Christian seventh day sabbath observers in North America : the legacy of Stephen Mumford

Abstract

When Stephen Mumford arrived in Rhode Island from England in 1665, he brought with him the practice of Christian Seventh Day Sabbath observance and introduced it to the Baptist Church at Newport. As a result, he began a controversy that divided the church and initiated the spread of the Saturday Sabbath throughout North America. His legacy of controversy spread into other doctrines as well, a legacy rooted in the Anabaptist movement from which he came. Anabaptists themselves developed as a radical expression of the Protestant Reformation, which, in turn, had sprouted from the seeds sown by nonconformists dating to the first century. Once Mumford established Christian Sabbath observance on the American continent, it spread to form hundreds of denominations and sects, each different from all the others. By the nineteenth century, the movement that sprang from Mumford began to call itself the Seventh Day Baptist Church. From a member of this church -- Rachel Oakes -- Sabbath observance was introduced to a small group of the followers of William Miller, who had predicted the data of the return, or second advent, of Jesus Christ, the failure of which became known as the Great Disappointment. By the mid-1800s, the doctrines of Sabbath observances and the second coming of Christ combined into the formation of the Seventh-day Adventists Church under the leadership of James and Ellen G. White. At the same time, the much small Church of God (Seventh Day), led by a number of individuals, most prominently Gilbert Cranmer, sprang up as an offshoot of this movement. Later, in the 1920s and 1930s, Herbert W. Armstrong came into contact with the Church of God (Seventh Day) and formed what became the Worldwide Church of God. These Sabbath-keeping churches all are products of the legacy of controversy Stephen Mumford brought with him from the Anabaptist movement in Europe.