Seventh Day Baptist

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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.

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[edit] History

The first recorded Seventh Day Baptist meeting was at The Mill Yard 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 and associations exist in many other countries including Australia, Brazil, India, Jamaica, the Netherlands, New Zealand and amongst the Seventh Day Christians of Poland. Some conferences have sent missionaries to other nations including Malawi, Fiji and Argentina. 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.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] 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
  • The Development of the Seventh Day Baptist Denomination in Australia, by David Hill