Regular Baptists (1765 - Unkown) - Religious Group
Religious Family: BaptistReligious Tradition: Evangelical Protestant
Description: Regular Baptists have their roots in the Great Awakening in the 1740s, when new Baptists were divided into Regular Baptists and Separate Baptists. Despite differences between these groups, they spent much of the late 1700s attempting to reunify. In 1765, the first Regular Baptist Church was formed in Virginia and given the name Ketoctin. The Regular Baptists began a move to reconstitute themselves in the middle of the 19th century, and in 1854, the New Salem Association of United Baptists changed their name to the New Salem Association of Regular Baptists. This group rejected the innovations introduced among American Baptists during the nineteenth century. In 1870, they adopted the name Old Regular Baptists.
Official Site: Not available
Interactive Timeline: Baptist Family Interactive Timeline
Connections: Regular Baptists
| Group (Active) | Group (Defunct) | Other |
Maps: Regular Baptists1
Adherence Rate per 1,000 (1990)
Congregations (1990)
Top 4 Regular Baptists States (1990)1 [View all States]
| Rank | State | Congregations | Adherents | Adherence Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Carolina | 34 | 3,961 | 0.60 |
| 2 | Maryland | 2 | 319 | 0.07 |
| 3 | Virginia | 3 | 324 | 0.05 |
| 4 | Pennsylvania | 2 | 118 | 0.01 |
Top 5 Regular Baptists Counties (1990)1 [View all Counties]
| Rank | County | Congregations | Adherents | Adherence Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ashe County, NC | 29 | 3,775 | 169.98 |
| 2 | Alleghany County, NC | 3 | 132 | 13.76 |
| 3 | Grayson County, VA | 2 | 194 | 11.92 |
| 4 | Smyth County, VA | 1 | 130 | 4.02 |
| 5 | Cecil County, MD | 1 | 132 | 1.85 |
Top 4 Regular Baptists Metro Areas (1990)1 [View all Metro Areas]
| Rank | Metro | Congregations | Adherents | Adherence Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | York-Hanover, PA Metro Area | 1 | 82 | 0.24 |
| 2 | Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD Metro Area | 1 | 187 | 0.08 |
| 3 | Winston-Salem, NC Metro Area | 1 | 31 | 0.06 |
| 4 | Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metro Area | 2 | 168 | 0.03 |
Regular Baptists, Trends (1925 - 1937)2
| YEAR | MEMBERS | MINISTERS | CHURCHES |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1925 | 49,184 | 997 | 755 |
| 1936 | 17,186 | 266 | |
| 1937 | 755 | ||
Sources
1 The 2020 data were collected by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) and include data for 372 religious bodies or groups. Of these, the ASARB was able to gather data on congregations and adherents for 217 and on congregations only for 155. [More information on the data sources]
2 All data on clergy, members, and churches are taken from the National Council of Churches’ Historic Archive CD and recent print editions of the Council’s Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches. The CD archives all 68 editions of the Yearbook (formerly called Yearbook of the Churches and Yearbook of American Churches) from 1916 to 2000. Read more information on the Historic Archive CD and the Yearbook.
Membership figures are "inclusive." According to the Yearbook, this includes "those who are full communicant or confirmed members plus other members baptized, non-confirmed or non-communicant." Each denomination has its own criteria for membership.
When a denomination listed on the Historic Archive CD was difficult to identify, particularly in early editions of the Yearbook, the ARDA staff consulted numerous sources, including Melton’s Encyclopedia of American Religions and the Handbook of Denominations in the United States. In some cases, ARDA staff consulted the denomination’s website or contacted its offices by phone. When a denomination could not be positively identified, its data were omitted.
