Seventh Day Baptists are Christian Baptists who
continue to observe the Sabbath on Saturday,
which is the original seventh day of the week for the founding Judaeo-Christian faith.
The Seventh Day Baptist World Federation today represents over 50,000 Baptists in 22 countries.
History
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 at 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, calling themselves Sabbatarian Baptists. Mumford, for his part, arrived in Rhode Island in 1665, and was mentioned as an advocate for the seventh day Sabbath in many records of 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. However, due to the Baptist tradition of freedom of conscience, even within Baptists, there are a lot of
variations in doctrines. The same principle applies to Seventh Day Baptists. The Seventh Day Baptists do not hold a binding
creed, and the belief system is relatively more flexible than mainstream Christianity, and the teachings Seventh Day Baptists
hold may also vary from member to member. 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.
External links
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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