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Researcher publishes Sabbath book again
08 March 2010
Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
An Avondale College honorary senior research fellow has revised for the first time his study of the Anglo-Saxon heritage of Sabbath keeping.
Dr Bryan Ball's The Seventh-day Men: Sabbatarians and Sabbatarianism in England and Wales, 1600-1800 is, according to publisher James Clarke & Co, the first fully documented account of the growth of Sabbatarianism in England and Wales following the Reformation. The revised edition of the book is 60 pages longer and includes information about previously unidentified Sabbath keepers, a more extensive analysis of what constituted Sabbath keeping and additional notes to the original text.
The Seventh-day Men shows the spread of Sabbatarianism to more than 30 counties. It also traces the origins of the movement to the Celtic tradition--it then appeared again as Sabbatarianism about 1402--and examines its decline in the 1800s. Christians and Seventh-day Adventists in particular should learn from the latter, says Bryan. Influenced by Calvinistic theology, the 17th- and 18th-century Sabbatarians did not make the sharing of their faith a central part of their mission. "They felt God would do His own thing in His own time," says Bryan. They also lacked a cohesive structure--congregations met informally in homes and did not belong to a sisterhood of churches.
Clarendon Press first published The Seventh-day Men in 1994.
Bryan is the author of six other books. He is working with publishers in Europe to have one, Can We Still Believe The Bible?, translated. He is also working with Signs Publishing Company to update and expand the book to coincide with next year's 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Version of the Bible.
The Seventh-day Men is available for loan from Avondale Library and for sale from the author. Contact Bryan on 4977 1220 or bryanball@netspace.net.au.
Credit: Ann Stafford
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