History
Click here to view a list of every church that has ever been in Old Bethlehem Lineage.
There have been 4 splits in the Old Bethlehem Lineage since 1872.
Bethlehem Split of 1881-1882
Bethlehem Split of 1907-1908
Bethlehem Split of 1949 and 1960
Old Bethlehem Split of 1988
Our history is divided into two sections: General History and Local History
General History: The first churches to call themselves United Baptist appear to be from the late 1700s and early 1800s after a union of the Regular and Separate Baptists. These churches and various associations were in Virginia, Kentucky, and the Carolinas.
As churches grew and spread across the frontier there were many splits and arms given. one such association was the North District Association.
1: Burning Springs was organized in 1813 off North District Association.
2: Paint Union United Baptist was organized off Burning Springs in 1838.
3: Zion United Baptist was organized off Paint Union in 1848.
4: Bethlehem was organized off Zion in 1871.
5: After several splits, we became Old Bethlehem in 1961. We still consider ourselves to be from 1871 but have many brethren from various splits who share this origin.
There is a list of United Baptist Associations past and present on the National Association of United Baptists of America website available here managed by Elder David White.
Our Local History Expanded:
There is no end to genealogies. The bible speaks about not being too concerned with these Titus 3:9. The more you study history the more you see there is no end to it. Nevertheless, a brief history of our association will be given here.
1: the Burning Springs Association was organized in 1813 off the North District Association. Burning Springs is an area in Clay County Kentucky.
2: 6 churches from the Burning Springs Association formed the Paint Union Association of United Baptist in 1838.
The Comfort United Baptist church was formed in 1846 by Elders Thomas Wooten and Patrick Napier. In March 1848 the Kiah’s creek church was formed as an arm off of Comfort church by elders Goodwin Lycans, Edmond Napier and James Williamson. both churches are in Wayne County, West Virginia and are believed to have been a part of paint union.
James Queen was a long time and early pastor of the Kiah’s Creek church.
3: In November of 1848 6 churches of the Paint Union association met to form a new association called Zion United Baptist. this appears to have been a legal arm off Paint Union based on the minutes. the churches were as follows: Rockcastle, Silver creek, Zion, Salem, Comfort, and Kiah’s creek with a total of 205 members.
4: In 1871 the Zion association agreed to divide so as to form a new association, “the boundry line to run as follows: beginning at the mouth of gnats creek so as to run to the mouth of buffalo on (Rockcastle) thence to blankenship creek thence with said creek to tug river, thence running to guyan river so as to include Fairmount, Kiers [Kiah’s] creek and Guyan churches to the new association”. it is not known the extent of the “Guyan churches”. several members met at Comfort church in October of the same year, presumably to set up the new association.
1872 marks the earliest known minutes and mention of our association under the name “Bethlehem association of United Baptists” and was held at the Mount Olive church, Lawrence County, Kentucky.
Essentially Bethlehem was largely a West Virginia association (West Virginia was formed in 1863) and Zion was largely a Kentucky association. although some overlap did and does still exist, the rough boundary seems to have always been the two associations.
The Bethlehem association’s founding and member churches are not known exactly, as they are only mentioned in the early minutes when something came up concerning them. later a table would be included detailing the churches, their members, moderator and clerk, and organization date, but the earliest minutes do not contain this data.
The Kiah’s Creek school house doubled as the church, although not the original building.
5: The Bethlehem association split somewhere around 1882. Details are murky, but the result was two different associations both calling themselves Bethlehem United Baptist. We will call them Bethlehem A and B. The Comfort, Kiah’s creek, and Mt. olive churches were original and went with side B. The Salem and other churches went with side A. It’s not known with any certainty which side would be considered the “true” side. nor is it relevant at this point, but it seems likely that the “Guyan” churches are largely Bethlehem A and the Zion and Paint Union based churches formed Bethlehem B.
Around 1907 there was a dispute over masonic membership and the Mt. Calvary and Cove Creek churches left and/or were dismissed from Bethlehem B. More confusingly than ever, they formed their own Bethlehem association which we will call Bethlehem C.
Bethlehem C’s beliefs were more in line with another denomination of Baptists called “Old Regular”. The Old Regular Baptists have some differences but are also very similar to the United Baptists. In fact, both of them descend from Burning Springs.
While Paint Union carried on the United Baptist name to a myriad of associations, New Salem, another arm off Burning Springs became Old Regulars, and are in fact the mother association of all Old Regulars.
Bethlehem C decided to drop the United Baptist name entirely, joined with New Salem and in 1924 were given off as a legal arm and changed their name to Kyova Regular Baptist (later Old Regular). The Old Regulars consider Kyova to have been formed off of New Salem, but this not correct. The minutes prior to this show they were called Bethlehem United Baptist, and their origin is at least in large part from Bethlehem B. However it is true that they joined New Salem for the purpose of having a legal lineage through the Old Regulars.
Kyova is a local term still in use standing for Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. These associations are located in a tri-state area. Kyova lasted for several decades but dissolved in the latter part of the 1900s. They have some remnants surviving.
Cove Creek merged with Mt. Calvary sometime towards the end of 1900s. Mt. Calvary still exists on its own as of 2023 but has very low membership.
Burning Springs still exists. They switched names multiple times over the centuries but today call themselves Regular Primitive Baptists and had 9 churches and 241 members as of 2018.
Bethlehem B, including the Brush Creek, Mt. Olive, Mt. Sinai, Comfort, and Kiah’s Creek churches, which were all original or pivotal members of the association, continued for several decades. There were multiple other churches formed and/or that joined the association at this time. The association peaked in the mid 20th century with around 20 churches.
Left to Right: Nolan Queen, Dallas Frasher, Jesse Nelson, Arthur Queen, Johnson Queen. These were prominent ministers in our churches for many years.
There was a brief split in the 1940-50s. the two sides reconciled but split again in 1961 on the same party lines and issues. one side continued calling themselves bethlehem (bethlehem d: they later split into more bethlehems). thankfully for everybdoy’s sanity the other side finally changed their name, calling themselves old bethlehem, a small change but one that makes it much easier to discuss.
old bethlehem’s churches were comfort, kiah’s creek, mt. olive, mt. sinai., brush creek, salem, philadelphia, and echo. you will notice these are close to our modern roster.
the split was officially over differences in baptism’s role in salvation. many older brothers who have since passed on but that were young at the time have mentioned internal arguing and power struggles as being responsible.
in 1988 old bethlehem had a change in its rules and the Comfort, kiah’s creek, mt. olive, mt. sinai, and prichard (arm off echo) churches withdrew from the association in response. they formed their own association called calvary.
in 1996 the calvary association split again and the mt. sinai, mt. olive, prichard, and elmwood churches formed the mt. sion association of regular united baptists. the elmwood church was an arm off beech grove and was in another bethlehem that had split off of bethlehem d.
there was no legitimate reason for this split. it was just arguing over nothing according to many that were there at the time.
while not the only founding churches, comfort and kiah’s creek were pivotal churches in both zion and bethelehm association. these churches stayed with what later become old bethlehem for a time, and our modern churches all descend from them save 1.
As of 2023, our churches are as follows:
The original echo church. It was an abandoned Methodist church later renovated and enlarged as a brick building with a kitchen and shelter.