In Christianity, the Lord's Day refers to Sunday, the principal day of communal worship. It is the first day of the week in the Hebrew calendar and traditional Christian calendars, with the exception of European (workweek) calendars.[1][2] It is observed by most Christians as the weekly memorial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is said to have been raised from the dead early on the first day of the week. The phrase appears only once in Rev. 1:10 of the New Testament.
According to Beckwith, Christians held corporate worship on Sunday in the 1st century[3] (First Apology, chapter 67). On 3 March 321, Constantine the Great legislated rest on the pagan holiday Sunday (dies Solis).[4] Before the Early Middle Ages, the Lord's Day became associated with Sabbatarian (rest) practices legislated by Church Councils.[5] Christian denominations such as the Reformed Churches, Methodist Churches, and Baptist Churches regard Sunday as the Christian Sabbath, a practice known as first-day Sabbatarianism.[6][7] First-day Sabbatarian (Sunday Sabbatarian) practices include attending morning and evening church services on Sundays, receiving catechesis in Sunday School on the Lord's Day, taking the Lord's Day off from servile labour, not eating at restaurants on Sundays, not Sunday shopping, not using public transportation on the Lord's Day, not participating in sporting events that are held on Sundays, as well as not viewing television and the internet on Sundays; Christians who are Sunday Sabbatarians often engage in works of mercy on the Lord's Day, such as evangelism, as well as visiting prisoners at jails and the sick at hospitals and nursing homes.[8][9][10][11] A Sunday custom present in many Christian countries is the "hearing" (abhören) of children at dinnertime, in which the parents listen while the children recall what their pastor preached about in the Sunday sermon; if any corrections are needed, the parents instruct them.[12]
8. Q. Which is the first day of the week? A. The first day of the week is Sunday.
For even in the Roman Church there were still those who claimed, like Saint Caesarius of Arles (470-543), that the whole glory of the Jewish Sabbath had been transferred onto Sunday, so that Christians had to keep it holy in the same way as the Jews had their own day of rest. Other Church councils and imperial edicts though sought to restrict various activities on this day, especially public amusements in the theater and circus.
Except for the strong support of Episcopalians in Windsor and Woodstock, the Sabbatarians found their appeal limited almost exclusively to Congregationalists and Presbyterians, some of whom did not fear state action on religious matters of interdenominational concern.
As predominantly Methodists and other nonconformists, British immigrants were pietists, committed to conversion and the reform of society. They did not separate religion from civil government, bur rather integrated right belief with right behavior. Therefore they embraced reform movements, most notably temperance and abolitionism, as well as Sabbatarian laws.
Wesier1956
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).