The Baptist denomination is the largest free church denomination in the world with 43 million members across the globe. In America, the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest American Baptist Organization with more than 16 million members in approximately 40 thousand churches.
The Baptists trace their origins to John Smyth and the Separatist Movement beginning in England in 1608. In America, several Baptist congregations came together in Augusta, Georgia in 1845 to form the largest American Baptist organization, the Southern Baptist Convention. For more about Baptist history, visit Southern Baptist Denomination - Brief History.
John Smyth, Thomas Helwys, Roger Williams, Jonathan Edwards, Shubael Stearns.
More than 3/4 of all Baptists (33 million) live in America. 216,00 live in Brittian, 850,000 live in South American, and 230,000 in Central America. In the former USSR, Baptists comprise the largest protestant denomination.
Baptist denominations follow a congregational church governance in which each individual congregation is governed autonomously, free from the direct control of any other body.
The Bible.
Martin Luther King Jr., Charles Spurgeon, John Bunyan, Billy Graham, Dr. Charles Stanley, Rick Warren.
A primary Baptist distinctive is their practice of adult believer's baptism, rather than infant baptism. For more about what Baptists believe, visit Southern Baptist Denomination - Beliefs and Practices.
(Information in this article is compiled and summarized from the following sources: ReligiousTolerance.org, ReligionFacts.com, AllRefer.com, and the Religious Movements Web site of the University of Virginia.)
