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Seventh Day Baptists

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sdbhist (talk | contribs) at 19:08, 28 December 2006 (The edit pertains to the role of Stephen Mumford in the founding of the Newport church. The people who founded that first church were not his followers.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Seventh Day Baptists are Christian Baptists who observe the Sabbath on Saturday, which is the seventh day of the week to Seventh Day Baptists (hence the name). The first recorded Seventh Day Baptist church was the Mill Yard Seventh Day Baptist Church, formed in London in 1653 under the leadership of Dr. Peter Chamberlen. The first Seventh Day Baptist church in America was in Newport, Rhode Island in December 1671. Samuel and Tacy Hubbard, two members of the First Baptist Church of Newport, pastored by John Clarke (1609-1676), withdrew from that church and joined with Stephen Mumford, a Seventh Day Baptist from England, and 4 others, covenanting to meet together for worship. Mumford arrived in Rhode Island in 1665, and was mentioned as an advocate for the seventh day Sabbath in many of the records of groups in Newport in that time. Other churches rose in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and soon spread north into Connecticut and New York, and south into Virginia and the Carolinas. Sabbatarianism also emerged among the Germans at Ephrata, Pennsylvania, (founded in 1735). Ephrata was incorporated as the German Religious Society of Seventh Day Baptists in 1814. The Seventh Day Baptist General Conference was organized in 1801.

In 1995, the Seventh Day Baptists had 78 churches with 4885 members in the United States, 2 churches with 55 members in England, and 1 church of 40 members in Canada. Conferences exist in other countries as well. The Seventh Day Baptist World Federation was founded in 1964/1965, and it now represents over 50,000 Baptists in 17 member organizations in 22 countries.

Other than the belief that the Christian Sabbath is Saturday rather than Sunday, Seventh Day Baptists are very similar to other Baptists. Offices of the General Conference are maintained in Janesville, Wisconsin. The Missionary Society offices are in Westerly, Rhode Island, and the Board of Christian Education has offices in Alfred Station, New York. The Seventh Day Baptist General Conference is a member of the Baptist World Alliance.

Sources

  • A Choosing People: The History of Seventh Day Baptists, by Don A. Sanford
  • Baptists Around the World, by Albert W. Wardin, Jr.
  • Seventh Day Baptists in Europe and America, by Albert N. Rogers
  • The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness, by H. Leon McBeth
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