The fifth section in our latest book - An Anthology of the Early Baptists in Rhode Island - looks into the question of who's the first Baptist church founded in America.
29th Jul 2020
Even though most of the Baptist churches in this country do not descend from either church, there has been a long-standing historical question as to which congregation was actually the first one founded in America—the First Baptist Church of Providence, Rhode Island, or the First Baptist Church of Newport, Rhode Island. The claims of each to the honor have been pressed at different times, but never before or since to the level of the serious debate and interest which took place in 1847-1851. --Terry Wolever
Watch our website for the release of this important book and to get your copy!
The portrait is of John Winthrop (1588-1649), first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, whose Journal was often cited in the controversy over the founding date of the First Baptist Church, Newport.