- Seventh Day Baptist
Seventh Day Baptists are Christian
Baptist s who continue to observe the Sabbath on Saturday, which is the original seventh day of the week for the foundingJudaeo-Christian faith. The Seventh Day Baptist World Federation today represents over 50,000 Baptists in 22 countries.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 atNewport, Rhode Island in December 1671. Samuel and Tacy Hubbard, two members of the First Baptist Church of Newport, pastored byJohn Clarke (1609-1676) , withdrew from that church and joined with Stephen Mumford, a "Seventh Day Baptist" fromEngland , and 4 others, covenanting to meet together for worship, calling themselves Sabbatarian Baptists. Mumford, for his part, arrived inRhode Island in 1665, and was mentioned as an advocate for the seventh day Sabbath in many records of that time. Other churches rose inPennsylvania andNew Jersey , and soon spread north intoConnecticut andNew York , and south intoVirginia and the Carolinas.Sabbatarianism also emerged among the Germans atEphrata, 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 inEngland , and 1 church of 40 members inCanada . 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 inWesterly, Rhode Island , and the Board of Christian Education has offices inAlfred Station, New York . The Seventh Day Baptist General Conference is a member of theBaptist World Alliance .ee also
External links
* [http://www.seventhdaybaptist.org Seventh Day Baptist General Conference]
* [http://www.educatingchristians.org Seventh Day Baptist Board of Christian Education]
* [http://www.seventh-day-baptist.org.au/ Australasian Conference of Seventh Day Baptists]
* [http://www.asdba.org/ Association of Seventh Day Baptists (Australia)]
* [http://www.bwa-baptist-heritage.org/bap-sdb.htm Heritage of SDBs in Australia (to 1999)]
* [http://www.cbsdb.com.br/ Conferência Batista do Sétimo Dia Brasileira] (Brazilian Conference of Seventh Day Baptists Churches -in Portuguese)
* [http://www.7e-dags-baptisten.nl/ Zevendedags Baptisten Nederland] (Seventh Day Baptists in the Netherlands -in Dutch)
* [http://www.sdbforums.com/ Seventh Day Baptists Message Boards]
* [http://www.yasdb.org/ Young Adult Seventh Day Baptists Message Boards]
* [http://www.sdbhistory.org/ Seventh Day Baptist Historical Society]
* [http://www.pistis.org Seventh Day Baptists in France] A Seventh Day Baptist Church planting project in France, associated to the Dutch Churches.ources
*"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
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