Temple Memorial Baptist Church: Humble Origin of the First Baptist Church

Many churches call themselves the first Southern Baptist church. Now we explore the origin of the first Baptist church. Many historians and theologians claim that Baptists have existed outside and separated from the Catholic Church and Protestant denominations.  Baptist churches mainly existed in England, especially in Europe. The belief system was transmitted in the New World. The very first Baptist congregations in America were set up in the seventeenth century. From the very beginning, here comes the denomination membership in the U.S, which is assessed to be about 16 million people. 

Baptist churches like Temple Memorial Baptist Church continue to grow in America for the next 200 years, at the time of civil war era, there was a schism amongst the fellowship.

In 1845, The Baptist congregation get spilled over the issue of slavery. The Baptist from the southern states presented slave holding and the Northern Baptists tried to save slaveholders. Now the Southern Baptists make a separate organization, ‘the southern Baptist convention.'

Even today the southern Baptist fellowship existed outside the actual south. These churches can be found the way in the southwest, Midwest and even in northern states just like Pennsylvania. Southern Baptist convention has spread to most part of the United States and the change of name was proposed in 2005 to remove "southern" from the name for this reason.

First in the name of a congregation is so named as it was actually the very first church in the area like Temple Memorial Baptist Church. Almost every town can honestly have the First Southern Baptist Church. You can easily find a second church in the same town.

Historically, The First Baptist Church in America is the First Baptist Church of Providence, Rhode Island, which is also known as the very First Baptist Meetinghouse. It is the oldest Baptist church flock in the United States, established by Roger Williams in Providence, Rhode Island in 1638. The current church building was created in 1774–75 and held its main conferences in May 1775. It is situated at 75 North Main Street in Providence's College Hill neighborhood and is a National Historic Landmark.

History of First Baptist Church of Providence, Rhode

Roger Williams had been organizing religious services in his home for more than a year before he transformed his congregation into a Baptist church in 1638. This followed his establishment of Providence in 1636. For the next sixty years, the congregation met outside. Baptists in Rhode Island through most of the 17th century weakened to create churches because they felt that constructions reflected pride.