Laurence Duane Brown, a pastor and an influential communicator of Scripture, died September 26. He was 90.
Duane accepted Christ as his personal Savior in high school through the testimony of his older brother Ken, who had accepted Christ while away at college through the witness of his dorm roommate. This event changed the life trajectory of Duane, who gave himself to serve Christ, claiming 1 Thessalonians 5:24 as his life verse: “Faithful is he who calls you, who also will do it.”
Duane graduated from Baptist Bible Seminary with a ThB and Bob Jones University with an MA and PhD in New Testament.
He served the Lord faithfully through four decades of ministry, including as pastor of five churches (Mount Vision, New York; Pine Valley, New York; Ames, Iowa; Houston, Texas; and Parsippany, New Jersey); a member of the GARBC Council of 18; state representative of the Regular Baptist associations in New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia; president of Denver Baptist Bible College and Seminary; director of Camp BaYouCa in New York; and a board member for colleges and mission agencies.
He was also a prolific author, notably writing Biblical Basis for Baptists, which has been used by hundreds of churches and translated into dozens of languages.
A faithful expositor of the Bible and a strong separatist for truth, Duane invented the B.A.P.T.I.S.T. distinctives acrostic—doctrinal beliefs that are unique to Baptists. He developed the acrostic in the 1960s while pastoring Pine Valley (New York) Baptist Church and preparing a 13-lesson Sunday School plan about the Baptist distinctives.
“And if you grew up in a Regular Baptist church, you were probably taught these beliefs with [his] simple acrostic” (“Who Invented the B.A.P.T.I.S.T. Distinctives?”). “A teacher at Baptist Bible Seminary requested copies for his class. Soon requests came from all over.” After receiving many requests for copies, Duane printed the material as a booklet, which he published and copyrighted in 1969. An updated edition was published by Regular Baptist Press in 1987 but is now out of print.
Duane spent the final years of his life researching and writing a book on theological liberalism, even working on it just a few days before dying.
Duane was preceded in death by his wife of 70 years, Shirley; and a son, David.
He is survived by his children Diane Mills, Daniel, Denise Nelsen, and Douglas; 14 grandchildren; and 17 great-grandchildren.
