Baptist History/Philadelphia

Well, you've bitten off a lot in one post.

The Philadelphia Association was the first Baptist association (1707) in the colonies and was very influential; it sent out missionaries and the 1742 Philadelphia Confession (which was basically the 1689 London Confession with additional articles that said laying on of hands and "singing praise to God" were additional ordinances) was widely used.

Some references to Philadelphia Baptists:

H.C. Vedder "A Short History of the Baptists"

Thomas Armitage's "History of the Baptists"

John T. Christian's "A History of the Baptists"


The Philadelphia Association continues to exist as part of the American Baptist Churches in the USA. It has diverse congregations (143 of them) that speak 13 languages.

The founding of the first black Baptist church is uncertain, although it probably occurred before 1813. (Walter H. Brooks puts the founding at 1809.) That church, First African Baptist Church, is part of the Philadelphia Association.

Philadelphia was at one time a prime center for fundamentalism, largely, I think, because of John Gresham Machen. Machen was an outspoken and well-spoken anti-modernist who left Princeton because of theological differences and founded Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. He formed an independent Prsybeterian mission board because of disagreements with missionaries and eventually was suspended from the ministry. He was suspended from the Presbyterian ministry for his "schismatic" actions and helped found the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

[ July 13, 2004, 08:55 PM: Message edited by: rsr ]