FWOTW: KingJamesBibleBaptist.org

King James Bible Baptist Church

We often reference the tacit racism that exists in the history of fundamentalism. Nevertheless, it’s worth remembering that there are minorities who do join and even lead in parts of the movement.

The pastor from today’s website “began to feel burdened about the people in the Mississippi Delta because he realized there was not one Independent Fundamental Baptist Church reaching the Black community there.”

Which requires us to ask “why?” What in their history and philosophy makes the IFB so incredibly bad at reaching out to the black community? Perhaps the place to start is by looking at the era and the cultural values that fundamentalists glorify and realizing that there is little space for other peoples and cultures there.

106 thoughts on “FWOTW: KingJamesBibleBaptist.org”

  1. I have been privileged to meet Charles Hamilton. Very impressed with this pastor. In all fairness, unless I heard wrong, several have told me that over the years that Jack Trieber pushed for more integration in IFB churches. Other than word of mouth, I was not personally aware of that, however.

    1. Yep, I went to school with him and he’s really a fantastic and loving person. Very IFB-minded in soulwinning/standards ways, but this guy really loves God and loves people, and sincerely wants to do the right thing.

      That being said, his website is very Fundy, indeed.

      1. I certainly don’t know Charles personally and if your description of him is true them I’m glad for it.

        I sometimes hesitate before I feature individuals who themselves are guilty of nothing but buying into a terrible system. Seeing someone’s face on here often tacitly lumps them in with other much more horrible human beings and that’s certainly not my intention.

        However, in this case, I think the conversation about race in the IFB needs to be had. I’d love to talk it over with Charles and get his take on it.

        1. Darrell, if you emailed or called him, I’m almost sure he would talk with you. I’ve heard him preach a sermon in which he discussed race at length, and he has a real passion to reach the Black community.

        2. Maybe he does. First and foremost with the news that you have to worship the King James Bible in order to get saved.

          You know, zeal doesn’t really count for much. Zeal and sincerity don’t make right something that is wrong. Wanting to reach others is all well and good. But you have to be reachable yourself.

    2. After reading his testimony, he does seem to have a balanced perspective on reality and life. Perhaps being in Prison helps a person focus on what is really important. I actually thought the website was well done too. The only negative I would say is the church name…KJV Baptist? Wow.

  2. King James Bible Baptist. That about says everything wrong with them, doesn’t it.

    My IFB has something of a token ministry to blacks. But the sure don’t integrate! If large numbers of black families started coming, most of the white families would start leaving.

    White middle class people don’t really want to think about prejudice or making sure others have the same rights and privileges and opportunities they have. Somehow those things are limited and if you give rights to others you have to lose your own rights to do it. That’s nonsense , of course, but that is how they think. They want to think that black poverty, unemployment and lack of opportunity are all somehow caused by the black community and they have no responsibility for making things better for *them*.

    And then you get the occasional black person who has bought into the white line, and thinks that adopting a white cultural stance will make a difference. “King James Bible Baptist.” Sure. “Slaves, be obedient to you masters” is a part of that, right?

    1. “White middle class people don’t really want to think about prejudice or making sure others have the same right and privileges and opportunities they have.”


      Would you like some okra with that white liberal guilt?

      1. Greg, how about you get some guilt in your life? Real stuff, not fake. Where you actually care about someone other than your own self and don’t just judge others guilty because of how they were born, the color of their skin, or how much money they have?

        Quit being a waste of carbon.

        I am proud to be a liberal. I recognize the injustices that have been done and hope to find a way to change things.

        1. ….YOU are the one judging people by their color, status etc,….not me….You are a complete FAKE…..and the fact that you can post such a “stereotyped” lying comment about the white middle class, and not ONE person calls you on it demonstrates the foolish “liberalness” of SFL, and that is sickening!

        2. So, Greg, to what do you attribute your superior morality, education, and societal position? To what do you attribute all the police shootings of unarmed black men?

          How many guns do you own? What are they for?

        3. Ahhh. So he probably feels that all police shootings of unarmed black men are justified. Or of unarmed anyone. They kill women and children and infants, too. And never get put in jail for it.

        4. I just love greg’s faux outrage over our calling him out for his real bigotry and hatred disguised as conservative Christian values.

          For the 1300th time greg, liberal is not a slur or insult. Just another boogeyman for you to claim persecution from.

        5. One will never find in the Scriptures any command to preserve the social order.

          The Scriptures instead show God is interested in societal-shaking concepts as justice, mercy, taking care of others, community, fairness. The Rich are not God’s favored few. God holds leaders more accountable than ordinary people. God is against Individualism and the pride of place or position.

          The Gospel is not meant to give a stamp of approval to your lifestyle. The gospel is about radical, transformitive Change. It isn’t about social acceptability, but about loving the unloved, associating with sinners, looking out for their welfare.

          There is nothing Conservative about the Gospel.

          Oh, lots of “Christians” are conservative. All that shows is they don’t understand salvation. And Salvation is not just for after you die, it is a present characteristic, the presence of the Holy Spirit, the activity of the power of God in the life. It is a wild, untamed moving of God in its own acts of creating New Things.

          The Old Rules are gone. The schoolmaster has been left behind. The shackles are broken. Salvation sets in motion a chain reaction. Where there is no change, there is no salvation.

          I am a spiritual Liberal. Old things have passed away. New things are arriving!

        6. “White middle class don’t really want to think about prejudice or making sure others have the same rights and privileges and opportunities they have.” ….rtgmath

          I vote this most “racist” comment on SFL for 2015….

        7. It would do everyone a whole lot of good to live as a minority for a while. When one is always in a position of power and control, there is a lack of comprehension of how it feels to be someone who has no power and little to no control of their own life let alone control over others. If you have always been in a position of privilege Greg, you cannot understand what lack of it feels like and does to a person.

      2. You don’t have to be guilty to recognize that there is such a thing as white privilege, and that it’s inherently unfair.

        That’s all I’ll say about that for now.

      3. Greg, I would be willing to bet you are male, white and middle class, all those privileged things. Oh yes and without empathy. It is really unattractive not to mention a lot of other things. Animaazakonenjige – Go with light.

        1. Google continues to amaze me.
          How else would I learn that “Animaazakonenjige” is a whole sentence in Ojibwe?

        2. Amazing that you can find an Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe) phrase but not a meaning for “bus captain”. Does this mean the IFB aren’t as important to Google as the Anishinaabeg?

        3. Miriam, I’d never tried Googling “bus captain,” but I just did. Google did find the phrase, but not with the “bus ministry” meaning.
          There are listings for band bus captains, school field trip bus captains, “How To Be A Good Bus Captain For A Protest,” and job listings for bus captains in Singapore (similar to a conductor, I gather).

  3. The racism truly exists. When I was at HAC we were not allowed to bring black people on Chicago bus routes. They were referred to as #2’s. Then FBC decided to plant churches within the inner city but they were still not coming to FBC facilities in Hammond they had their own place and time of worship. Also if you were a bus captain and brought too many #2’s than you got removed and demoted from your status as almighty bus captain.

    1. Northwest baptist in Elgin, IL has something similar. They call it the Orange count (number of blacks on the bus). The bus captains have to maintain a certain number of people but they can’t have to high of an orange count or they get removed as bus captain. Ultimately the rules are so restrictive that the bus captains routinely lie in their reports.

      I can say that the west coast fundies seem much less racist. Unlike the Midwest mixed marriages are common in fundy churches and race seems to be a non issue.

      1. Are you sure they’re counting blacks on the bus, or minorities in general? Given the demographics in Elgin and surrounding area, I’d think they would have far more Hispanics on the bus than African Americans.

        1. The Orange count was specifically for blacks. There was a belief that blacks were easy to get on the bus and they didn’t want bus captains taking the easy route and just filling the bus up

          Sadly my don attended their college. After 2 years he was as racist as it gets short of joining the kkk. Took me two years to convince him that blacks were of equal value as whites. Ultimately it was done research by the creation science museum that did it. Come to find out there is no white or black, just different shades of people color, kind of like different shades of red. Sadley he still thinking women shouldn’t vote-working on that one.

        2. “Ultimately it was done research by the creation science museum that did it.”

          Come again? The Creation Science Museum convinced him that people of all races are of equal value?
          How so?

        3. Huh. Maybe your son was one of the many from Providence that’s been on our doorstep countless times over the years. For some reason, they’ve targeted our neighborhood and we get visits from students all them time.

          We moved to the area in 2010 and were a bit surprised at how long it took to find a church that felt like we belonged. It seemed like the Willow Creek and Harvest churches dominated (but were too big for our taste) and all the other similarly-believing churches were mini-me’s.

        4. BG, that’s long been Ken Ham’s position. Man came from one origin – Adam – and are therefore one race – the human race.

        5. Huh.
          It just goes to show that even a blind hog finds an acorn in the field now and then (as the East Texas saying goes).


          From my study I have decided the word “race” is a poor choice of verbiage. We just have different amounts of melanin. The census taker a few years back seemed annoyed with me for refusing to give a race. (I put off mailing it in and received a personal visit from the Census Bureau.)

        7. I have often wondered how a person can reject evolution and be a racist. Simple logic demonstrates that you can believe EITHER that God created all mankind from one man and woman, thereby making them equals, OR that we descended from ape-like creatures, allowing for one race to be more advanced than another. You cannot have it both ways.
          Disclaimer: I am not positing my own beliefs here, only that certain positions are illogical. I am also not saying that evolutionists must be racist, only that true creationists cannot be.

        8. @TieceyKaye
          I agree with your logic and think the scripture twisting that some have done in order to justify bigotry and racism is almost blasphemous.

      2. “I can say that the west coast fundies seem much less racist. ”

        West coast Fundies have set up rules to discourage inter-racial dating. Sadly, racism is alive and well in the west coast branch of Fundystan. Perhaps this is also why they did not integrate the bus kids with the members’ kids.

    2. WOW! In the 80’s I was a bus worker at a Hyles worshiping/wanna be church. The pastor was from FBCH and his sister-in-law was a Hyles. There was never any comment on ethnic make-up of the bus routes. We brought in anyone who wanted to ride, and often out of 100+ on the bus, the three workers were the only whites. (Yes, it was a 77 passenger. No one, including the local constabulary, seemed worried about it back then)

      1. The Term”orange count” is particularly outrageous. Is that a reference to the orange jumpsuits they expect the kids to be wearing behind bars one day? And just a different color reference to mask the racism?

        And they really think they can give the gospel to people while they hold on to those kinds of attitudes?

        1. I think it’s “just a different color reference to mask the racism.”
          But it does remind me of the Oompa Loompas in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” In the book, the Oompa Loompas were black pygmies that Willy Wonka had imported from Africa as slave labor for his factory. In order to avoid the obvious racial issues, the makers of the 1971 movie version changed them to people with orange skin and green hair, and skipped the whole work-for-no-wages issue altogether. That was partly a sign of the politics of the times, but also part of a larger decision for the film adaptation to avoid or gloss over all the darker aspects of Roald Dahl’s book. He was making an interesting point about consumer culture vs. labor relations, which is not in the movie at all.
          Ah, now I digress. Anyhow, there is a precedent for this “orange is the new black” color code.

        2. Big Gary — Let’s get a group together somewhere between Atlanta GA and your territory – we could go on tour and recoup the trip money with the trivia competition money we’d earn.

        3. I’m in, but I’ll need some gas money up front.
          Atlanta is about 1200 miles by road from “my territory.”

        4. Big Hoss–let’s meet at Café du Monde in NOLA. It’s somewhat centered, and I could use a plate of beignets and some of the chicory/coffee.

    3. First of all, to refer to a human being created in the image of God as a #2 is sickening.

      Second, when I was a student at HA”C,” we had some wonderful kids, dressed in their Sunday best, who were waiting to be picked up by the church bus one Sunday morning. Apparently someone thought our bus route was getting a little too dusky and the bus captain was ordered not to pick the kids up. I was angry when I was told to take a left turn about a block or two before we reached them, but I complied. And so to both of our deep shame we left those children standing on the corner as we drove away.

      1. What a terrible thing to have happen to a group of young children. Fundies are so worried about appearances for “the cause of Christ”. How much damage did that do to those kids.

      2. Reminds me of something Jesus said:
        Matthew 18:6 (NRSV)

  4. OK, I admire efforts at integration, even if I don’t so much admire the philosophy of the church attempting the integrating; but are there not primarily-black churches all over the South with very similar religious leanings? It’s not like most Southern African-Americans are unchurched heathens. Does this count as sheep stealing?

      1. I’ve noticed that also about black churches. I know some folks in the COEBA [http://www.ourcrossroads.org/coeba] group who are black and have the attitude that only IFB’s have the real Gospel. If you don’t worship in a suit or properly modest dress while reading from the KJV, you aren’t really worshiping.

    1. Race-in-Church is another issue that, if it must exist, I wish would stay within Fundyland’s borders. For a group of people who should understand that every human is a reflection of of God, we Christians segregate ourselves more often than not. I grew up in a town where there were two of most denominations – a black and a white version. Now we have Korean and Spanish versions as well. 9/10 times I talk to someone from any one of the churches – they do not see the ridiculousness of it all. They actually believe the churches are fundamentally too different to intermingle.

  5. Wen seking a churhc I alaways lok four won that has gud spellink and gramer. I fownd it her, an it fills mee with excitment!!
    Oops! Thaat shud be “filleth.” sorry.

  6. “Our Pastor’s heartbeat is to start many Independent, Fundamental, Soul-winning, Baptist Churches throughout the state of Mississippi.”
    His heart may be in the right place, his heartbeat is off though.

  7. I am not understanding this at all. There are Baptist Churches whose congregations happen to be mostly African American all over the place here….in fact one of the larger churches in town happens to be made up of mostly African Americans.

    I suppose they aren’t conforming to the IFB unwritten rules and are therefore suspect.

  8. Leaving aside for the moment the racist history of the IFB churches, it seems unsurprising to me that relatively few people of color are attracted to a movement that is mostly dedicated to elevating a retrograde version of white, Anglo-American cultural values to the level of a religion.

    A more interesting question is, why are there ANY non-Anglo-American people attracted to IFB churches and IFB practices? For minority Americans, is this a means of working their way into a more “mainstream” American identity?
    For parishioners of foreign missions, is it a way of identifying with the apparent success and prosperity of American culture?

  9. IFBs came out of the SBC which was formed specifically in defense of the South’s “peculiar institution”. Blacks with half an education know to stay far away from these types.

    1. SBC -> IFB is the second wave that happened in the 1960’s. The first IFBers were former Northern Baptists. The northern influence has always been stronger. The majority of professors at places like BJU and PCC are Yankees even if they happen to live and work in the South.

    2. Also, Bob Jones was a Methodist. The Hortons of PCC fame were Presbyterian. John R. Rice preached at churches in a variety of denominations, even Pentecostal ones. The first couple generations of IFBers were heavier on the Fundamentalist than they were on the Baptist.

      For a variety of reasons, particularly, “liberalism” in the SBC and school desegregation, Fundamentalists saw an opportunity to recast themselves at being very Baptist. It swelled their numbers and made a couple institutions a lot of money with home school and Christian school publishing.

  10. Around here it’s the latino community where IFB churches lack. I’ve heard it said in the not-too-distant past that these folks were “like Cretans: alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies”…once again taking Scripture out of context in order to justify bigotry. My understanding is that this passage in Titus is calling out false prophets, not the character of the Cretans.

    Does this not reveal a self-righteous air of superiority?


      1. Yes, MiriamD!

        What I find truly amazing is that very few have ever responded to this when I’ve brought it up. You, whatever ethnicity you call yourself, can bring up this verse and apply it to anyone but yourself. In this case, Anglo-Saxon Protestants feel the need to express their superior value in the sight of God. I wonder what would have been expressed 1,800 to 2,000 years ago when Europeans were considered barbarians.


        1. B.R.1, especially strange when you consider that the Bible was written for and by non-white, non-European, mostly pre-Christian people. I remember listening in some awe to a fundy woman hold forth to a poor (financially) black couple about how Christian families should sit down to a roast at least once a week, preferably Sunday noon. It was the mark of a Christian family she said. Predictably that poor family didn’t stick around long.

  11. There are many kind black IFB’s who, in my opinion, have just bought into a wrong system, but have a very genuine heart filled with kindness.

    Having said that, there are some who appear to be “tokens” in the IFB movement that bother me more than their white overlords. If you have ever heard Kenny Baldwin “preach”, it sounds way too much like a bad stereotype of a black preacher, complete with self-deprecating jokes about black people and appears to be there for the amusement of the white folks who want to include someone on their conference line up, so as to say, “Look, we are integrated.”

    Then you have folks like deathuntolife.org, who at least to me, appear to be possibly be moochers of mission dollars to evangelize the neighbors to which the white people want to throw a few bucks. It always bothered me to have a missions conference centered on missions to black communities instead of just sharing the gospel with your black or white friend that you know. No, instead, I’ll throw a few bucks towards this ministry so they can pretend to be responsible for that task on my behalf. And then their missions board director gets to be a token conference speaker for a living instead of getting a real job.

    1. Back in the early 90’s BJ III had a black man fill the pulpit during chapel to talk about how guys like BJU Jr. and III sacrificed to help poor black folk like him to read and write the scripture.

      Does anyone remember this man?

      He was kind, humble and gentlemanly. I couldn’t help at the time but think of him as the “token” black man in BJU circles designed to shed the racist reputation plaguing the University at the time.


      1. Ok, I am breaking my rule to respond, yes, I remember this man, but not by name, sadly. I heard him speak at a BJU fundraising dinner after I had dropped out of BJU (go figure why I went to a BJU fundraiser then, but I wanted to hear this man’s message). He had a great story of how he learned to read, but I don’t recall that it really had anything to do with BJU helping him. I recall that he was trying to help BJU. A friend of mine brought his father-in-law who afterward admitted that he couldn’t read. This gentleman plead with the FIL to try to get some tutoring but the FIL said no, he was doing ok. It was sad, but the FIL has made a decent living anyway.

      2. I remember hearing tapes of the man, but cannot remember his name. I think he may have spoken there when one of my younger brothers was at BJ, and my mom had the tapes. As best as I can recall, he was a good speaker, but it has been a long time since I heard him.

        1. My favorite such story is that of George Dawson, who first went to school when he was 98 (yes, 98) years old, and soon learned to read and write.

          He and I lived in Dallas at the same time, but unfortunately, I never met him.


          His autobiography (co-written with Richard Glaubman), published when Mr. Dawson was 102, is well worth reading.


  12. Dear SFL Reader:

    Many decades ago, I drove through the Mississippi Delta and recall feeling burdened because I observed that the [by all appearances] civil-war era shacks in which everyone lived meant that they didn’t have two coppers to rub together…

    Christian Socialist

  13. What is a bus captain? I googled the term, and got only the vaguest notion that in activist groups, that is the person who takes attendance on a bus and makes sure everyone gets back to it before leaving the destination.

    1. In Fundystan, there is a procedure used to increase numbers and prestige. That procedure is known as a bus ministry. Men are assigned a bus on which they go out into the highways and hedges and compel the unsuspecting parents/guardians to send their little darlings to church on the bus. These men are known as bus captains. They lure the innocent with contests and foolishness so they can have the biggest bus route; as we all know, size matters. It’s a huge thing at religious organizations such as 1st Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana. Incidentally, that organization gave rise to Jack Schaap, a man currently living at Club Fed for transporting a minor across state lines for the purposes of sex.

    2. Many fundy churches have a bus ministry where they send out a number of busses to different areas of the community on Sunday morning to pick people up (mostly children) and bring them to church. The program is run by the bus director but each bus had a “captain”. The captain oversees the particular bus, goes door knocking on Saturday to make sure the kids are coming me generate new riders, and makes sure the kids get home safely. He also makes sure the bus is clean and fuels it before it goes out Sunday morning. He can put together promotions for his route to get kids to ride and encourage them to bring friends.

      At a lot of fundy churches it’s considered an honor and a priveledge to be a bus captain. The amount of time and money they put into it is staggering and they have ALWAYS proven their loyalty to the church and the MOG.

  14. I once attended a fundamentalist church that was 1% African American. For the Sunday before Election Day, they would always host an African American minister who hated Obama.

    Seems like a lot of trouble to garner 2 votes?

  15. OK, not exactly IFB but I was raised in Mass in a town of about 29000 people. It was a IFP church! Yes, an Independant Fundamentalist Pentecoastal church! It had most of the crazy things that folks here remember. AS a youngster I was embarresed and a little ashamed. When my schoolmates discovered this I got called a “Holy Roller” But, threason I am writting this is that out of 25 or30 white folks we had around 7 or 8 black folks. Our church was at the edge of town where their were mostly Italian Catholics and just beyond that there is where the blacks lived. Never had a black preacher, didn’t need one! Thye blacks loved to hollor and never were so did the white folks! I went to Sunday School there and tried to leave before chuirch started. The holloring friengtend me. We started with the Lords Prayer and one black would shout “The Glory” when we got to that part! That was over 78 years ago. I still understand what all you former IFB people lived through. I giess the main reason for this post is that even in that time no one was upset about the black people there. There were KKK in that town but no one bothered that Little Pentecoatal Church.

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