ELDER LEWIS DUNCAN Cuivre Regular Baptist Association (MO)

 Elder Lewis Duncan (1806-1852), originally from Virginia made a profession of faith and was baptized in 1828. Duncan was a member of Sand Run Church, near Troy Missouri when he moved some distance away, requiring a letter of dismission form the church in order to join a closer one, Sulphur Lick Baptist Church. The Cuivre Assn. were Regular Baptists, and Duncan rejected the Calvinist view of election and predestination. This was evidently common knowledge, yet  no one at Sand Run Church voiced opposition until he requested a letter in order to join another church. It was at the association's meeting that one man objected and said "“I object to the applicant having a letter of dismission in full fellowship, on the ground that he believes in a general atonement." Duncan replied with “Brother Moderator, I believe in a general atonement, and am perfectly willing for my view of that doctrine, or any fact in this case, to be stated in my letter.”

The association tabled the request.. The case was continued the next day, and, by unanimous vote, the letter was granted, and Lewis Duncan became a member of Sulphur Lick church, where he remained a member for some years. Sulphur Lick Church ordained Duncan to the full work of a gospel minister on the 23d day of May, 1838. The ordaining presbytery consisted of Elders William Davis, Robert Gilmore and Ephraim Davis. In addition, Duncan's pastorates included Sulphur Lick, New Salem and Pleasant Grove churches in Lincoln County; Zion in Montgomery County; and Indian Creek in Pike County, totaling an active ministerial career of about twenty-five years.

So here we have a REGULAR (Calvinist) association, with members who were NOT Calvinists. Evidently there were many in that association that agreed with Duncan's doctrines, because three elders in the association had no problem ordaining him, and five churches in the same association asked him to be pastor. I suspect that the association was afraid to reject Duncan, because they feared those who agreed with Duncan may actually be a majority, or at least a sizeable minority who could form their own association. At the very least FIVE churches from this REGULAR (Calvinist) association must have also believed in general atonement and free salvation, or they would not have called him to be pastor.It is also telling that the only churches that exist today from this association, are those where Duncan pastored. The other churches became anti mission and eventually disappeared.

 from a biographical sketch on "Lewis Duncan" in A History of the Baptists in Missouri, R.S. Duncan, 1882 (pp.522-524)

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