Robert Sandeman

Robert Sandeman (29 April 1718, in Perth – 2 April 1771, in Danbury, Connecticut) was a Scottish nonconformist theologian. He was closely associated with the Glasite church which he helped to promote.

His importance was such that Glasite churches outside Scotland were known as Sandemanian.

Biography Early life and religious development He was born the second of twelve children to a linen weaver, David Sandeman and his wife Margaret Ramsay. He attended Edinburgh University over a two-year period beginning in 1734, where he initially seemed destined for a career in either medicine or the established church. It was here, however, where he encountered the teachings of John Glas, and joined his Dundee congregation in 1735. It was during this period that he apprenticed as a linen weaver for a number of years before starting a family business with his brother William. In 1737 he married Glas' daughter Catherine. They did not have any children by the time of her death in 1746. At the age of 26 he was selected as an elder of the Glasite church in Perth. Cudworth, Barnard, and James Allen, a convert from Ingham, were instrumental to Sandeman and Glas in the establishment of Sandemanian congregations throughout England and Wales.

Sandeman caused a controversy over soteriology over the definition of true faith, Sandeman's views are paraller to some modern Free Grace theologians.

Church planting in America Sandeman founded one of the first Churches of Christ in America in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on May 4, 1765. In 1760, Letters was published in New England which led to a 1763 invitation to Danbury, Connecticut, to advise on church formation. James Cargill (a glover from Dundee, Scotland ) sailed with him aboard the George and James to Boston. Sandeman engaged in some fairly successful discussions while there, founding some churches despite the opposition of orthodox congregationalists. William Sandeman, his brother, developed linen bleachfields in Perthshire.