The Old Baptist Union is a group of evangelical Baptist churches in the United Kingdom. The Old Baptist Union was founded in 1880, owing largely to the labours of Henry Squire, an itinerant preacher. Currently the Old Baptist Union has 17 member churches (16 in England and 1 in the Netherlands) with about 700 members.
The churches of the Old Baptist Union are General Baptist, believing in general atonement (that in His death, Jesus atoned generally for the sins of all men). They historically put more emphasis on divine healing and personal holiness than some other Baptist affiliations.
The Union is a member of both the Free Churches Council and the Evangelical Alliance, and most of its churches form an Association within the Baptist Union of Great Britain. Its government structure is somewhat of a combination between Congregationalism and Presbyterianism, involving in each church the appointment of Elders. The Old Baptist Union's executive body is called the "Council of Management," and is composed of all the ordained officers of churches holding membership in the Union. An Annual General Meeting is held.
Famous quotes containing the words baptist and/or union:
“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“These semi-traitors [Union generals who were not hostile to slavery] must be watched.—Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of this Rebellion. The man who thinks that the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery—in fact, its only enemy.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)