Time-Line of Baptist History
Last Updated:  Saturday, August 09, 2014

This is not to be considered an exhaustive or conclusive historical account of Baptist history.  It is, however, an attempt to present Baptist history by whatever name Baptists have been known.  It is not an attempt to establish the grounds or criteria for what a Baptist is or isn't for it has been said, if you are not a Fundamental Baptist, you are not a Baptist.  The same has been stated by Southern Baptists, Northern Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Free Will Baptists, Calvinists, Arminians, and so on.  The problem with this is that prior to our current time in history, by whatever name we call a Baptist, we seem to have forgotten how to define what a Baptist is, rather than who a Baptist is.  My intent is not to declare the formation of the Baptist denomination (for lack of a better phrase) in the 1st century, but merely to present histories of those who have been known as Baptists since the time of Christ.  We face the continual problem of however further back in time we go of seeing little or no mention of the word 'Baptist', yet we find what a Baptist is the closer we approach the 1st century church.  On the other hand, the further away from the 1st century church we have come, we often see little or no resemblance of 1st century Christianity among many who call themselves 'Baptists'.  A Reformation among Baptists is greatly needed to return to 1st century Biblical Christianity.

Consider the following as a preface to ancient Baptist histories:

• History of the Welsh Baptists, from the Year 63 to the year 1770, Jonathan J. Davis, published 1835

• History of the Baptists in Wales, Joshua Thomas, published 1835

• Baptists in Wales, David Benedict, published 1848

1519

• Balthazar Hubmeyer fully embraced Protestantism.

1520

• The Anabaptist Movement begins in Germany under the leadership of Thomas Müntzer. Prior to being called Anabaptists in Germany, they were briefly known as Catabaptists, referring to the Swiss Anabaptists by Zwingli and Oecolampadius in their Latin writings. It did not, however, succeed in displacing "Anabaptist," which became the standard term. It is an original Greek word translated into Latin, not found in German or English.

1522

• Felix Mantz was a native of Zurich, and had received a liberal education. Having early adopted the principles of the Reformation, he became an intimate friend of Zuingli (Zwingli) and other Swiss Reformers. He began to doubt the scriptural authority of infant-baptism, and of the Church constitution which then existed at Zurich, and he suffered imprisonment in consequence. After this he preached in the fields and woods, whither the people flocked in crowds to hear him, and there he baptized those who professed faith.

• Balthazar Hubmeyer returned to Ratisbon, and continued there a year, propagating the principles of the Reformation. When he resumed his residence at Waldshut, he formed an acquaintance with the Swiss reformers, particularly Zuingli and Ecolampadius, and enjoyed frequent opportunities of intercourse with them.

1525

• Swiss Anabaptists broke with Zwingli.

• Baptism of Hubmäier.

• Peasants Revolt led by Thomas Müntzer.

• The (Radical) AnaBaptist's bible meetings and antipaedobaptist views were condemended by Zwingli and the Zurich city council. In defiance, on the 25 January, the Radicals formed the first congregation of believers through baptism (by pouring).

1526

• Felix Mantz was drowned at Zurich for violating the magistrate's order against re-baptizing. As he came down from the Wellenberg to the fish market,” says Bullinger, “and was led through the shambles to the boat, he praised God that he was about to die for His truth.

1528

• Jacob Falk and Heine Reyman were drowned for violating the Zurich's magistrate's order against re-baptizing.

• Balthazar Hubmeyer was arrested, probably at Brunn, where he was teacher off the church, at the command of King Ferdinand, and sent to Vienna. After some days he was thrown into the dungeons of the castle of Gritsenstein. After having been sentenced to death, He steadfastly went to the scaffold, and on the 10th of March, from the midst of burning flames and embers, his spirit ascended to that region where those that have come out of great tribulation suffer and weep no more.

1529

• Anneken of Friburg, a Christian woman, was drowned, and her body was afterwards burnt for violating the Zurich's magistrate's order against re-baptizing.

• Louis Hetzer, another Baptist minister, was beheaded at Constance, on the 4th of February. He also had been on intimate terms with Zwingli, Ecolampadius, and their associates, and was highly esteemed by them till he became a Baptist.

1530

• The persecution was so fierce in Germany and Switzerland, that there seemed to be no safety but in emigration. Many thousands of Baptists, inhabitants of the Tyrol, Switzerland, Austria, Styria, and Bavaria, emigrated under the leadership of Jacob Hutter, and settled in Moravia.

1535

• Ferdinand, King of Bohemia, ordered the expulsion of the Baptists in Moravia, and sent a military force to carry the order into effect. Their property was seized, and all the indulgence they could obtain was liberty to carry away their movables. They withdrew into the forests, and there lived as they could, worshipped God, and possessed their souls in patience. Hutter exhorted and comforted them. Be ye thankful unto God,” he said, that ye are counted worthy to suffer persecutions and cruel exile for His name.

1537

• Menno Simons became leader of Dutch Anabaptists.

1538

• Efforts made to expel Anabaptists from England.

1547

• King Edward issues a commission to Archbishop "to search after all Baptists", and under that condition the celebrated Joan of Kent, who was a Baptist, was burnt on May 2nd. Several others shared the same fate (Baptist Children's Magazine and Youth's Missionary Repository, Vol. III, p.102, 1853).

1575

• In the seventeenth year of Elizabeth's reign, a congregation of them (Baptists) was found without (outside) Aldgate, London, of whom some were banished, twenty-seven were imprisoned, and two were burnt to death in Smithfield. John Fox, the celebrated author of Book of Martyrs, penned a most eloquent letter to the Queen on their behalf; but in vain (Baptist Children's Magazine and Youth's Missionary Repository, Vol. III, p.103, 1853).

1576

• A royal proclamation was issued, in which it was ordained that all Baptists, and other heretics, should leave the land; but they seemed to gather fortitude, for some formed themselves into separate societies (Baptist Children's Magazine and Youth's Missionary Repository, Vol. III, p.104, 1853).

1606

• John Smyth formed one of the first Separatist churches in England, having renounced Anglicanism and became minister at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, to a group of Separatists who had similarly abandoned the Church of England.

• Obadiah Holmes was born in England (year approximate).

1608

• Smyth’s congregation fled to Holland to avoid Anglican persecution. Met Mennonites (one of several Anabaptists groups)

• Smyth became convinced that believer's baptism was biblical and infant baptism was not and after having adopting Baptist principles in Holland, Smyth baptized first himself and then others, including Thomas Helwys, later an influential London Baptist.

1609

• First English General Baptist church formed in Holland under John Smyth. Smyth was later excommunicated by his church when he tried to make them become Mennonites. 1609 is unofficially referred to as the beginning of the Baptist denomination.

1610

• Smyth sought to merge his congregation with the Mennonites.

• Pastor John Smyth became an Amsterdam Mennonite.

1611

• Organization of first General Baptist church in England by Thomas Helwys and Murton.

• Thomas Helwys led a group opposed to the merger back to England and established the first Baptist church in England.

• Thomas Helwys rejected particular atonement, free will and partial depravity.

• John Smyth publishes his confession of 1611 and was the first Baptist confession among English speaking believers.

• This movement grew into the General Baptists who held to Arminian theology. Initially baptized by pouring, later by immersion.

• Lost members to the Quakers and the Unitarians.

1612

• Thomas Helwys, formerly of Smyth’s congregation, returns to England and forms the first General Baptist church. His classic, A Short Declaration of the Mistery of Iniquity, is the first claim for freedom of worship in the English language.

• Plea to James I for religious freedom.

1613

• After returning to England, Helwys was thrown into Newgate Prison by order of King James I probably for what was in his plea to the (Christian) James I; The King is a mortall man and not God, therefore hath no power over ye immortall soules of his subjects to make lawes and ordinances for them and to set spirituall Lords over them.

1616

• Death of Thomas Helwys, one of the founders of the Baptist faith while in prison under King James' order.

• Henry Jacob began another Baptist movement of non-separatists. This movement became Particular Baptists and held to hyper-Calvinist theology.

• Henry Browne set up a Congregational Society in Norwich before being forced to flee with his followers to Holland. The movement was re-established in London. Societies, known as Independents, were founded in different parts of the country. Like the Baptists, each church was a separate body supporting its own minister, but might belong to a voluntary district association.

• The Independent congregation of which Henry Jacob was pastor, having become very numerous, a division took place, and that portion which had adopted the opinions 'of the Baptists, chose Mr. Spilsbury for their pastor. This was the first separate Baptist Church holding the hyper-Calvinistic doctrine (An Analytical and Comparative View of all Religions Now Extant Among Mankind, p.381, 1838, Josiah Conder).

1620

• July 22, Under the leadership of John Robinson, English Separatists, began to emigrate to North America - eventually, they came to be known as the Pilgrims.

• September 16, The Mayflower left Plymouth, England with 102 Pilgrims aboard. The ship would arrive at Provincetown on November 21st and then at Plymouth on December 21st.

• The Baptists present to King James I, Loyal subjects, unjustly called Anabaptists, and to Parliament as the confession of their faith.
   

1628

• Birth of John Bunyan in the parish of Elstow, in Bedfordshire, to Thomas Bunyan and Margaret Bentley (Thomas's first wife, Anne Pinney, had died the year before without any surviving children).

• September 6, Puritan colonists landed at Salem and started the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
   

1629

• Roger Williams accepted the post of chaplain to Sir William Masham at his manor house at Otes in Essex. His courtship of Jane Whalley was brought to an abrupt termination by the disapproval of her aunt, Lady Barrington. Stung by the rejection, the young clergyman became ill of fever and was nursed back to health by Mary Barnard, a member of Lady Masham's household. She is believed to have been the daughter of the Rev. Richard Barnard in Nottinghamshire. Rogers Williams and Mary Barnard were married at High Laver Church in Essex on December 15.

• Williams became a chaplain in the household of a wealthy family.

• Samuel Skelton was elected the first pastor of Salem, Massachusetts. The church covenant created by Skelton made his congregation the first non-separating congregational Puritan Church in New England.

1630

• Two groups of Baptists emerge. Both believe that only those who put their trust in Christ can be saved, but while the so-called General Baptists believe that anyone can have such faith, the Particular Baptists believe that the only people capable of having such faith are those few who have already been pre-chosen by God.
   

1631

• After fifty-seven days of a storm-wracked voyage, Roger Williams and his wife anchored off Nantasket on February 3 and arrived in Boston on the 5th. His arrival in America was duly noted by the MA Bay Colony Governor, John Winthrop, in his carefully kept diary. Winthrop described Williams as a "godly minister" and it is certain the young clergyman was welcome in the new colony in Boston.

• Williams refused an invitation to become the minister of the church in Boston because he opposed its ties to the Church of England.

• The General Court of the Massachusetts issued the decree that "no man shall be admitted to the body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits" of the colony.

1633

• Roger Williams returned to Salem.

1634

• First Baptist church in North America founded in Providence, RI by Roger Williams. Eventually moved toward General Baptist views.

• Williams became the minister of a church at nearby Salem.
   

1635

• Roger Williams was ordered by the General Court (MA Bay authorities) to be banished from Massachusetts and threatened with deportation to England if he did not renounce his convictions. "Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the Elders of the church of Salem, hath broached and divulged new and dangerous opinions against the authority of magistrates, as also written letters of defamation, both of the magistrates and churches here, and that before any conviction, and yet maintaineth the same without any retraction; it is, therefore, ordered that the said Mr. Williams shall depart out of this jurisdiction within six weeks now next ensuing," etc. Williams publicly proclaiming that the MA Bay charter was invalid, since the king (James I) had no right to give away lands belonging to the Indians. He also denounced them for forcing religious uniformity upon the colonists. He believed in what he called "soul-liberty", which meant that every man had the complete right to enjoy freedom of opinion on the subject of religion.
   

1636

• An attempt was made to seize Roger Williams and transport him to England, and he, forewarned, escaped from his home at Salem and proceeded alone to Manton's Neck, on the east bank of the Seekonk river.

• September 8, Harvard College (later University) was founded by the Massachusetts Puritans at New Towne. It was the first institution of higher learning established in North America, and was originally created to train future ministers.
   

1638

• The first Particular Baptist church organized by John Spilsbury.

• Organization of the first Baptist church in America; at Providence, R. I., by Roger Williams, or in Newport, R. I., by John Clarke.

• March 22, Religious dissident Anne Hutchinson was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony as punishment for heresy.
   

1639

• Roger Williams joined the Baptist faith and founded the first Baptist church in America. However, within a few months he withdrew from this group and became a "Seeker".

• Baptists persuade Roger Williams and Ezekial Holliman to accept their view of the church, and thus the first Baptist congregation in America is formed, in Providence, Rhode Island

• At the request of Massachusetts, Williams' mediation prevented a coalition of the Pequots with the Narragansetts and Mohegans. He wrote of this service in later years: Three days and nights my business forced me to lodge and mix with the bloody Pequot ambassadors, whose hands and arms me thought reeked with the blood of my countrymen murdered and massacred by them on Connecticut River.

• June 21, American theologian Increase Mather was born.
   

1640

• Particular Baptist church founded in Newport, RI.

• Southwark church became convinced of believer's baptism and were baptized by immersion, pastored by Henry Jessey.
   

1641

• Baptism by immersion emphasized by John Spilsbury.
   

1643

• Roger Williams went to England to obtain a charter to unite Providence with the settlements of Warwick, Newport and Portsmouth, which were coveted by MA Bay, Plymouth and CT. On the voyage wrote his Key to the Indian Languages. In his dedication he says, "A little key may open a box where lies a bunch of keys." The charter he obtained proved to be very important as it was indisputable for the next 20 years.
   

1644

• London Confession of 1644: Calvinistic, emphasized baptism by immersion and religious liberty.

• Organization of Association of London Particular Baptists.

• John Bunyan enlists in the Parliamentary army, joining with the Newport Pagnell garrison, at the regulation age of sixteen.
   

1645

• General Baptists published a pamphlet "The Fountain of Free Grace Opened" which defended free will and general atonement.

• Newport Pagnell garrison moves to Leicester. Most probably, it was here that Bunyan's comrade was shot. "When I was a soldier, I, with others, were drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it; but when I was just ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my room; to which, when I had consented, he took my place; and coming to the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot into the head with a musket bullet, and died." - John Bunyan, from "Grace Abounding".
   

1646

• John Tombes, BD, a man of great ability and a native of Bewdley, was appointed Curate of St. Anne's. He entertained very strong objections to infant baptism, and so, while still retaining his office in the Church, he founded a separate Baptist society, which numbered 20 persons.

• George Fox tells us that Tombes said he had a wife, and he had a concubine ; and his wife was the baptized people (Baptists) and his concubine was the world.

• A confession of faith of seven Baptist Churches in London is published.

• New England Puritan theocracy enacts laws requiring church attendance and belief in the Bible.
   

1648

• George Fox founds Society of Friends

1649

• Charles executed; Oliver Cromwell rules England as Protector of Commonwealth.

• The first Baptist church in Wales was established at Ilston on the Gower peninsula in 1649. Baptist churches are generally self-governing within a Baptist Union. There are separate Baptist Unions for English and Welsh speaking congregations.

• The colony of Maine passed legislation creating religious freedom for all citizens, but only on the condition that those of "contrary" religious beliefs behave "acceptably."
   

1650

• Welsh Association formed of three churches.
   

1651

• Midland Association of thirty General Baptist churches formed.

• Confessions, signed by some of the General Baptists, were published in 1651 by thirty churches in the Midland counties.

• Cirencester Baptist Church founded.

• In the month of July, in company with Dr. John Clarke and Mr. Crandall, Obadiah Holmes made a visit to William Witter, A Baptist, who resided at Lynn, Massachusetts. The day after their arrival being the Sabbath, they arranged to have a religious service at Witter's home. While Dr. Clarke preached, two constables presented to him the following warrant: "By virtue hereof, you are required to go to the house of William Witter, and to search from house to house for certain erroneous person, being strangers and them to apprehend, and in safe custody to keep, and to-morrow morning at eight o'clock to bring before me. Robert Bridges."

• September 5, Obadiah Holmes Whipped for writing a catechism, among other Baptist beliefs.
   

1652

• Obadiah Holmes was ordained to preach the gospel, and took Dr. Clarke's place as pastor of the Baptist church in Newport.
   

1653

• John Bunyan joins St. John's church in Bedford, where he meets Mr. Gifford, the pastor.

• First meeting of the General Assembly of General Baptists at London. Baptists are prominent in Parliament and Cromwell’s New Model Army

1654

• Roger Williams became the president of the Rhode Island Colony. He held this position until 1657.
   

1655

• John Bunyan moves to Bedford and becomes a deacon of St. John's church.

• First wife dies soon after move, leaving John with four motherless children. Mr. Gifford dies in September of the same year.
   

1656

• Publishes first work entitled "Some Gospel Truths Opened".

• Henry Jessey visits Gloucestershire.

• July 1, The first Quakers (Mary Fisher and Ann Austin) to arrive in Boston are arrested. Five weeks later they were deported back to England.

• August 5, Eight Quakers arrived in Boston. They were immediately imprisoned by the Puritan authorities because Quakers were generally regarded as politically and religiously subversive.
   

1657

• Publishes second work entitled "Vindication of Gospel Truths" (year is approximate).

• John Bunyan is formally recognized as a preacher.

• Roger Williams contributed to Rhode Island's decision to provide refuge for Quakers who had been banished from other colonies, even though he disagreed with their religious teachings.

1658

• Death of Oliver Cromwell

• Indictment is laid against John Bunyan at the Assizes for "preaching at Eaton Socon". The charge was most likely dropped.

• John Bunyan publishes third work entitled "A Few Sighs From Hell".

1659

• John Bunyan publishes "The Doctrine of the Law and Grace Unfolded". This is the last book he writes before being placed in prison.

1660

• John Bunyan is scheduled to preach at the hamlet of Lower Samsell (November 12). Upon his arrival, he is informed that a warrant has been issued for his arrest. After a lengthy interview with Mr. Francis Wingate, and another with Wingate's brother-in-law, William Foster, (who unsuccessfully tries to persuade Bunyan into a concession), John was placed in Bedford prison. He was charged with "devilishly and perniciously abstaining from coming to Church to ear Divine Service, and for being a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom, contrary to the laws of our sovereign lord and king." Within approximately eight days of John's arrest, his wife gives birth, only for the infant to die soon after. "I am but mother-in-law to them, having not been married to him yet full two years. [Elizabeth, John's second wife, spoke this in 1661.] Indeed, I was with child when my husband was first apprehended; but being young, and unaccustomed to such things, said she, I being smayed at the news, fell into labour, and so continued for eight days, and then was delivered, but my child died." - John Bunyan's wife, from "A Relation of My Imprisonment"

• Organization of General Assembly of all Associations of General Baptists in London.

• Beginning of the time known as the Great Persecution and the Restoration of the Monarchy (through 1688). Baptist women especially come under persecution.

• General Baptists publish their confession of faith.

• On July 26, the Baptist churches of Lincolnshire, in their petition to Charles II., say: "We have been much abused as we pass in the streets, and as we sit in our houses, being threatened to be hanged if but heard praying to our Lord, in our own families, and disturbed in our so waiting upon Him by continual beating at our doors and sounding of horns; stoned when going to out meetings ; taken as evil-doers, and imprisoned when peaceably met together to worship the Most High in the use of His most precious ordinances.

• The Bloody Theater or Martyrs Mirror , was published by Herald Press.

• There were more than 200 Baptist churches in England (about 130 Particular Baptist, and 110 General Baptist), with more in Wales.

1661

• Members of the Seventh Day Baptist congregation at Bull-Stake-Alley in London are jailed at Newgate Prison and their pastor, John James, is hung, drawn, and quartered.

• Parliament passes a series of acts that exclude Baptists and other Nonconformists from holding public offices, forcing them out of schools and penalizing them for not attending Anglican services and for preaching without a license (1661-1664)

1662

• The Assizes of 1662. John Bunyan endeavors to have his name entered in the calendar of offenders, so his case would come before the judges. However, the Clerk of the Peace alters John's entry, thus making it possible for Bunyan to remain in prison for the next four years.

• John Bunyan Writes "I Will Pray With the Spirit and With the Understanding Also, or a Discourse Touching Prayer".

1663

• John Bunyan publishes "A Discourse Touching Prayer".

• John Bunyan writes "Christian Behavior".

• John Myles, founder of the first Baptist church in Wales, persuades most of his congregation to emigrate to the colonies, and they settle at Swansea, Massachusetts.

1664

• John Bunyan publishes "One Thing Is Needful" on single sheets to be sold by his wife and children, to aid them financially (date is approximate.

• Isaac Backus arrives in New England and at once joined with Dr. Clarke's First-day Baptist Church at Newport, though his views favored the observance of the seventh day.

• March 24, Roger Williams was granted a charter to colonize Rhode Island.

• May 27, At the age of 24, colonial theologian Increase Mather became the minister of Boston's Second (Congregational) Church. He would serve there until his death in 1723.

1665

• John Bunyan writes "The Holy City", and "The Resurrection of the Dead and Eternal Judgment" from Bedford prison.

• John Bunyan writes a poem entitled "Prison Meditations" in response to a letter he received, exhorting him to hold his head above the flood.

• Thomas Goold refuses to allow his children to be baptized in the Puritan church and is banished from the colony. Later in the year he helps to organize the first Baptist church in Boston.

1666

• John Bunyan publishes "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners".

• A brief period of freedom follows re-incarceration "He was let out again, 1666, being the year of the burning of London, and, a little after his release, they took him again at a meeting, and put him in the same jail, where he lay six years more."—Charles Doe, A friend and biographer of John Bunyan.

1670

• Organization of General Six-Principle Baptists in Rhode Island.

• First Baptist Association formed in RI.

1671

• Organization of the first Seventh Day Baptist church in America at Germantown, Pennsylvania.

• John Bunyan is released from Bedford prison, after twelve years of imprisonment. His formal pardon is dated September 13, 1672, but he received a royal license to preach five months earlier.

1674

• John Bunyan publishes "Christian Behavior" as a pocket volume.

1675

• John Bunyan writes "The Pilgrim's Progress" during six months of incarceration. After being released the same year, he resumes his pastorate in Bedford.

• May 3, Massachusetts passed a law that required church doors to be locked during services - evidently to keep people from leaving before the long sermons were finished.

1676

• John Bunyan publishes "The Strait Gate".

1677

• Confession of 1677, a revision of the Westminster Confession.

• Some' Baptists felt a need to identify themselves with a large body of non-Anglicans.

1678

• John Bunyan publishes "The Pilgrim's Progress". Second edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress" is published in the autumn.

• The first Baptist meetinghouse in the colonies is raised in Boston.

• English General Baptists produce the Orthodox Creed that seeks to unite all Protestants against the Catholic tendencies of King Charles II.

1679

• 0John Bunyan publishes "A Treatise of the Fear of God".

1680

• John Bunyan publishes "The Life and Death of Mr. Badman".

1681

• John Bunyan publishes "Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ".

1682

• John Bunyan publishes "The Holy War". Publishes the eighth edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress", and makes last improvements. Publishes "The Barren Fig Tree".

• Obadiah Holmes dies, his sufferings having made a lasting effect upon the lives of many, (William Cathcart, Baptist Encyclopedia, 1881)

• May 11, After two years, two key laws were repealed by the General Court of Massachusetts: one which prohibited people from observing Christmas and another that set capital punishment for Quakers who returned to the colony after being banished.

1683

• Roger Williams dies.

• Traditional date of the founding of the first Baptist church in Charleston, SC (this date is often questioned).

1684

• Baptist beginnings in Middle Colonies of America(?)

• John Bunyan publishes ninth edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress". Publishes the second part of "The Pilgrim's Progress". Publishes "Seasonable Counsel".

• Elder Thomas Dungan from Ireland left his native home to escape persecution, and coming to Rhode Island he joined himself to the First Baptist Church of Newport, Rhode Island, where Doctor John Clark was the pastor.

• Elder Dungan and a small group of members left the church at Newport to organize the Cold Spring Baptist Church in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

1685

• John Bunyan publishes tenth edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress". Bunyan is in danger of returning to prison.

• Forced Out of New England, Baptists Thrive in Carolina – Somerton, South Carolina

1688

• John Bunyan publishes "The Water of Life". Publishes "The Jerusalem Sinner Saved" in a pocket volume of eight sheets. Preaches his last sermon from John 1:13 (August 19).

• Bunyan travels through drenching rain on behalf of a young man, whose father was angry with him. After succeeding his mission, he returns to his lodging on Snow Hill. After enduring ten days of violent fever, he dies and is buried in Bunhill Fields.

• "The Barren Fig Tree" is reprinted a few months after John's decease.

• Elias Keach came to Pennsylvania and posed as a minister. While preaching he came under terrible conviction and had to stop. He confessed his lost condition and the people sent him to Elder Thomas Dungan pastor of the Cold Spring Baptist Church in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Elias Keach was saved there by the grace of God. He was baptized and ordained by the Cold Spring Baptist Church and as a missionary out of the Cold Spring Baptist Church he organized the Pennepeck Baptist Church (also known as the Lower Dublin Baptist Church) at Pennepeck, Pennsylvania.

• Even after William and Mary of Orange ascended to the throne and abolished oppressive laws, Baptists still had to pay taxes to support the state church.

1689

• General Assembly of General Baptists threatened by Arian teachings of Matthew Caffyn.

• Congregational Singing 'Unsafe' – General Baptist Convention Rules – London, May 23.

• London Confession of Particular Baptists is published.

• General Assembly of Particular Baptists organized in London.

• The Piscataway Baptist Church of Shelton, Middlesex County, New Jersey was organized as a separate, or independent church. Until that time in history, it had been a branch of the Lower Dublin Baptist Church under the ministry of Elias Keach.

1690

• General Six Principle Baptists, who practice the laying on of hands, organize the first Baptist association in America in the environs of Providence, Rhode Island.

1691

• Bunyan's "The Jerusalem Sinner Saved" is reprinted (3rd Edition).

• Charles Doe publishes "An Exposition on the First Ten Chapters of Genesis, and Part of the Eleventh", an unfinished commentary on the Bible, found among John Bunyan's papers after his death, in his own handwriting.

1692

• John Bunyan's "Of Antichrist and His Ruin", "Christ a Complete Saviour", "A Discourse of the House of the Forest of Lebanon", and "The Saints' Knowledge of Christ's Love", are published.

1698

• Charles Doe publishes "The Heavenly Footman".

1699

• Thomas Bonger first General Baptist minister in Virginia.

1700

• 24 Baptist Churches in America.

• “Great Awakening”.

• Birth of Separate Baptists–revivalistic

• In the north, Separate Baptists merged with older Baptist churches and in the south, Separate Baptists remained separate.

1701

• John Bunyan's "A Book For Boys and Girls" is first published.

1702

• English General Baptists who had settled in the Province of Carolina requested help from the General Baptists in England.

• After the Keithians had all but dissolved any assembly, John Hart and many former Keithians became Baptists. Hart joined Pennypack Baptist Church, in lower Dublin township (PA), and was made assistant minister and became as satisfactory a preacher among the Baptists as he had among the Quakers.

1706

• Shubal Stearns was born in Boston, Mass, Jan. 28th.

1707

• Organization of Philadelphia Baptist Association, first Baptist Association in America, July 27.

1712

• December 12, The colony of South Carolina passed a "Sunday Law" which required everyone to attend church each Sunday and to refrain from both skilled labor and traveling by horse or wagon beyond what was absolutely necessary. Violators received a fine and/or a two hours in the village stocks.

1714

• General Baptist Robert Nordin constitutes first Baptist church in Virginia.

1718

• Baptists, Established Church Finally at Peace in Boston – Boston, Mass., May 21.

1719

• The Pennepek Baptist Church of Pennepeck, Pennsylvania organized the Montgomery Baptist Church of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

1727

• Organization of Original Freewill Baptists in Virginia and North Carolina.

• The first Baptist congregation in North Carolina forms as Shiloh Church, in Chowan Precinct.

1728

• German Seventh Day Baptists founded the cloisters of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, (date approximate).

1729

• Twenty-Eight Baptists Jailed for Refusal to Pay Clergy Tax – Bristol, Mass., March 20.

• Baptists, Quakers Exempted from Tax to Support Clergy –Boston, Mass., May 10.

• Progress of Baptists Alarms Governor of North Carolina – Shiloh, N. C., October 12.

1733

• First Baptists arrive in Georgia with General Oglethorpe.

1739

• Rev. George Whitefield preaches in Philadelphia, Pa starting America’s first Great Awakening.

• Rev. Whitefield preaches in Williamsburg, VA invited by Anglican preacher James Blair.

• Division of American Baptists into Regular and Separate Baptists as a result of differences over the Great Awakening, (date approximate).

1741

• Isaac Backus was converted during the Great Awakening under the preaching of Eleazar Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth College.

• July 8, Jonathan Edwards preached his classic sermon, 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,' a key step in the beginning of New England's Great Awakening.

1742

• The Philadelphia Baptist Association adopted the Calvinistic 1689 Baptist Confession from London with two additions, the laying on of hands and the singing of Psalms, and became the Philadelphia Baptist Confession of Faith in 1742.

• Baptist Churches Split over Revival Practices – Philadelphia, Pa., January 5.

• Connecticut Passes Laws to Keep Out Evangelists – Hartford, Conn., June 1.

1745

• Shubal Stearns joins the "New Lights", as the converted Congregational communities that originated from the ministry of George Whitefield in New England were designated.

1746

• Isaac Backus was called to preach and traveled for five years as an itinerant evangelist.

1749

• February 6th, Isaac Backus was arrested for not paying taxes to a church, he didn't attend.

1750

• Organization of the River Brethren in Eastern Pennsylvania, (date approximate)

1751

• Shubal Stearns' church became involved in the controversy over the proper subjects of baptism. Soon, Stearns rejected infant baptism and sought baptism at the hands of Wait Palmer, Baptist minister of Stonington, Connecticut.

1752

• Baptist Church in North Carolina Formed by New England Evangelists – Sandy Creek, N. C., November 22.

1754

• The Separate Baptist movement migrated south in 1754, largely through the labors and influence of Shubal Stearns and Daniel Marshall.

• The two ministers worked for a while in Virginia with Baptists connected to the Philadelphia Association prior to moving on.

1755

• The Reverend Shubal Stearns leads a group of 15 Separate Baptists from Connecticut to Orange County and establishes Sandy Creek Baptist Church, the "mother of Southern Baptist churches."

• The Separate Baptist movement in the South established itself first in north-central North Carolina as a result of the coming to that area in 1755 of a small colony of Baptist from Connecticut who themselves had been awakened spiritually in connection with the revivalism of English evangelist George Whitfield and ended December 31, 1776.

1756

• January 16th, Isaac Backus formed the first Baptist church in Middleborough. Backus would have stayed with the Separates, but when he changed his views on baptism, his congregation grew cold toward him.

1758

• Sandy Creek Association created in North Carolina. It became the epicenter of the Separate Baptist revival in the South, spawning 42 churches and 125 ministers within 17 years.

• One of the first recorded black congregations is organized on the plantation of William Byrd in Mecklenburg, Virginia.

1761

• William Carey born at Paulerspury, Northampton, England, August 17.

1762

• The Montgomery Baptist Church in Montgomery Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania released John Marks on August 12, 1761 to go to Virginia where he and a man by the name of David Thomas organized the Broad Run Baptist Church on December 2, 1762.

1763

• 13 Baptists from Swansea, Massachusetts arrive in Tantamar to establish a Baptist Church and settle near Silver Lake in Middle Sackville.

1764

• Founding of the College of Rhode Island by Baptists, now known as Brown University.

• When the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia refused to allow women to participate in the election of deacons, the women held a separate meeting and framed a vigorous protest. They pointed out that they had voted since the church's founding in 1698. The men pointed out that they had no political voice in society and, therefore, should have none in the church (Southern Baptist Sisters: in Search of Status, 1845-2000 by David T. Morgan).

1767

• Warren Association was organized with particular reference to the large and influential Separate Baptist interest, and not without reference also to the General Baptists, who had held the ground before the arrival of the Separates.

1770

• "New Connection" (Connexion) Free Grace General Baptist Assembly organized in England.

• Morgan Edwards published the first of a proposed twelve-volume series on American Baptist history, Materials Toward a History of the Baptists in Pennsylvania. By doing so, Edwards became the first Baptist historian in America.

• Baptists agree to establish Virginia General Baptist Association

1771

• Twelve Virginia Separate churches, standing apart from other kinds of Baptists, organized their “General Association of the Separate Baptists in Virginia”.

• The first session of the Virginia Separate Baptist Association was held at Craig's Meeting-house in Orange county in May. Delegates from fourteen churches were present, representing thirteen hundred and eighty-five members.

1772

• Kiokee, the oldest Baptist church in Georgia, is constitute.

1773

• c.1773-1775, Plantation slave preacher George Liele, the first black Baptist in Georgia, founds the Silver Bluff Baptist Church in Silver Bluff, South Carolina. The congregation includes free and enslaved blacks. One of Liele's original followers, Andrew Bryan, goes on to become ordained by the Baptist Church in 1788, and founds the Bryan Street African Baptist Church, which is later renamed the First African Baptist Church of Savannah.

• Patrick Henry Wins Freedom for Jailed Baptist Preacher – Chesterfield, Va., October 20.

1774

• The Baptists analogized their persecution to that of Americans by the British, Isaac Backus and other New England Baptist leaders protested, even taking their plea to the First Continental Congress.

• Because of Baptist oppression, James Manning, President of College of Rhode Island, was a firm supporter of the colonial stance against Parliament but advocated loyalty to the Crown until just before the war, hoping that the king might come to the rescue of New England dissenters.

1775

• Baptists grew from 494 congregations to 1,152.

• The first German Baptist (Dunker) congregation in the state forms near Muddy Creek in present-day Forsyth County, (date approximate).

• July 29, The American Army began employing chaplains, making theirs the oldest branch of army after the Infantry.

1776

• Black Baptist churches organize in the Virginia cities of Williamsburg and Petersburg.

• Separate Baptist Revival of the South; Began: Wed, Jan 1, 1755, Ended: Tue, Dec 31, 1776.

1777

• William Carey apprenticed to the shoemaking trade.

1779

• William Carey attended prayer-meeting that changed his life, February 10.

• Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson introduces bill for religious freedom.

1780

• Organization of Freewill Baptists in New Hampshire.

1781

• Constitution date listed in John Asplund's 1794 Baptist Register for “Negro Baptist Church - York and James City Counties”.

• The First Baptist Church of Manchester was formally organized on June 22, 1781 under the name “The Church of Jesus Christ in Manchester” by Elder Nathan Mason and a delegation from the Baptist Church of Lanesborough, Massachusetts. The fellowship that signed the sixteen articles of faith drawn up as a covenant were one hundred and ten members from Manchester and eighty-two from Dorset.

• Severn's Valley, constituted June 18, 1781. Members 37

1782

• George Liele is considered to be the first American missionary. As pastor of the First African Church of Savannah, Ga., hearing that the British were declaring peace with the colonies, Liele indentured himself to a British officer in order not to be re-enslaved by his former master's heirs. He and his family moved to Kingston, Jamaica. After two years he had paid back his indenture and was able to devote all his energy to preaching. With four other former American slaves, he formed the First African Baptist Church of Kingston. In 10 years the church grew to over 500 members.

1783

• John Ryland baptized William Carey in the River Nene and Carey later joined a Baptist church in Olney. 30 years later Ryland wrote the following: "On October 5, 1783, I baptized in the Nene, just beyond Dodridge's meeting house, a poor journeyman shoemaker, little thinking that before 9 years elapsed he would prove the first instrument of forming a society for sending missionaries from England to the heathen world, and much less that later he would become professor of languages in an Oriental College, and the translator of the Scriptures into 11 different tongues."

1784

• The Baptist General Association of Virginia was dissolved and replaced by a General Committee made up of delegates from the district associations.

• The Georgia Baptist Association, the state’s first, is formed.

1785

• Baptist General Committee meetings met to discuss grievances having to do with religious liberty.

• Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Liberty was adopted by the General Assembly (Baptist General Association of Virginia), and Virginia became the first state to establish by statute the separation of church and state.

• The minutes of the Broad Run Baptist Church (Abbeville County, SC) state that on October the 25th several families including the Shurley's and the Foster's where dismissed to go south. These families traveled to Abbeville County, South Carolina and the Turkey Creek Baptist Church was organized on January the 29th in 1785.

• Baptists held aloof from the Great Awakening, but thousands of converted Congregationalists turned Baptist and these Separate Baptists won the South. In Virginia, Regular and Separate Baptists, having co-operated in a successful struggle for religious liberty, united in 1785. Widespread revivals after the Revolution brought multitudes into their ranks. Religious enthusiasm and dearth of educated ministers caused hundreds of illiterates to enter the ministry and a widespread aversion to educated ministers and to every form of denominational work resulted.

1786

• William Carey is called to the ministry at Olney, August 10.

• The first Baptist association in Tennessee, the Holston Association, was founded at the Cherokee Church by several churches which had previously identified themselves with the Sandy Creek Association in North Carolina. The association linked churches for fellowship, discipline, and doctrinal inquiry.
   

1787

• The General Assembly of General Baptists in England sent a petition to Parliament in behalf of abolition of slavery.

• William Carey was formally ordained to the gospel ministry.

• Regular and Separate Baptists in Virginia formed a union, adopting the name "United Baptist Churches of Christ in Virginia." In course of time similar unions were formed in most of the other states in which the southern branch of the Separate Baptists had organizations. A few Separate Baptist churches, however, refused to join in this movement, and they have maintained distinct organizations until the present time.
   

1788

• Andrew Marshall, an African-American, is ordained as pastor of the First Colored Church in Savannah.

• The earliest church organization among them (colored Baptists) was the First African Baptist Church of Savannah, Ga., instituted January 20, 1788, at Brampton's barn, three miles west of Savannah, by Abraham Marshall (white) and Jesse Peter (colored).

1789

• The Middle District Association (Baptist General Association of Virginia) divided, resulting in the constitution of the Roanoke Association (since 1926 called the Pittsylvania). Seventeen churches formerly associated with the Middle District joined with three North Carolina churches in organizing the new association.

• May 31, The first General Baptist sermon in Derby (United Kingdom) was delivered in the open air, on Willow Row, by Rev. Dan Taylor.

1790

• Baptists had grown to 979 churches

• Prince Williams, a freed slave from South Carolina, went to Nassau, Bahamas, where he started Bethel Meeting House. In 1801 he and other Blacks organized the Society of Anabaptists. At age 70 Williams erected St. John's Baptist church and pastored there until he died at age 104. Subsequently, 164 Baptist churches were planted in the Bahamas.

1792

• William Carey and others found The Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen (later named the Baptist Missionary Society) at Kettering.

• William Carey writes Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathen.

• May 30, William Carey preached the Missionary Sermon that founded the Baptist Missionary Society at Friar Lane Baptist Church, Nottingham.

• Andrew Fuller was appointed the first Secretary and William Carey, bound for India, the first missionary.

• The birth of Conventionism is traced to Kettering, England, in October 1792, when the English.

• Baptist Missionary Society was formed, for the purpose of "spreading the Gospel among the heathen nations. Andrew Fuller was appointed the first Secretary and William Carey, bound for India, the first missionary.

• David George left the Silver Bluff, S.C. Baptist Church - the first Black Baptist church in America - to go to Nova Scotia and minister to exiled Blacks there. Later, in 1792, he traveled with 12,000 Black settlers to Sierra Leone, West Africa where Great Britain had established a city of refuge for former slaves. About the same time, Brother Amos, from the Savannah church, sailed for the Bahamas and settled in New Providence, where he planted a church that grew to 850 members by 1812.

1793

• William Carey and Dr. John Thomas were appointed Baptist missionaries to India by the British Society for the Evangelization of the Heathen.

• In 1793, there were only three (known) Baptist ministers west of Albany. By 1798, fifteen were laboring. Nearly all were connected with the Otsego Association.

1794

• Arthur Durham and David McGladery petitioned the Turkey Creek Baptist Church for the privilege of collecting members about them to see if they were "ripe for constitution." On July the 14th 1794 the Poplar Springs Baptist Church was organized in Ware Shoals County, South Carolina.

1796

• William Carey Baptized a Portuguese, his first convert.

• August 28, William Ward was baptised at George Street Baptist Church, Hull.

1797

• Formation of English Baptist Home Mission Society.

• Baptist Itinerant society formed.

• John Leland speaks on abolition of slavery.

1799

• Formation of Baptist Union of Wales.

• May 24, William Ward embarks on the American sailing ship 'Criterion' for Serampore, India for missionary work.

1800

• At least 48 Baptist Associations existed and became interested in foreign missions.

• January 10, William Carey moved to Serampore.

• December 28, Baptized Krishna Pal, first Bengali convert.

• William Carey elected Professor of Sanskrit and Bengali languages in Williams College.

1801

• William Carey completes the New Testament in Bengali, February 7.

• The General Association of General Baptists dates to the work of Benoni Stinson. He was a member of a United Baptist group formed in Kentucky by the union of Separate Baptists and Regular Baptists. These United Baptists adopted an article of faith that allowed Arminian preaching, which emphasized free will, not predestination.

1802

• Organization of Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society, the first state convention to be organized in America.

• The principles of Conventionism were borrowed from our English Baptist Brethren and born in America, when the Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society was organized to "extend the influence of the Gospel. Article IV states: The object of this society shall be to furnish occasional preaching and to promote the knowledge of evangelic truth in the new settlements within these United States; or farther if circumstances should render it proper.

• General Conference of Seventh Day Baptists created.

• The First African Church multiplied until 1802, when on the 26th of December the Second Baptist Church, Savannah, GA, (colored) was organized with two hundred members.

1803

• The Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society votes to publish a missionary magazine now known as The American Baptist, the oldest surviving religious magazine in the U.S.

• William Carey, self-supporting missionary organization founded.

1806

• Isaac Backus dies, November 20th.

• Mississippi Baptist Association organized (preliminary).

1807

• Doctor of Divinity conferred to William Carey by Brown University of U.S.A.

• William Carey becomes a member of Bengali Asiatic Society.

1808

• Organization of the Baptist Church of Christ in Tennessee.

• William Carey publishes New Testament in Sanskrit.

1809

• William Carey completes translation of Bible in Bengali, June 24.

• Adoniram Judson, the same year he joined the Congregational church, became burdened to become a missionary. He found some friends from Williams College with the same burden and often met with them at a haystack on the college grounds to earnestly pray for the salvation of the heathen and petition God to open doors of ministry as missionaries to them. That spot has been marked as the birthplace of missions in America.

1810

• Robert B. Semple publishes "A History of The Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia".

• Adoniram Judson helped form the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Misions.

1811

• William Carey publishes New Testament in Marathi.

• American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions appointed Judson a missionary to the east.

1812

• Adoniram and Ann Judson (after having only been married for 2 weeks) along with Samuel and Harriet Newell sailed for India on the Caravan.

• A Congregationalist and paedo-Baptist, Adoniram was convinced believer's baptism was the only Biblically correct view and was converted. His wife, Ann was not immediately convinced but later was.

• Jacob Bowers is converted. Two years later, Jacob became a Baptist minister. In his long, hardworking life, he rode over forty thousand miles carrying the gospel to others, organizing churches and ordaining new ministers. He had to overcome serious opposition from Baptists opposed to mission work.

1813

• Organization of General Union of Baptist Ministers and Churches in England, forerunner of Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland.

• Luther Rice was an appointed Congregational missionary, who like his contemporary. Arrives in Georgia to promote foreign missions.

• Adoniram Judson, became a convinced Baptist after leaving America. After his baptism in Calcutta, Rice set sail back to America for the purpose of gathering support for the mission effort among Baptists.

• Adoniram and Ann (Nancy) Judson were forced to leave Madras, India and boarded the only ship in harbor ready to sail, which was bound for Rangoon, Burma; they arrived at that port July 13, 1813. It would be 6 years before they would baptize their first convert.
  Conversion of Adoniram Judson to Baptist principles.

1814

• Formation of the Triennial Convention (General Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States for Foreign Missions) in Philadelphia. Convened in order to pool resources for the support of Baptist foreign missionaries Luther Rice and Adoniram Judson. A completely voluntary organization that exercised no control over matters of theology. Its sole purpose was he financial support of foreign missions, and upporters of its work could be found in local churches nd associations throughout Southern and Northern tates. In response to appeals made by Luther Rice, among American Baptists, to raise support for Adoniram Judson in India, "The General Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States for Foreign Missions" was organized May 1814 at Philadelphia. Because this convention met every three years, it came to be known as "The Triennial Convention".

• Organization of the Irish Missionary Society.

• American Baptist Home Mission Society.

• American Baptist Publication Society.

• First recorded baptism of a Chinese convert, Cai Gao; American Baptist Foreign Mission Society formed.

• Netherlands Bible Society founded; four Native Americans from beyond the Rocky Mountains come east to St. Louis seeking information on the "palefaces' religion".

• First missionaries arrive in New Zealand led by Samuel Marsden.

• First recorded baptism of a Chinese convert, Cai Gao.

• Lott Carey, a Black Baptist missionary, sails with 28 colleagues from Norfolk, VA to Sierra Leone.
   

1815

• Lott Carey was born a slave in Virginia. He became pastor of the 800-member African Baptist Church in Richmond, Va., and in 1815 led in the formation of the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society. After collecting $700, Carey and his wife sailed for Sierra Leone in 1821 and established a mission among the mandingoes. He dies in 1828 during a battle with inhabitants in Liberia. Carey is credited with being the first American missionary to Africa.

• William Carey publishes New Testament in Punjabi.

1816

• American Bible Society founded.

1817

• Organization of the Church of God by John Winebrenner in Philadelphia.

• Peck and Welch sent out as home missionaries to the Middle West by the Triennial Convention.

• James Thompson begins distributing Bibles throughout Latin America.

• General Baptist Missionary Society formed.

• The Mississippi Baptist Association convened with Bogue Chitto church, Pike county, October 18th to 21st. David Cooper preached the opening sermon from II Timothy, 2:15. Letters from thirty-one churches were received and read. The moderator and clerk were David Cooper and Benjamin Davis. Five churches asked for admission, as follows: Vermion, New Chapel, Canaan, Green's Creek and the First Church of Natchez. A. Harper and H. Tilman were from New Chapel; J. Stringer and W. Cooper from Green's Creek, while B. Davis and N. Robinson came from Natchez. No names are given from Vermion and Canaan. The Lord's day services were conducted by Elders Scarborough, Davis, Ranaldson and Courtney.

1818

• Founding of Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution in New York.

• William Carey publishes Old Testament in Sanskrit.

• Mississippi Baptist Association meeting was with New Providence church, Amite county, commencing October 17th. Elder Josiah Flowers delivered the first sermon, his text being Matt. 16: 17, 18. Thirty-one churches were represented, and eight others received, as follows: Pinckneyville, Sharon, Dilling's Creek, Beulah, Bala Chitto, Silver Creek, east of Pearl river, Friendship and New Orleans. The messengers were: T. Hunter and J. Ellsberry, from Pinckneyville; J. A. Ranaldson and E. Estes, from Sharon; J, P. Martin and J. Barnes, from Dilling's Creek; H. Bond and William Cook, from Bala Chitto; William Sparks and William Stamps, from Silver Creek, east of Pearl; T. Matthews, from Beulah; N.Williams, from Friendship, and B. Davis, from New Orleans.

1819

• Organization of the first Baptist church in France.

• June 27, Judson baptized the first Burmese believer, Moung Nau. Judson jotted in his journal: "Oh, may it prove to be the beginning of a series of baptisms in the Burman empire which shall continue in uninterrupted success to the end of the age."

1820

• William Carey publishes Marathi Old Testament.

• Charles Finney and the Second Great Awakenings.

1821

• The Sabbath Recorder (Seventh Day Baptist) created, an unbroken publication since 1844.

• Serampore college opened (William Carey).

1822

• The Georgia Baptist Convention is organized on June 29.

1824

• Organization in Washington, D. C. of the Baptist General Tract Society, now known as the American Baptist Publication Society.

1825

• Founding of Newton Theological Institution near Boston, oldest Baptist Seminary in America.

• William Carey Completes Dictionary of Bengali and English.

• The Bethel Baptist Association, located in and around Logan County, Kentucky, was formed in answer to a controversy. A contentious spirit of disagreement had lately begun to enter the Red River Association concerning the issues of limited atonement and the preaching of the gospel to the unregenerate.

1826

• Origin of Old Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists, (date approximate).

• Government gave William Carey "Grant in Aid" for education.

• The Division of the Red River Association, written by a committee of the following: Reuben Ross, Pastor of Spring Creek West Fork, William Tandy, ordained Minister of Bethel, Sugg Fort, pastor of Red River.

• William Cathcart (Baptist Historian, author) was born in the County of Londonderry, in the north of Ireland, November 8.

1827

• Thomas Walsh becomes the first recorded recipient of an educational scholarship from the Georgia Baptist Convention.

• Campbellites and Separate Baptists division in Auburn Baptist Church, Cannon County, TN. Although combined at the beginning, divided and held separate services. Elder Clark Hubbard and others went over to the Campbellites while the United Baptists (as the Regular Baptists were then called) remained with Salem Association and Separatists affiliated with Concord No. 2 of Separate Baptists.

1829

• Suttee (former Indian funeral practice in which the widow immolated herself on her husband’s funeral pyre) prohibited thru William Carey's efforts, December 4.

• As early as December 26, 1829, John Smith, James Smith, Charles Polk, David Patrick, Rhoda Shields and Mary Ross met for consultation concerning the organization of a Baptist church. As a result of this preliminary meeting, these same parties and probably others, met on February 20, 1830, and perfected an organization, assisted by John Knight and John Lemon from Deer Creek Baptist church, and Elder Samuel Arthur of Wea church. James Smith was chosen permanent moderator and Charles Polk, clerk of the church. The name, Eel River Baptist church, was adopted, often designated as the First Baptist church. Meetings were held in private houses and the Old Seminary, a brick structure, the first public building erected in Logansport, on the northeast corner of Market and Fourth streets. Elder .James Smith administered to the spiritual wants of the society once or twice a month at these meetings, assisted by Elder William Berry, until 1838, when Elder William Corbin was employed. The latter continued with the congregation until his death, November 8. 1841, only thirty-two years of age. His wife died the month previous and both lie at rest in the old cemetery.

• The great need of the Baptists was an educated ministry. Many of their most vigorous and aggressive ministers had gone over to the Reformers. A number of the enterprising ministers and laymen of the Baptist persuasion petitioned the state legislature, in January, 1829, for a charter incorporating a board of trustees called ''The Kentucky Baptist Educational Society." This charter was granted. The society had in view the establishment of a college under the control of Kentucky Baptists.

1830

• Alexander Campbell drew many Baptist Churches into the Disciples of Christ.

• The Executive Committee of the Georgia Baptist Convention is chartered.

1831

• Organization of Adventists by William Miller.

1832

• The American Baptist Home Mission Society was organized in the Meeting House of the Mulberry Street Baptist Church, New York, New York, on Friday April 27, 1832, during an adjournment of the Triennial Convention. Article II of its Constitution states: "The great object of the Society shall be to promote the preaching of the Gospel in North America," H. C. Vedder in "A Short History of the Baptists" (page 328) states: ...During its earliest years, Elder Peck [John Mason Peck] was the Home Mission Society in the West - its visible embodiment, its chief advisor, and local executive...

• William Knibb's agitation against the slave traffic in the British Colonial Empire.

• The Baptist Irish Society and British and Irish Baptist Home Mission formed.

• Adoniram Judson translates the New Testament into Burmese.

1833

• New Hampshire Confession written to combat the Arminianism of Free-will Baptists.

• Baptist work in Thailand begins with John Taylor Jones.

• Free-Will Baptist Foreign Missionary Society begins work in India.

• The Christian Index moves to Georgia.

1834

• Organization of the first Australian Baptist church in Sydney.

• William Carey died at age 73 on June 9. He was surrounded by Jabez and William Carey (his sons) who were both also missionaries as well as Jonathan Carey who had finally gotten saved after much prayers by his father.

• Adoniram Judson completes a translation of the whole Bible into the Burmese language.

• In October 1834, twenty-two members of the Rogers Crossroads Baptist Church, which is now Wake Crossroads Baptist Church, left their church (in good standing) to constitute a regular Baptist church in Rolesville. On December 26, 1834, a presbytery consisting of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Wait, the Rev. Amos J. Battle, and the Rev. John Armstrong met with the twenty-two dismissed members of the Rogers Crossroads Church in Rolesville. The Rev. John Armstrong delivered the first sermon. The Rev. Dr. Samuel Wait, of Wake Forest College, gave the prayer of blessing and extended the welcoming right hand of fellowship to the members of the newly constituted church.

1835

• Organization of the Primitive Baptists in New York and Pennsylvania.

• Appointment of Oneken as an agent for the Triennial Convention in Germany.

• North Carolina Baptist State Convention appoints a committee “to consider the establishment of a female seminary of high order.”

• Finney's Lectures on Revivals.

1836

• The Providence Missionary Baptist District Association was formed, one of at least six national organizations among African American Baptist whose sole objective was African missions.

• Plymouth Brethren begin work in Madras, India.

• George Müller begins his work with orphans in Bristol, England.

• The Providence Missionary Baptist District Association is formed, one of at least six national organizations among African Baptists whose sole objective was missionary work in Africa.

1837

• Organization of the American and Foreign Bible Society in Philadelphia by Baptists.

1838

• Thomas Meredith, founder of the Biblical Recorder, calls for an institution to provide "a first-rate course of female education."

1839

• Organization of the first Danish Baptist church.

1840

• Formation of the Bible Translation Society in England.

• The Convention accepts ownership of The Christian Index.

• Rev. Isaac McCoy, a Baptist clergyman, published "History of Baptist Indian Missions; embracing remarks on the former and present condition of the aboriginal tribes, their settlement within the Indian Territory, and their future prospects.

1841

• Organization of the first Lithuanian Baptist church under Oncken's guidance.
   

1842

• Campbellites and Separate Baptists who divided in 1827 at the Auburn Baptist Church, reunited into one body representing the Concord Association.

• Micajah Cicero Barnett was pastor of the Gilead Baptist Church (Grindal Shoals, Union Co., South Carolina 1770 – 1870) in 1863 and continued in this capacity through 1866. He was ordained to the gospel ministry by the Cedar Spring Baptist Church in Spartanburg County, S. C., on December 24, 1842.

1843

• American and Foreign Free Baptist Missionary Society organized by abolitionists in Boston.

• A Baptist pastor from Vermont named William Miller calculated that Christ's second coming would occur this year. He later revised the date to 1844. The Seventh Day Adventist church started from these false predictions.

• Baptist John Taylor Jones translates New Testament into Siamese.

• B. H. Carroll, pastor of the First Baptist church, Waco, Texas, and associate editor of the Texas Baptist, was born December, in Carroll Co., Miss.

1845

• Baptists split North and South, never re-united.

• On May 8, 1845 about 293 Baptist leaders of the South, met in the First Baptist Church, Augusta, Georgia and organized the Southern Baptist Convention. While this division between Northern and Southern Baptists was several years in the making, the final catalyst came in 1844, when Georgia Baptists were refused an appointment for a missionary, who was a slaveholder. Later that same year, Alabama Baptists asked if the American Baptist Home Mission Society would appoint a slaveholder as Missionary, the answer was no. This resulted in Virginia Baptists calling for Baptists of the South to meet at Augusta, Georgia in early May, 1845.

• The Triennial Convention renamed American Baptist Missionary Union.

• Southern Baptist Convention formed, splitting from the Triennial Convention in support of slavery because of opposition to appointing slave holding missionaries by the Triennial Convention.

• International Mission Board, originally referred to as the Foreign Mission Board, is founded.

• William Bullein Johnson, of South Carolina, becomes the first President of the Southern Baptist convention.

• Jeremiah Bell Jeter called the first meeting of the Board of Managers of the International Mission Board. The members gathered in the library of Second Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia. Their primary concern was to secure a permanent Corresponding Secretary.

• May 20, Jeremiah Bell Jeter called the first meeting of the Board of Managers. The members gathered in the library of Second Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia. Their primary concern was to secure a permanent Corresponding Secretary.

• June 30, China was chosen as the first mission field.

• September 1, the board appointed the first missionary, Samuel C. Clopton.

1846

• The Baptist General Missionary Convention reorganizes as the American Baptist Missionary Union (ABMU).

• James Robinson Graves organized the Nashville Indian and Missionary Association.

• James B. Taylor (1846-1871) was appointed the first Corresponding Secretary of Foreign Mission Board.

• The Foreign Mission Board appointed two African-Americans to serve in Liberia. Brother John Day occupied a mission station at Grand Bassa and Brother A. L. Jones at Cape Palmas on the west coast of Africa.

• The board appointed the first medical missionary, Dr. J. Sexton James, to serve in China.

• The monthly publication, Southern Baptist Missionary Journal, began.

• William Catchart was baptized by Rev. R. H. Carson, of Tubbermore, in January.

1848

• Establishment of the first Baptist church in Sweden.

• The design of Baptist associations was discussed by members of the Bethal Baptist Association, as it relates to the church, S. Baker, pastore of Russellville. The author stresses that a church ought always to retain her independence while cooperating with other sister churches in the Lord's work.

1849

• Beginning of Baptist work in Hungary.

• Robert Hill was sent to Liberia by the Southern Baptist Convention.

• The board began publication of The Commission. Monthly circulation of the periodical reached 7,000 by April 1850.

• The board’s first single woman, Miss Harriet A. Baker of Powhatan County, Virginia, was appointed to China.

1850

• Organization of the American Bible Union.

• Mary Sharp College for Women Winchester, TN is organized.

• Adoniram Judson dies and is buried at sea in the Bay of Bengal on April 12.

1851

• Organization of the first New Zealand Baptist church.

• James Robinson Graves is a leader in the Landmark movement as it seeks to make its ideology predominant in Southern Baptist life.

1852

• Gustaf baptized three converts in the Mississippi River at Rock Island, thus forming the Swedish Baptist Church which later became known as the Baptist General Conference. They consider this the date at which their denomination came into being.

1853

• John Mason Peck urged the creation of the American Baptist Historical Society, an adjunct of the American Baptist Publication Society.

1854

• Hudson Taylor was the only passenger in the sailing vessel, Dumfries. He had a tempestuous voyage as the ship on two occasions was within a few feet of being wrecked. One harrowing experience is worth remembering. The sailing vessel was becalmed in the vicinity of New Guinea. The captain despaired as a four knot current carried them swiftly toward sunken reefs near shore. "Our fate is sealed!" Cannibals were eagerly awaiting with delight and fires burning ready. Taylor and three others retired to pray and the Lord immediately sent a strong breeze that sent them on their way. Again one of his favorite texts, John 14:13 was proven. He finally reached Shanghai, China, March 1.

1855

• The German Baptist Church of Wilmington was founded by Rev. Jeremiah Grimmell, who in 1855 devoted his leisure to fostering the religious interests of the German Baptists, whom he invited to meet at his house, where he conducted worship. At the first service there were thirteen persons present, and these comprised the original members of the German Baptist Church, which was organized in 1856. His house being too small to accommodate those attracted by his preaching, Rev. Grimmell was offered a room in the residence of John Swager, corner Fourth and Pine Streets, where services were continued for quite a period. Rev. Leonard Fleishman preached to the converts of Mr. Grimmell on several occasions and encouraged him in his religious labors. In March, 1856, nine of them were baptized in the Second Baptist Church. Through the efforts of Miss Annie Semple, who manifested a zealous interest in the work, the church corner of Fifth and Walnut Streets was purchased for three thousand dollars. Here the congregation was organized April 17, 1856, by Rev. Mr. Grimmell and his wife, Edward Austermúhl, John Mühlhausen and Sophia, his wife, John Swager and Elizabeth, his wife, Peter Braunstein and Susan, his wife, Frederick Neutze, Mrs. Elizabeth Kaiser, Mrs. Theresa Herzel and Catherine Braunstein. A Sunday-school was also organized the same year.

1856

• Spurgeon leased the Surrey Music Hall in the Royal Surrey Gardens for services. This was London's "largest, most commodious and most beautiful building, erected for public amusements, carnivals of wild beasts and wilder men." Many criticized Spurgeon for leasing a building designed for worldly amusements, but the hall held ten to twelve thousand people and that number packed the building for the first service on this day, October 19th. It seemed at least as many people were outside the building as were inside. The service had only gone a few minutes when there was the frightening cry of "Fire! the galleries are giving away, the place is falling!" In the ensuing panic to flee the building, many people were trampled. Seven died and others were seriously injured. Spurgeon was tremendously depressed over the event, and his grief was so deep some feared his reason had left him. He spent hours "in tears by day, and dreams of terror by night." Within two weeks, however, Spurgeon had recovered sufficiently to preach again. The crowds were even bigger than before.

1857

• An effort is made to establish a Southern Baptist Sunday School Union. James Robinson Graves is a leader in this effort.

1858

• Through strong opposition the Southern Baptist Sunday School Union is finally organized.

1859

• Southern Baptist Theological Seminary opens in Greenville, SC. Among the first professors is John Albert Broadus.

1860

• Approximately 12,000 Baptist Churches in America.

• Organization of the first Baptist church in Norway.

1861

• First baptism on Latvian soil.

• 1861-1865 – Throughout the Civil War the Foreign Mission Board continued limited operations in China and Africa and most missionaries were self-supporting.

• Tai Ping rebels in Yentai, Shantung Province, China, murdered Missionary J. Landrum Holmes.

• In the spring of 1861, the Metropolitan Tabernacle was completed; this was to be Spurgeon's pulpit for the next thirty-one years.

• Throughout those years an average of five thousand people attended each morning and evening Sunday service. Spurgeon's was the megachurch of nineteenth century London.

1864

• Baptists enter Argentina.

• B. H. Carroll becomes a believer.

1865

• Fusion of the Bible Translation Society and the Irish Missionary Society into the British and Irish Baptist Home Mission Society.

• The Foreign Mission Board had no available funds so the Treasurer was authorized to charge to profit and loss the Confederate bonds so as to balance his books.

• Exhortation to enter the work with renewed energy in light of the war having ended, G. W. Inman, pastor of Spring Creek Baptist church (Bethel Baptist Association)

• B. H. Carroll is ordained.

• The first African-American Baptist associations in Georgia were established.

• Francis Wayland dies, September 30th.

1868

• Mission Society by the American Baptist Missionary Union.

• In the proceedings of the First Baptist Antioch Association which met in December, 1868, we find the appointment of a Missionary Board, which was empowered to appoint missionaries and fix their salaries. Thus showing that they realized their responsibility in helping to carry out the great commission.

• Begins the journey of Baptist Women in Ministry.

• Women, it would seem did not actually attend the annual meeting of the SBC until 1868, when the convention was in Baltimore. Even then they were not there as messengers. Most were there to accompany their husbands but they held a separate meeting in the home of Mrs. Ann Graves, who read to the gathering some letters from her son Rosewell Graves, a missionary to China. Rosewell's letter talked of the need for women missionaries in China, for custom there required women to reach Chinese women for Christ (Southern Baptist Sisters: in Search of Status, 1845-2000, p.53, by David T. Morgan.

• Canadian Baptist missionary Americus Timpany begins work among the Telugus in India.

1869

• Formation of the Baptist Union of Scotland.

• Organization of the first Baptist church in Finland.

• On July 12, 1869, one year after the organization of the first associational gathering The Baptist Missionary Convention, now known as The General Baptist Missionary Convention of Mississippi, held its first session at Port Gibson. Revs. R. Pollard and H. P. Jacobs were elected temporary and permanent presidents, respectively. An account of this gathering appears in Thompson's History and shows prominent Baptist preachers from Missouri and Louisiana were visitors.

1870

• Southern Baptists undertake work in Italy.

• Southern Baptist Convention opposes efforts to reunite boards of the North and South.

1871

• Organization of the Woman's Baptist Foreign Mission Society (forerunners to the Board of International Ministries (BIM) of the ABC/USA)(East.

• Mercer University moves from Penfield, GA where it was founded in 1833.

• James B. Taylor died (Foreign Missions Board).

• The first Baptist church was organized in Brazil, on the 10th of September, 1871, in the City of Santa Barbara, State of São Paulo. This was a church founded by North-American colonists who, after the Secession War (1861-1865) established several colonies in Brazil. In Santa Barbara the Presbyterians, the Methodists and the Baptists organized churches.

• Lottie Moon becomes a Georgia Baptist while teaching in Cartersville.

1872

• Benajah Harvey Carroll began his teaching of Theology and Bible at Baylor University. He taught until 1905 when he started organizing the Baylor Theological Seminary.

1873

• Lottie Charlotte Moon is appointed missionary to China on July 7 by the Foreign Mission Board, Southern Baptist Convention.

1875

• In view of the Centennial year of our national independence, the Baptist Ministerial Union, of Pennsylvania, appointed Dr. Cathcart to prepare a paper, to be read at their meeting in Meadville in 1876, on "The Baptists in the Revolution." This paper, by enlargement, became a duodecimo volume, entitle "The Baptists and the American Revolution."

1876

• September 13th, Dr. James M. Haswell died after forty-one years of missionary service in Burma with his dear wife Jane Mason, who he had married on August 23, 1835, and sailed for their chosen field one month later. He was more fruit from the Hamilton Theological Institute in Bennington, Vermont. Dr.Haswell mastered the Burmese language and then turned to the Pegulan dialect to reach the 80,000 of that tribe. He only took two furloughs, one in 1849 and another in 1867, and those were used to spur interest in missions. He was most diligent that his son James should follow him which he did, but tragically died of cholera a year after him in 1877. But the Haswell vision lived on through their daughter Susan who founded the Maulmein Leper Colony in which she invested sixty years of her life. The government gave the land and the lepers themselves built the thatched roof buildings with, in some cases, stumps for hands and feet. It stood for years as a memorial to her and the faith of the lepers. Untold thousands were saved.

• On Tuesday, October 24, 45 delegates, from 23 churches, met at Goshen Bridge and organized the Augusta Baptist Association. Twenty-four churches from the counties of Allegheny, Augusta, Bath, Rockbridge, and Rockingham formed the Association, 10 of the churches coming from the Valley Association and 14 from the Albemarle Association.

1877

• Organization of the Women's Baptist Home Mission Society of the East; also organization of the Women's Baptist Home Mission Society of the West.

• The Georgia State Mission board is constituted.

• Second meeting of Augusta Association, held at Laurel Hill.

1879

• Important decision of the Southern Baptist Convention to maintain its organization apart from the American Baptist Missionary Union.
  Beginning of first permanent mission work in Spain.

• Baptist Foreign Mission merged and formed the National Baptist Convention USA.

• Brazil was being considered as a Mission field.

• Another church was organized for North-American colonists, called Station Baptist Church, also in Santa Barbara, and in this same year Elijah Hoton Quillin, pastor of the first church in Santa Barbara, wrote to Richmond, affirming his desire to be recognized as a self-sustaining missionary, for the purpose of carrying on missionary work in the surrounding country, both among emigrants from the Unites States and native Brazilians.

• Fourth meeting of Association, held at Mt. Crawford.

   

1880

• Bacone College founded to meet the education needs of Native Americans.

1882

• Organization of the Baptist Union of New Zealand.

1883

• Bible controversy settled in the Bible Convention at Saratoga, N. Y.

• G. B. Rogers was educated at Mississippi College. His ordination to the ministry occurred December 23, 1883, in the Baptist church at Clinton, Miss., the ordaining council being composed of Elders W. S. Webb, J. B. Gambrell, A. V. Rowe, J. W. Collins, T. J. Walne and George Whitfield. His first pastorate was at Woodville, Miss., where he served two years, afterwards accepting an appointment by the State Mission Board as missionary on the Mississippi Valley Railroad.

1884

• Immersion of first Baptists in Estonia.

• The Baptist Woman’s Missionary Union of Georgia is established.

1885

• The Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) was formed as the merger of two Texas Baptist organizations.

1886

• Fannie Exile Scudder Heck is President of the Woman's Missionary Union of North Carolina from its beginning in January.

1888

• Organization of the American Baptist Education Society at Washington, D. C.

• American Baptist Education Society founded to promote higher education, Becomes the American Baptist Board of Education (ABBE) (a forerunner of the Board of Educational Ministries (BEM) of the ABC/USA.

• Lottie Moon is able to have the first Christmas offering started. This offering provided support for three additional persons to aid Lottie Moon in China.

1889

• Southern Baptist work in Japan actually begun.

• After a delay due to the Civil War and Reconstruction as well as the general lack of interest in women's education, Leonidas Polk introduces a resolution to the Convention for a Baptist female college. His resolution is adopted unanimously.

1890

• Dr. J.M Frost considers starting a publishing house just for Southern Baptists.

1891

• Formation of the Baptist Union for Great Britain and Ireland; a merger of the Particular Baptists and the New Connexion of General Baptists.

• James Marion Frost goes to Nashville, TN to begin his secretariship of the Sunday School Board. He founded the Sunday Lifeway Christian Resources is founded.

• Organization of the Baptist Young People's Union of America.

• The state legislature grants a charter for the Baptist Female University.

1893

• Participation of Baptists in the National Free Church Council in England.

• Landmark leader, J.R. Graves, died in Memphis.

• The Baptist Sunday School Board begins the practice of contributing funds toward the support of other denominational agencies.

• Dr. T. P. Bell is elected second chief executive.

• To raise money for the Baptist Female University, Oliver Larkin Stringfield begins traveling across the state and Fannie E. S. Heck organizes the Woman's Executive Committee of the Baptist Female University.

1894

• Fortress Monroe (VA) Conference: agreement between Baptists of North and South recognizing territorial limits; eased tensions caused by work of the ABPS and the ABHMS in South

1895

• The National Baptist Convention. Several Baptist organizations combined to form the National Baptist Convention of the U.S.A.; the Baptist church is the largest black religious denomination in the United States.

• William Heth Whitsett is President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

1896

• WMU adopted the Sunbeams, the children’s missions organization begun in 1886 by the Foreign Mission Board.

• Dr. J.M. Frost is re-elected as chief executive.

1897

• Christian Flag is created on Sunday September 26. The speaker for a Sunday School Rally at Brighton Chapel in Coney Island, NY does not show up. This impromptu opportunity for Charles C. Overton to fill the space gave way to the flag. There was an American flag draped across the pulpit he spoke from, thus inspiring him to discuss its symbolism. The symbolism was then stressed as necessary for the Christians to also have a flag that expresses their presence in the world.

1898

• The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) formed a Centennial Committee for preparation of the new century.

• Baptist Sunday School Board publishes its first book, a venture which later results in Broadman Press.

• Salem Baptist Church (Dobson, NC) was organized on December 26, 1898, by a Presbytery composed of C.H. Stone, chairman, A.J. Williams, spokesman, and C.L. Jarvis, clerk. Some of the first members were S.L. Edmonds, Allen Kidd, J.E. Edmonds and Lucy Kidd. C.H. Stone was elected the first pastor. Services were held in the old Edmonds one-room schoolhouse during the winter and under a brush arbor in the summer.

1899

• Edgar Young Mullins becomes President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He, without consent, succeeds William Heth Whisitt.

• Baptist Female University opens in September with nineteen faculty/staff members and more than 200 students. James C. Blasingame is president. A college year is three terms of three months each. Room and board costs $36 per term, and tuition is $17.50, with additional fees for music and art.

1900

• The SBC Committee suggested a continuing Committee on Co-Operation to come up with a plan to more efficiently raise and disburse funds.

1901

• Missionary work undertaken in the Philippines.

• Central Baptist Theological Seminary is founded.

1904

• Baptist Sunday School Board's first published hymnal helps standardize worship in Southern Baptist churches.

• Trustees change name from Baptist Female University to Baptist University for Women. Baptist University for Women Students publish the first yearbook, Oak Leaves.

1905

• Organization of the Baptist World Alliance in London.

1906

• Union of Freewill and Particular Baptists in the United Baptist Convention of Canada, possibly as early as 1905.

1907

• Formation of the Northern Baptist Convention; attempt to integrate work of various special-purpose societies (now the American Baptist Churches, USA).

• A general meeting of all the three societies-Foreign, Home and Publication-met to set up the Northern Baptist Convention.

• Laymen’s Missionary Union of the Southern Baptist Convention organize. Purpose was for world mission. A counterpart to the already established Women’s Missionary Union (WMU).

• Southern and Northern Baptist Conventions formally divided the country following WW II, the SBC abandoned regional limitations and spread across the country.

1908

• The first Congress of European Baptists, meeting at Berlin.

• The Annie Walker Armstrong building in Burnsville, NC was dedicated in appreciation for her service.

• Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is founded.

• Baptist Historical Society founded.

1909

• Union of the two Women's Home Mission Societies into the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society (WABHMS).

1910

• The American Baptist Missionary Union (ABMU) becomes the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (ABFMS).

• First known paid Sunday School Superintendent (pastoral staff),1st Baptist, Dallas.

• Southwestern Theological Seminary moves to Fort Worth, TX.

1911

• Merger of the Free Will Baptists with the Northern Baptist Convention.

• The Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board (M&M) founded.

• Second Congress of Baptist World Alliance at Philadelphia.

1912

• December 24, Death came to the frail servant of Christ, Lottie Moon, on Christmas Eve aboard ship in the harbor of Kobe, Japan.

1913

• Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission is founded.

1914

• The Commission on Efficiency established to improve the plans and methods of SBC.

• Candler School of Theology is founded. School joins with Emory in 1915.

1915

• World Wide Guild founded.

• Founded in 1913 in Nanjing, China as a women's Christian college, Ginling College officially opens with eight students and six teachers.  It was supported by four missions: the Northern Baptists, the Disciples of Christ, the Methodists, and the Presbyterians.

1916

• M.H. Wolfe of the SBC moved to amend and revise articles of the Constitution in order to create one strong executive board.

• I.J. Van Ness is elected third chief executive of the Baptist Sunday School Board.

1917

• Executive Commitee formed to oversee all SBC ministries.

• New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary is founded.

• James Bruton Gambrell is elected president of the SBC.

• 1917 Oswald Chambers (b. 1874), Scottish Bible teacher and evangelical mystic, died. The son of a Scottish Baptist pastor, Chambers was converted after hearing C. H. Spurgeon preach. While studying for the Baptist ministry, Chambers met William Quarrier and from him learned a simplicity of faith and prayer. For three years he worked as a traveling missioner for the Pentecostal League of Prayer (founded by Reader Harris). He then became principal of the League's Bible Training College at Clapham Common in London.  Chambers died in 1917 in Egypt after two years of working as a YMCA chaplain among the desert troops. He was a man of mystic faith and intense prayer who taught that the Christian life was to be a victorious one. His most important book is his classic devotional "My Utmost for His Highest", still in print and available in several languages.

1918

• Woman's Baptist Foreign Missions Societies East and West merge to form the Woman's American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (would eventually become the Board of Education Ministries, BIM) Annuity Board is founded.

1919

• White Cross project to help medical missionaries begun. Effects of the Landmark still evident, Baptist Standard editor J.B. Gambrell wrote, "Baptists antedate the Reformation by many long centuries. Spurgeon said with a good view of truth: "Baptists sprang directly from the loins of Christ and his Apostles."

• At Denver convention of the NBC the New World Movement was launched. This was an effort to collect $10 million between 1919-1924. Money was to be used to strengthen Baptist work at home, overseas, and ecumenical projects. The movement was able to raise $45,009,378.04.

• $75 million campaign launched by the Southern Baptist Convention, it was an effort to raise $75 million between the years 1919-1924.

• As with the NBC the SBC didn't have much success because of the world war economy. Raised $58,591,713.69.

• The SBC considers requiring FMB missionary candidates to subscribe to "A Statement of Belief" but rejects the proposal.

1920

• Curtis Lee Laws, editor of the Baptist Watchman-Examiner, coins the term fundamentalist.

• Conservatives in the Northern Baptist Convention organize the Fundamentalist Fellowship to combat spreading liberalism.

• Baptist Mid-Missions formed; Church of the Nazarene enters Syria.

• The Baptist book store operation begins.

• The department of survey, statistics and information begins.

1921

• Helen Barrett Montgomery is elected the first women president of the Northern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana.

1923

• Baptist Bible Union formed.

1924

• Committee on Basis of Representation formed to deal with increased attendance at Southern Baptist conventions.

• Baptist Mid-Missions begins work in Venezuela.

1925

• Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy of the 1920's which marks a time of great debate between the Fundamentalist W.B. Riley and the Modernist George Foster, 1858-1918, Walter Rauschenbusch, 1861-1918.

• Cooperative Program Formed by the Southern Baptist. Encouraged the churches to send their offerings for denominational ministries and state conventions. The states would keep a portion and send the rest to the SBC office in Nashville. It was a victory for the fundamentalist.

• Georgia Baptists adopt the Cooperative Program.

• The 1925 Confession of Faith was adopted despite much opposition.

1926

• Duke University Divinity School is founded.

1927

• George Washington Truett is President of the SBC.

1928

• The SBC issued a statement on Relation of Southern Baptist Convention to Other Baptist Bodies.

• The Baptist Sunday School Board assumes responsibility from the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee for the operation of Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly.

1931

• Baptist Mid-Missions enters Liberia.

1932

• General Association of Regular Baptists formed, leaving Northern Baptists.

1935

• Ministers Council founded.

• T.L. Holcomb is elected fourth chief executive of the Baptist Sunday School Board.

1939

• Lee Rutland Scarborough is President of the Southern Baptist Convention.

1940

• The Broadman Hymnal is produced.

1941

• The church music department of the Baptist Sunday School Board is organized.

1943

• Eleven American Baptist Foreign Mission Society Missionaries die as martyrs for the Gospel of Jesus Christ at Hopevale in the Philippines during WWII.

• Southern Baptist Convention received some California churches into its membership violating the Fortress Monroe Conference committee agreements and beginning the expansion of Southern Baptists into all the United States.

• Organization of the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society; leads to secession from the Northern Baptist Convention in 1947

1944

• Founding of American Baptist Assembly and Green Lake, Wisconsin.

• Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary is founded.

1946

• Following controversy and heated debate, a resolution is passed at Grand Rapids convention stating: "We reaffirm our faith in the New Testament as divinely inspired record and therefore trustworthy, authoritative and all-sufficient rule of our faith and practice..."

• Southern Baptist Foundation is founded.

1947

• Conservative Baptists formed, leaving Northern Baptists.

• Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society begins work among the Senufo tribe in Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast).

1948

• Northern Baptist Convention became constituent member of the World Council of Churches; first assembly held at Amsterdam.

1949

• Southern Baptist Mission opens work in Venezuela.

1950

• Northern Baptist Convention (NBC) changed name to American Baptist Convention (ABC).

• First World Fellowship Offering, now the World Mission Offering, WMO.

• Northern Baptist Convention becomes one of the founding communions of the National Council of Churches of Christ.

• Approximatley 77,000 Baptist Churches.

1951

• First America for Christ Offering collected.

• Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is founded.

1953

• James L. Sullivan is elected fifth chief executive of the Baptist Sunday School Board.

1955

• American Baptist Foreign Mission Society and Woman's American Baptist Foreign Mission.

• Society merge administrative functions leading to a merger in 1968.

• American Baptist Home Mission Society and Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society merge administrative functions.

1956

• Auca Indians kill Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, and Roger Youderian in Ecuador.

1957

• Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is founded.

1961

• Reorganization Plan adopted by American Baptist Convention (making the convention a more coherent and efficient denominational body).

1962

• National offices of American Baptist Convention moved to Valley Forge, PA.

• The SBC at its annual meeting approved a motion to revisit the 1925 Baptist Faith and Message and "present...some similar statement which shall serve as information to the churches." The committee comprised the "presidents of the various state Conventions" (as qualified by Bylaw 18), with the motion also indicating "It is understood that any group or individuals may approach this committee to be of service."

1963

• The SBC adopted a new Baptist Faith and Message, replacing the 1925 version.

1964

• American Baptist Publication Society and the American Baptist Education Society merge to form the American Baptist Board of Education and Publication.

1965

• September 18, the Russian Baptists broke from their forced union with other evangelicals, forming their own organization, the CCECB—the Council of Churches of Evangelical Believers, Baptists.

1966

• Forming of North American Baptist Fellowship.

• Commission on Christian Unity established by General Council of American Baptist Convention.

1968

• In response to "demands" of a Black Caucus, the General Council of the ABC provided for fuller participation in denominational leadership.

• Merger of the ABFMS and the WABFMS completed.

1970

• American Baptist Convention and Progressive National Baptist Convention entered into an "associated relationship".

• The SBC Foreign Mission Board introduces a requirement that missionary candidates respond to a question concerning the Baptist Faith and Message. The question asked is "Are your doctrinal beliefs in substantial agreement with those printed in Baptist Faith & Message (1963) and adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1963?"

1971

• American Baptist Personnel Services founded to help churches find ministerial leadership.

1972

• Implementation of recommendations of Study Commision on Denominational Structure (SCODS); General Council replaced by a more representative 200 member General Board, office of the General Secretary strengthened, and name changed to "American Baptist Churches, USA".

• Under restructuring the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (ABFMS) becomes the Board of International Ministries (BIM), the American Baptist Home Mission Society becomes the Board of National Ministries (BNM), and the American Baptist Board of Education and Publication (ABBEP) becomes the Board of Educational Ministries (BEM).

• The American Baptist Churches and the Church of the Brethren move toward an associated relationship to begin in 1973.

1975

• The SBC FMB changes the question for missionary candidates concerning the BF&M to "Are you familiar with the contents of the Baptist Faith & Message? Are you in substantial agreement with this statement? Please cite and explain the areas of differences in beliefs and/or interpretations."

• Grady C. Cothen is elected sixth chief executive of the Baptist Sunday School Board.

1977

• First Retired Ministers and Missionaries Offering collected (RMMO).

• (Sept. 6) Date of letter by Paul Pressler to Bill Powell proposing an organized campaign to change the SBC's leadership at the 1979 convention. In the letter he wrote "I do not believe in fighting a battle unless there is a good chance of winning. If we fight and lose, we lose credibility. Therefore, I think it is imperative that we plan, organize, and effectively promote what we are trying to do before we attempt any strong action."

1978

• 33 million members in the Baptist World Alliance (1/3 were Southern Baptists).

• The SBC adopted its first definition of the Cooperative Program, defining it as undesignated gifts only.

• The Baptist Hymnal is translated into Spanish.

1979

• Recommendations of a two-year study on Women in Ministry, commissioned by the Minister's Council in 1977, approved by the Council.

• Fundamentalist burrowing of the SBC begins.

• Conservative Southern Baptists began to take control of the SBC.

1987

• Denominational Review Commission reported that reorganization 1972-1977 had been successful in achieving its purposes and made minor adjustments.

1988

• General Board, after four-year study, reaffirmed membership in National and World Councils of Churches and adopted "official Observer" relationship with National Association of Evangelicals.

1991

• Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is organized.

• Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond opens for classes.

• Baptist Center for Ethics begins.

1992

• Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity begins classes.

1994

• A new denominational emphasis, ABC 2000: Renewed for Mission, is launched at the San Jose Biennial.

• Mercer University's Board of Trustees votes in June to establish a School of Theology.

1996

• Mercer University classes began in the Fall.

1999

• Wake Forest Divinity School opens.

2000

• SBC revises the Baptist Faith and Message.

• Baptist World Alliance has 100 million members.

2001

• Baptist missionary Roni Bowers and her infant daughter are killed when a Peruvian Air Force jet fires on their small float-plane.

Sources:

• A History of the Baptist Churches in the United States, A.H. Newman, 1898, American Baptist Publication Society

• A Study of the Older Protestant Missions and Churches in Peru and Chile, J.B.A Kessler Jr.

• Christian Biography Resources

• D. E. Hoste, A Prince with God by Phyllis Thompson, London, China Inland Mission

• Faithful Witness. The Life and Mission of William Carey by Timothy George, New Hope, 1991

• Shadow of the Almighty. The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot by Elizabeth Elliot, Harper & Brothers 1958

• Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives

• The Challenge of Missions. Oswald J Smith

• World Wide Missionary Biographies

• Jude 1:3 Ministries

• WMU

• International Mission Board (SBC)

• Acacia, John Bunyan Online Library

• Wm. Robert Johnston.

• A Dictionary of Religion and Ethics

• Tennessee Encyclopedia

• Sam Behling

• History of Middle Tennessee Baptists, J.H. Grime

• Christian History

• Kentucky Baptist History 1770-1922, Reverend William Dudley Nowlin, D.D., LL.D.