Church as it presently appears from site of 1854 building. The Mill Creek Baptist Church by Lynn C. Dickerson II Much has been written about the Old Regular and Primitive Baptists in Appalachia . Little, however, hasbeen written about the Southern Baptists, a main-line group generally known in Appalachia as Missionary Baptists. The assumption has been that the Regulars and the Primitives represent all Baptists as they were in earlier days, and to some extent that assumption is correct. The Missionary Baptists 16 were much more receptive to new ideas than were the other two groups, much more a part of the prevailing culture of theirday, muchmoreconcerned withprograms than with doctrine, and, therefore, muchmorepronetochange withthe times. What the assumption overlooks is that churches, like people, cannot be stereotyped . Churches are complexinstitutions serving complex constituencies. Each church has a nature of its own, a nature that, on the one hand, is not unlike that of another church, but, on the other hand, is not the same. In order to understand the nature ofa church, it is necessary to study not only what it is today but also what it was in thepast. A study of the history of the Mill Creek Baptist Church in Botetourt County, Virginia, provides some understanding of the complex nature of a Missionary Baptist church and suggests that, despite their differences, Regular, Primitive, and Missionary Baptists share a common heritage. The story of the Baptists in Appalachia begins in Philadelphia. Shortly after William Penn arrived in Pennsylvania, Baptists from England, Wales and Ireland began to organize themselves into churches. In 1707 five churches in Pennsylvania , NewJerseyandDelawareunited to form the Philadelphia Baptist Association . Soon othernewly gatheredchurches joined them. Within fifty years the Philadelphia body included churches from Virginia to Connecticut. These churches were Calvinistic in doctrine, strict in decorum , and united in spirit. In order to distinguish themselves fromthe moreradical Separate Baptists who became very active in the southern colonies after 1755, the Philadelphia-oriented churches took the name "Regular Baptists." In 1769 the Regular Baptist churches in Virginia and North Carolina formed their own organization , the Kehukee Association.1 The Separate Baptists were spawned by the fervor of the Great Awakening which swept through the Congregational churches of New England in the 1740s. Response to the preaching and evangelical theology of George Whitfield was mixed, and many Congregationalists, disappointed with the failure of their churches to restrict membership to the truly regenerate, left the established church to form Separatist congregations.2 Because they found the Baptist view on regeneration and autonomy for local churches to be very close to their own view, Separatists frequently became Baptists, increasing the numberofBaptist churches in Connecticut alone from three in 1740 to thirty-six in 1770. Not content to restrict themselves to New England, these Separatist Baptists soon carriedtheir work into all the colonies, including the South.3 The SeparatistBaptistmovement in Virginia came from Connecticut by way of North Carolina. In 1755 Shubal Stearns, an ordained Separatist Baptist clergyman in Connecticut, moved his family to Sandy Creek in Guilford (now Randolph) County, North Carolina, and, upon his arrival, founded a church.4 His evangelistic preaching first shocked the Sandy Creek residents and then moved them to join his church. Membership quickly increased from sixteen to six hundred and six. Stearns and his followers founded twomorechurchesinthevicinity ofSandy Creek and in 1758 led the three churches to form the Sandy CreekAssociation. By 1760 the association had grown to ten churchesandhadestablishedthefirst Separatist Baptist church inVirginia, theDan Riverchurch in Halifax County.5 Initially the Regular Baptists were very suspicious ofthe Separatists. They looked askance at the enthusiastic preaching and irregular practices which they observed in Steams' churches. Like some of the German Dunkers, the Separatists were prone to practice foot washing and the anointing of the sick. In backwoods fashion, the Separatists frequently preached with a "holy whine" and conducted disorderly meetings. Unlike the Regulars, decorum and doctrine were secondary to regeneration , commitment and growth.6 On one occasion a Regular Baptist minister refused to participate in a Separatist ordination service, for "he believed them 17 to be a disorderly set: suffering women to pray in public, and permitting...