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The twenties were a colorful decade, and colorful characters dotted the landscape.

Norris especially epitomizes this. Immensely popular at the national level, despite being
controversial, he rode high in the saddle in the 1920s. One may wonder if the 1930s,
marked by depression and worry, militated against this style of leadership.

GARBC leaders emitted a much more pastoral tone than the pulpit giants of the

likes of the "big three." Ketchams biography bears this out,

as does Van Osdels. It

certainly seems that the ego factor, so huge in the BBU, was toned down considerably in the
GARBC. Though the GARBC still had plenty to say about modernism in the Convention,
they managed to avoid being the lightening rods of controversy as had been the case
previously.

Geographical Distribution

The geography of the movements grew out of their respective leadership nuclei.

The BBU had its Northern (Riley), Southern (Norris), and Canadian spokesmen (Shields).
This broad scope gave the Union a sense of size, but may have cost its effectiveness. Travel
strains were enormous, and the energy of the leaders is almost awe-inspiring. Shields
reportedly traveled 40,000 miles one year on behalf of the Union, often returning to Toronto
on Sunday morning just in time to walk into his church service.

The GARBC, on the other hand, would primarily draw from the North, and the

churches would almost entirely come from the Northern Baptist Convention. They were
probably open to bigger things, but the movement would retain three basic stronghold areas:
the Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest, and the Pacific Coast.

In 1938 the GARBC added the word "North" to its name. This was when Norris

was making overtures to the group, and Odell writes, "The observation would seem to be that
Norris was to take the south and GARBC the north in Baptist fundamentalism in America."

By the next year, however, "North" was not a designation of the GARBC. In 1936,
Ketchams "Manifesto" qualifies the scope of the group as "The GARBC in the United
States." This would seem to concur chronologically with the problems Shields was having
with Ketcham over the structure of the GARBC.

I have personally visited in well over a hundred GARBC churches while doing

itinerant work, and often older folks would give glowing reports of their memories of
Ketcham. I seldom encountered any who did not like him. In retrospect we can see some
overstatements he made and perhaps question his judgment at points, but he was certainly
well-loved in the fellowship he loved.

Delnay, 82.

Calvin Odell, The General Association of Regular Baptist Churches and its

Attendant Movement (Salem, OR: College Press of Western Baptist Bible College, 1975),
"Geographical Distribution" charts, 94-99.

Ibid., 26.