Baptists are a Protestant tradition of Christianity distinguished by baptizing only believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by total immersion. Modern Baptist churches generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul competency (the responsibility and accountability of every person before God), sola fide (justification by faith alone), sola scriptura (the Bible as the sole infallible authority) and congregationalist ecclesiastical polity. Baptists generally recognize at least two sacraments or ordinances: Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
Diverse from their beginnings, 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. Baptist missionaries have spread various Baptist churches to every continent. The largest Baptist communion of churches is the Baptist World Alliance, and there are many different groupings of Baptist churches and Baptist congregations.
Baptists are traced back to Dissenters from the Church of England in Great Britain. A nonconformist church was formed in Gainsborough led by the cleric John Smyth. The Gainsborough congregation and the Scrooby congregation went into exile in Amsterdam in 1608. In accordance with their interpretation (exegesis) of the New Testament, they came to reject infant baptism and instituted baptism only of professing believers. Thomas Helwys returned the congregation to England, where he formulated a distinctive philosophical request that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, so that individuals might have liberty of conscience. Baptists spread across 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 (in which there is no consensus who is included). The Second London Confession of Faith of 1689 is the greatest creedal document for Particular Baptists, whereas the Orthodox Creed of 1679 is the one widely accepted by General Baptists.
Reading level
Audio Summary
Played with your browser's voice. Studio-quality audio can be added with a text-to-speech service.
Ask about this article
📝 Quick Quiz1 / 4
What is "Baptists" primarily known for?
Vocix Daily — In Your Inbox
Top stories, deep-dive articles, and "On This Day" history — one crisp digest delivered every morning.
Sources & references
Reference material for this entry is drawn from the open encyclopedic record, including Wikipedia , available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. Images are credited individually beside each photo.
Baptist historian Bruce Gourley outlines four main views of Baptist origins:
the modern scholarly consensus is that the denomination traces its origins to the 17th century English Dissenters, having minimal to no Anabaptist influence;
the view that it was an outgrowth of the Anabaptist movement begun in 1525 on Continental Europe;
the successionist view, which argues that Baptist churches actually existed in an unbroken chain outside of the mainstream Church since the time of Jesus Christ.
the perpetuity view, similar to the successionist view, which assumes that the Baptist faith and practice has existed since the time of Jesus Christ.
English Dissenters view
Baptist churches trace their history to English Dissenters, in 17th century England, 75 years after the formation of the Church of England, during the English Protestant Reformation. This view of Baptist origins is the most historically accurate and is widely accepted. It was a time of considerable political and religious turmoil. Both individuals and churches were willing to give up their theological roots if they became convinced that a more biblical "truth" had been discovered.
During the Reformation, the Church of England (Anglicans) separated from the Roman Catholic Church. There were some Christians who were not content with the achievements of the mainstream Protestant Reformation. There also were Protestants who were disappointed that the Church of England had not made corrections of what some considered to be errors and abuses, being the most critical of the church's direction. They became known as "Puritans". Most Puritans in the 16th century were conformists, staying in the Anglican Church and trying to make constructive changes from within. Other Puritans left the established church because of this Puritan dissatisfaction, and these became known as Separatists, Dissenters, or Nonconformists.
In 1579, Faustus Socinus founded the Unitarian Polish Brethren in Poland-Lithuania, which was a tolerant country. The Unitarians taught baptism by immersion. After their expulsion from the Commonwealth in 1658, many of them fled to the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the Unitarians introduced immersion baptism to the Dutch Mennonites.
Baptist churches have their origins with John Smyth, Thomas Helwys, and John Murton in the Kingdom of England and the Dutch Republic. Because they shared beliefs with the Congregationalists, they went into exile in 1608 with other believers who held the same positions. They believe that the Bible is to be the primary guide and that credobaptism is what the Bible teaches. In 1609, the year considered to be the foundation of the Baptist tradition, these exiled Dissenters baptized believers and their church became the first Baptist church.
In 1609, while still there, Smyth wrote a tract titled "The Character of the Beast". In it he expressed two propositions: first, infants are not to be baptized; and second, unbelievers are to be admitted into the true Church by baptism." Hence, his conviction was that a scriptural church should consist only of regenerate believers who had been baptized confessing faith and past sins. They rejected the doctrine of infant baptism.
Shortly thereafter, in 1610, Smyth was expelled from the church. Ultimately, Smyth became committed to believers' baptism as the only biblical baptism. He was convinced on the basis of his interpretation of Scripture that infants would not be damned if they died in infancy. Smyth, convinced that his self-baptism was invalid, applied with the Waterland Mennonites for union. He died before achieving it, and some of his supporters became Mennonites. Helwys and Murton others kept their commitment to credobaptism that would originate in the Baptist tradition. The modern Baptist denomination is an outgrowth of the Amsterdam English church. Baptists rejected the name "Anabaptist" (literally, 're-baptizer') when they were called that by opponents in derision because they considered Anabaptists as heretics. McBeth writes that as late as the 18th century, many Baptists referred to themselves as "the Christians commonly—though falsely—called Anabaptists."
Helwys took over the leadership, leading the church back to England in 1612, and he published the first Baptist confession of faith: the Helwys Declaration of Faith, or "A Declaration of Faith of English People", in 1611. He settled the church in Spitalfields, East London, in 1612. it became known as the first General Baptist church
Another milestone in the early development of the Baptist tradition was in 1638 with John Spilsbury, a Calvinist minister who later helped to promote the practice of baptism by immersion (as opposed to affusion or aspersion). According to Tom Nettles, professor of historical theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, "Spilsbury's cogent arguments for a gathered, disciplined congregation of believers baptized by immersion as constituting the New Testament church gave expression to and built on insights that had emerged within separatism, advanced in the life of John Smyth and the suffering congregation of Thomas Helwys, and matured in Particular Baptists."
Anabaptist influence view
A minority view is that early 17th century Baptists were influenced by or even directly connected to continental Anabaptists. Representatives of this theory include A.C. Underwood and William R. Estep. Gourley writes that among some contemporary Baptist scholars, who emphasize the faith of the community over soul liberty, the Anabaptist theory is making a comeback. This view was also taught by the Reformed historian Philip Schaff. According to this view, Baptists shared common beliefs and practices with Dutch Waterlander Mennonites (one of many Anabaptist groups) including believer's baptism, belief in religious liberty and church-state separation, and similarities on soteriology.
It is certain that the Baptists in the Dutch Republic had contacts with the Mennonite Anabaptists, and John Smyth later even joined the Anabaptist movement, while those who remained as Baptists did so under Thomas Helwys. However, although it is possible that Helwys was subordinately influenced by Dutch Anabaptism, he still rejected multiple of their doctrines such as Melchiorite Christology and had a more high role for the civil magistrate. However, any influence Helwys and the General Baptists could have had would not necessarily translate to influence on Reformed Baptist theology, as although they share the same name, they are often viewed as having a distinct origin. Nevertheless, some historians have proposed for some Anabaptist influence on Reformed Baptists in addition to General Baptists, such as by proposing influence from a natively existing English Anabaptist population, rather than from Dutch Anabaptists. It has been sometimes speculated that a natively existing Anabaptist population in England gave rise to multiple English dissenting groups, including Particular Baptists. It has been noticed that there is some evidence for a native English Anabaptist population, and some historical records refer to two Anabaptists that were executed in England under Henry VII in 1575. However, many historians dismiss any links between the particular Baptists and Anabaptists, and there does not exist explicit evidences of Anabaptist influence on Particular Baptists.
Despite this, relations between Baptists and Anabaptists were early strained, which makes it difficult to support the Anabaptist view consensually. In 1624, the five existing Baptist churches of London issued an epistle of anathema to the Anabaptists for what they considered heresies, and throughout the centuries Baptists strongly rejected the nomenclature of "Anabaptist". Furthermore, the Gainsborough church exiled in Amsterdam, under Helwys' leadership, rejected unification with the Waterlander Anabaptists after a brief period of association; and Helwys exposed negatively their beliefs and practices, considering them as heretical. Nonetheless, many modern Baptists have much more positive views of Anabaptism, emphasizing the agreements in many core areas of theology.
Successionist and perpetuity view
Traditional Baptist historians write from the perspective that Baptists had existed since the time of Christ. Proponents of the Baptist successionist or perpetuity view consider the Baptist movement to have existed independently from Roman Catholicism and prior to the Protestant Reformation. This view has been characterized as "apologetic and polemical" and "without consideration of a critical, scientific methodology".
The perpetuity view is often identified with The Trail of Blood, a booklet of five lectures by James Milton Carroll published in 1931. Other Baptist writers who advocated the successionist theory of Baptist origins are John T. Christian and Thomas Crosby. This view was held by English Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon as well as Jesse Mercer, the namesake of Mercer University. In 1898 William Whitsitt was pressured to resign his presidency of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for denying Baptist successionism.
Baptist origins in the United Kingdom
In 1612 Helwys returned to England and settled the Amsterdam church in London, to support the Puritan reforms. A number of Nonconformist Baptist churches were formed, and they became known as the General Baptists. The Particular Baptists were established when a group of Dissenters adopted credobaptism in the 1630s. The Particular Baptists consisted of seven churches by 1644 and had drafted up a confession of faith called the First London Confession of Faith. Many Particular Baptists are now called Grace Baptists.
Baptist origins in North America
Both Roger Williams and John Clarke are variously credited as founding the earliest Baptist churches in North America. In 1638 Williams established a Baptist church in Providence, Rhode Island, and Clarke established another Baptist church in Newport, Rhode Island. According to a Baptist historian who has researched the matter extensively, "There is much debate over the centuries as to whether the Providence or Newport church deserved the place of 'first' Baptist congregation in America. Exact records for both congregations are lacking."
The First Great Awakening of the 1740s energized the Baptists, where they experienced spectacular growth. Baptists became the largest Christian community in many southern states, including among the enslaved Black population.
Baptist missionary work in Canada began in the British colony of Nova Scotia (present day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) in the 1760s. The first official record of a Baptist church in Canada was Horton Baptist Church (now Wolfville) in Wolfville, Nova Scotia on 29 October 1778. The church was established with the assistance of the New Light evangelist Henry Alline. Many of Alline's followers, after his death, converted and strengthened the Baptist presence in the Atlantic region. Two major groups of Baptists formed the basis of the churches in the Maritimes. These were referred to as Regular Baptist (Calvinist in their doctrine) and Free Will Baptists (Arminian in their doctrine).
In May 1845, many Baptist churches in the South of United States seceded from the Triennial Convention, the national Baptist organization established in 1814, over slavery. The Home Mission Society prevented slaveholders from being appointed as missionaries. These churches founded their own convention: the Southern Baptist Convention. The Triennial Convention remained mostly (though not entirely) northern in composition. The Triennial Convention was reorganized in 1907 as the now called American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA). In 2015, Baptists in the U.S. number 50 million people and constitute roughly one-third of American Protestants.
Baptist origins in Germany
The first Baptist church in Hamburg, known as the Union of Evangelical Free Churches in Germany, was founded by the German missionary Johann Gerhard Oncken in 1834. Founded in 1849, the Union of United Congregations of Baptized Christians in Germany and Denmark merged in 1942 with the Union of Free Church Christians, which originated in the Brethren movement, and thereby took its present name. According to a census published by the association in 2023, it claimed 786 churches and 75,767 members.
The Evangeliumschristen-Baptisten ('Evangelical Christians-Baptists') are mostly of Russian-German origin. They were formed in 1944 from the merger of Evangeliums-Christen with the Baptists. Later, other evangelical free churches joined them. In contrast to their Eastern European countries of origin, no unified union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists was founded in Germany. Some of the newly formed congregations have come together in congregational associations such as Bruderschaft der Freien Evangeliums Christen Gemeinden ('the Brotherhood of Free Evangelical Christian Congregations') or the Arbeitsgemeinschaft evangelikaler Gemeinden ('Working Group of Evangelical Congregations'). Another part is connected with German Baptists through the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Evangeliumschristen-Baptisten in the Union of Evangelical Free Churches or is united with Mennonite Brethren congregations in the Bund Taufgesinnter Gemeinden ('Union of Baptist-Minded Congregations'). In addition, there are also congregations outside of congregational associations. The congregations in the Bund Taufgesinnter Gemeinden ('Union of Baptist-Minded Congregations'; BTG) have partly Baptist, partly Mennonite roots. The federation was formed in 1989 from the merger of originally six Baptist-oriented congregations, which were primarily located in the region of Ostwestfalen-Lippe. The BTG has about 6000 members spread over 30 congregations. The Bibelseminar ('Bible seminary'), the theological training center of this association of congregations, is located in Bonn and offers a regular study program as well as a theological correspondence course and a theological evening school.
The International Baptist Convention goes back to church plantings by American soldiers. In Germany, 25 English-speaking congregations belong to it. From its beginnings in Wiesbaden and Frankfurt, a loose working group was formed in 1958, the Association of Baptists in Continental Europe, which was joined by other congregations and, from 1961, supported by the North American congregational association of the Southern Baptist Convention. In 1964, the Association adopted its current name.
Baptist origins in Finland
Preacher Karl Justin Mathias Möllersvärd was the first to preach Baptist teachings in Finland and sparked a revival, though he did not stay long due to fierce opposition. The movement, however, continued to grow. In 1855, a resident of Åland returned from Stockholm with material about Baptist beliefs written by former Lutheran priest Anders Wiberg. Farmer Johan Erik Östling was inspired to travel to Stockholm the next year and be baptized, making him the first Finnish Baptist. Several baptisms were performed in Föglö, Åland the following year; they joined with those who had already been baptized in Sweden to found the first Finnish Baptist church in 1856 in Föglö.
Lutheran priest Henrik Heikel, who spoke with the Baptists to learn more about their beliefs, played a key role in the church's spread. Heikel moved to mainland Finland with his family in 1860. Pedersöre in Ostrobothnia was to become their home as he was installed as priest of the Lutheran church there. The family maintained contact with the Baptists in Åland; after his death in 1867, his son Viktor and daughter Anna were baptized as Baptists by Wiberg in Stockholm. Their conversions led to many more after Anna returned with literature and began to hold meetings. The family received a visit from a Baptist pastor, Adolf Herman Valén, who had been at the hearing with Heikel ten years earlier; they held meetings together and his preaching led to more conversions to the movement. He was the first Baptist to preach on the mainland. The first Baptist baptisms on the mainland were performed the same year, with Maria Ekqvist and Petter Stormåns being the first to be baptized. The movement continued to grow in the following years and a Swedish-speaking congregation was founded in Jakobstad (Finnish: Pietarsaari), near Pedersöre, in 1870, by thirteen people including four members of the Heikel family. That year, the Conventicle Act was also repealed in Finland. (In 1891 the Jakobstad Baptist church underwent a split due to differing views, particularly over open or closed communion.) Ostrobothnia has since remained a hub of the Baptist movement in Finland. Today, the only two Swedish-speaking Baptist churches outside the region are located in Helsinki and Karis.
The Baptist movement did not take long to reach the Finnish-speaking population as well. Some of the people who had been baptized in Ostrobothnia were bilingual and began to preach in Finnish, founding several Finnish-speaking churches. Henrik Nars, from Purmo, was one such preacher. In 1870, a solely Finnish-speaking sailor named Henriksson evangelized in the southwestern Finnish countryside of Satakunta after being converted in England. The Luvia Baptist congregation near Pori (Swedish: Björneborg) traces its origin, also dated 1870, to his work. In 1871, John Hymander, also a Finnish speaker, who had been a priest in the Lutheran church for 40 years, left his position in Parikkala in South Karelia and was baptized by the Baptists in Stockholm. He was known to have had a friendly relationship with the Heikel family. Several in Hymander's family soon followed in baptism and a Baptist church was founded in Parikkala in 1872. More Finnish-speaking Baptist churches were soon founded in Jurva (1879), Turku (1884), Kuopio (1886), Tampere (1890), and Ylistaro (1894). The Finnish Baptist Union was officially formed in 1903.
Reverend Erik Jansson was also a key figure in the church's spread beginning in the 1880s. After joining evangelist Dwight L. Moody's church in Chicago, Jansson returned to Finland and later joined the Baptist church in 1881. He became pastor of the Petalax Baptist Church, which at times had over 400 members and baptized 1000 people. After the Swedish Baptists had exclusively supported the development work in Finland over the first few decades, the Home Mission Society of the American Baptist Churches USA contributed financially starting around 1889.
According to Statistics Finland's demographic statistics, the number of Baptists in Finland was 2,305 at the end of 2024.
Baptist origins in Ukraine
The Baptist churches in Ukraine were preceded by the German Anabaptist and Mennonite communities, who had been living in southern Ukraine since the 16th century, and who practiced adult believer's baptism. The first Baptist baptism (adult baptism by full immersion) in Ukraine took place in 1864 on the river Inhul in the Yelizavetgrad region (now Kropyvnytskyi region), in a German settlement. In 1867, the first Baptist churches were organized in that area. From there, the Baptist tradition spread across the south of Ukraine and then to other regions as well.
One of the first Baptist communities was registered in Kyiv in 1907, and in 1908 the First All-Russian Convention of Baptists was held there, as Ukraine was still controlled by the Russian Empire. The All-Russian Union of Baptists was established in Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipro) in southern Ukraine. At the end of the 19th century, there were between 100,000 and 300,000 Baptists in Ukraine. An independent All-Ukrainian Baptist Union of Ukraine was established during the brief period of Ukraine's independence in early 20th-century and once again after the fall of the Soviet Union, the largest of which is currently known as the Evangelical Baptist Union of Ukraine. Prior to its independence in 1991, Ukraine was home to the second largest Baptist community in the world, after the United States, and was called the "Bible Belt" of the Soviet Union.
Baptist churches
Some Baptist church congregations choose to be independent of larger church organizations (Independent Baptist). Other Baptist churches choose to be part of an international or national Baptist Christian denomination or association while still adhering to a congregationalist polity. This cooperative relationship allows the development of common organizations, for mission and societal purposes, such as humanitarian aid, schools, theological institutes and hospitals.
The majority of Baptist churches are part of national denominations (or 'associations' or 'cooperative groups'), as well as the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), formed in 1905 by 24 Baptist denominations from various countries. The BWA's goals include caring for the needy, leading in world evangelism and defending human rights and religious freedom.
Missionary organizations
Missionary organizations favored the development of the movement on all continents. The BMS World Mission was founded in 1792 at Kettering, England. In United States, International Ministries was founded in 1814, and the International Mission Board was founded in 1845.
Membership
Membership policies vary due to the autonomy of churches, but generally an individual becomes a member of a church through a believer's baptism (which is a public profession of faith in Jesus, followed by immersion baptism). Most Baptists do not believe that baptism is a requirement for salvation but rather a public expression of inner repentance and faith. In general, Baptist churches do not have a stated age restriction on membership, but a believer's baptism requires that an individual be able to freely and earnestly profess their faith.
In 2010, an estimated 100 million Christians identified as Baptist or belonging to a Baptist-type church. In 2020, according to the researcher Sébastien Fath of the CNRS, the Baptist movement has around 170 million believers in the world. According to a Baptist World Alliance census released in 2025, the BWA has 283 participating Baptist fellowships in 138 countries, with 178,000 churches and 53,000,000 baptized members. 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.
Among the censuses carried out by individual Baptist associations in 2025, those which claimed the most members on each continent were:
Beliefs
Christianity encompasses various movements of Christian theology, the main ones being conservative fundamentalist or moderate, liberal and progressive.
Since the early days of the Baptist movement, various associations have adopted common confessions of faith as the basis for cooperative work among churches. Each church has a particular confession of faith and a common confession of faith if it is a member of an association of churches. For Reformed Baptists, historically significant Baptist doctrinal documents include the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, the 1742 Philadelphia Baptist Confession, and the 1833 New Hampshire Baptist Confession of Faith. For General Baptists (Freewill Baptists), the Orthodox Creed and the Treatise on the Faith and Practice of the Free Will Baptists are adhered to. Written church covenants which are adopted by some individual Baptist churches, especially Independent Baptist congregations, as a statement of their faith and beliefs.
Baptist theology is a subset of evangelical theology. It is based on believers' Church doctrine. Baptists, like other Christians, are defined by a school of thought—some of it common to all orthodox and evangelical groups, and a portion of it distinctive to Baptists. Through the years, different Baptist groups have issued confessions of faith—without considering them to be creeds—to express their particular doctrinal distinctions in comparison to other Christians as well as in comparison to other Baptists. Baptist denominations are traditionally seen as belonging to two parties, General Baptists who uphold Arminian theology, and Particular Baptists who uphold Reformed theology (Calvinism). During the holiness movement, some General Baptists accepted the teaching of a second work of grace and formed denominations that emphasized this belief, such as the Ohio Valley Association of the Christian Baptist Churches of God and the Holiness Baptist Association. Most Baptists are evangelical in doctrine, but their beliefs may vary due to the congregational governance system that gives autonomy to individual local Baptist churches. Historically, Baptists have played a key role in encouraging religious freedom and the doctrine of separation of church and state.
Shared doctrines would include beliefs about one God; the virgin birth of Jesus; miracles; substitutionary atonement for sins through the death, burial, and bodily resurrection of Jesus; the Trinity; the need for salvation (through belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, his death and resurrection); grace; the Kingdom of God; last things (eschatology) (Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to Earth, the dead will be raised and Christ will judge everyone in righteousness); and evangelism and missions.
Most Baptists hold that no church or ecclesiastical organization has inherent authority over a Baptist church. Churches can properly relate to each other under this polity only through voluntary cooperation, never by any sort of coercion. Furthermore, this Baptist polity calls for freedom from governmental control. Exceptions to this local form of local governance include a few churches that submit to the leadership of a body of elders, as well as the Episcopal Baptists who have an Episcopal system.
