A Short History of St. Davids Christian Writers’ Conference
St. Davids began as the brainchild of Dr. Benjamin Patterson Browne, an American Baptist minister, writer, and editor, who was Executive Director of the Board of Education and Publication for the American Baptist Convention. In 1957, Dr. Browne asked Eastern Baptist College to sponsor a writers’ conference on the St. Davids, Pennsylvania, campus. Dr. Browne’s background up to that time included founding and directing the Christian Writers and Editors Conference in Green Lake, Wisconsin.
Fewer than thirty persons attended the first conference at St. Davids, including a staff comprised largely of writers and editors associated with the American Baptists. In those beginning years, Dr. Browne was fond of quoting, “Write the vision and make it plain.” In The Writers’ Conference Comes to You (Judson Press, 1956), he wrote, “Perhaps that which we all need most is renewed faith in the greatness of the written word. We need to remember that though the temples and forums of Greece and Rome are in ruins, and though the Temple at Jerusalem has not one stone left upon another, the writings of these rich civilizations, Grecian, Roman, and Hebrew, endure and remain forever with us in all their eternal vitality.”
One of the aims of the St. Davids Conference over the years has been to assist all writers, religious and secular, beginners and seasoned professionals, in renewing their faith in the greatness of the written word.
The program ended in 1969, but the St. Davids writing ministry continued when the advisory board of directors, representing various denominations, voted to become an independent organization. For sixty-five years, St. Davids has offered the instructional opportunity of training and encouraging writers in all walks of life to serve the religious and secular press.
In 1995, the St. Davids Board made the difficult decision to move the conference from Eastern College to western Pennsylvania. Western Pennsylvania seemed to be a wide-open opportunity. They also hoped to attract writers from Ohio, western New York, and Kentucky. After much research of possible sites, the Executive Board settled on Geneva College.
In June 2006, Geneva College informed the St. Davids Board that extensive construction on the Beaver Falls campus during the summer of 2007 would make it difficult for the conference to meet there. After exhaustive research, the beautiful campus of Grove City College was selected for the 50th anniversary conference.
When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, the board was once again forced to consider a move. When Grove City College told us they would no longer allow our outside group, our team went into high gear, researching every possible location and found Allegheny College where we gathered for our 65th year in 2022.