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Baptists

Baptists form a major branch of evangelical Protestantism distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul competency (the responsibility and accountability of every person before God), sola fide (salvation by just faith alone), sola scriptura (the scripture of the Bible alone, as the rule of faith and practice) and congregationalist church government. Baptists generally recognize two ordinances: baptism and communion.

"Baptist" redirects here. For the Christian practice, see Baptism. For other uses, see Baptist (disambiguation).

Diverse from their beginning, those identifying as Baptists today may differ widely from one another in what they believe, how they worship, their attitudes toward other Christians, and their understanding of what is important in Christian discipleship.[1] Baptist missionaries have spread various Baptist confessions to every continent.[2] The largest group of Baptist churches is the Baptist World Alliance, and there are many different groupings of Baptist churches and Baptist congregations.


Historians trace the earliest Baptist church to 1609 in Amsterdam, with English Separatist John Smyth as its pastor.[3] In accordance with his reading of the New Testament, he rejected baptism of infants and instituted baptism only of believing adults.[2] Baptist practice spread to England, where the General Baptists considered Christ's atonement to extend to all people, while the Particular Baptists believed that it extended only to the elect.[4] Thomas Helwys formulated a distinctively Baptist request that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, so that individuals might have freedom of religion. Helwys died in prison as a consequence of the religious conflict with English Dissenters under James I.

Missionary organizations[edit]

Missionary organizations favored the development of the movement on all continents. The BMS World Mission was founded in 1792 at Kettering, England.[55][56] In United States, International Ministries was founded in 1814, and the International Mission Board was founded in 1845.[57][58]

In , the Southern Baptist Convention with 47,198 churches and 13,223,122 members,[66] the National Baptist Convention, USA with 21,145 churches and 8,415,100 members.[63]

North America

In , the Brazilian Baptist Convention with 9,070 churches and 1,797,597 members, the Evangelical Baptist Convention of Argentina with 670 churches and 85,000 members.[63]

South America

In , the Nigerian Baptist Convention with 14,523 churches and 8,925,000 members, the Baptist Convention of Tanzania with 1,350 churches and 2,680,000 members, the Baptist Community of the Congo River with 2,673 churches and 1,764,155 members.[63]

Africa

In , the Myanmar Baptist Convention with 5,337 churches and 1,013,499 members, the Nagaland Baptist Church Council with 1,661 churches and 648,096 members, the Garo Baptist Convention with 2,619 churches and 333,908 members, the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches with 1,079 churches and 600,000 members.[63]

Asia

In , the All-Ukrainian Union of Churches of Evangelical Christian Baptists with 2,192 churches and 105,189 members,[63] the Baptist Union of Great Britain with 1,897 churches and 99,475 members, the Union of Christian Baptist Churches in Romania with 1,697 churches and 83,853 members.[63]

Europe

In , the Australian Baptist Ministries with 1,024 churches and 87,555 members, the Baptist Union of Papua New Guinea with 493 churches and 84,700 members.[63]

Oceania

Membership policies vary due to the autonomy of churches, but generally an individual becomes a member of a church through believer's baptism (which is a public profession of faith in Jesus, followed by immersion baptism).[59] Most Baptists do not believe that baptism is a requirement for salvation but rather a public expression of inner repentance and faith.[5] In general, Baptist churches do not have a stated age restriction on membership, but believer's baptism requires that an individual be able to freely and earnestly profess their faith.[60]


In 2010, an estimated 100 million Christians identified as Baptist or belonging to a Baptist-type church.[61] In 2020, according to the researcher Sébastien Fath of the CNRS, the Baptist movement has around 170 million believers in the world.[62] According to a census released in 2023, the BWA includes 253 participating fellowships in 130 countries, with 176,000 churches and 51 million baptized members.[63] These statistics may not be fully representative, however, since some churches in the United States have dual or triple national Baptist affiliation, causing a church and its members to be counted possibly by more than one Baptist association, if these associations are members of the BWA.[64][65]


Among the censuses carried out by individual Baptist associations in 2023, those which claimed the most members on each continent were:

The supremacy of the canonical Scriptures as a norm of faith and practice. For something to become a matter of faith and practice, it is not sufficient for it to be merely consistent with and not contrary to scriptural principles. It must be something explicitly ordained through command or example in the Bible. For instance, this is why Baptists do not practice infant baptism: they say the Bible neither commands nor exemplifies infant baptism as a Christian practice. More than any other Baptist principle, this one when applied to infant baptism is said to separate Baptists from other evangelical Christians.

Baptists believe that faith is a matter between God and the individual (religious freedom). To them it means the advocacy of absolute liberty of conscience.

Insistence on immersion believer's baptism as the only mode of baptism. Baptists do not believe that baptism is necessary for salvation. Therefore, for Baptists, baptism is an , not a sacrament, since in their view it imparts no saving grace.[77]

ordinance

List of Baptist denominations

List of Baptist World Alliance National Fellowships

List of Baptists

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online

Gavins, Raymond. The Perils and Prospects of Southern Black Leadership: Gordon Blaine Hancock, 1884–1970. Duke University Press, 1977.

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ISBN

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Menikoff, Aaron (2014). . Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 9781630872823.

Politics and Piety: Baptist Social Reform in America, 1770–1860

Pitts, Walter F. Old Ship of Zion: The Afro-Baptist Ritual in the African Diaspora Oxford University Press, 1996.

Rawlyk, George. Champions of the Truth: Fundamentalism, Modernism, and the Maritime Baptists (1990), Canada.

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Stringer, Phil. The Faithful Baptist Witness, Landmark Baptist Press, 1998.

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Whitley, William Thomas A Baptist Bibliography: being a register of the chief materials for Baptist history, whether in manuscript or in print, preserved in Great Britain, Ireland, and the Colonies. 2 vols. London: Kingsgate Press, 1916–1922 (reissued) Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1984  3487074567

ISBN

Wilhite, David E. (2009). . Journal of Ecumenical Studies. 44 (2): 285–302.

"The Baptists "And the Son": The Filioque Clause in Noncreedal Theology"

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Media related to Baptist Christianity at Wikimedia Commons

The dictionary definition of Baptist at Wiktionary

Works related to Portal:Baptists at Wikisource

Early Church Fathers on Baptism

Oxford bibliographies: "Baptists" (2015) by Janet Moore Lindman

at Curlie

Baptists

Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library

Baptist church history collection