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Most Baptist churches have a baptistery, which is more or less a pool about 4m by 3m in the church. During a baptismal service the minister and the person being baptised enter the water. The minister, holding the person, will lie them back in the water so they are totally immersed, and then bring them back up again. Baptists believe this practice is in line with the New Testament practice of baptism, as carried out by John the Baptist. They believe God created every individual as competent, with the skills to be a priest for themselves and others.
That means that in Baptist churches which appoint a minister, he or she is an equal member in the church meeting but with special responsibilities as outlined by the congregation. Baptists believe in congregational church government. That is, each church can govern itself with absolute autonomy. As each Baptist church is autonomous there can be no outside interference in decision making. This applies to any secular power, such as the state, being involved in church matters.
Therefore Baptists reject the idea of an established or state church. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. Baptist churches Last updated On this page Introduction and history Structure Distinguishing features Page options Print this page.
History The roots of the Baptist movement date back to the sixteenth century and the post-Reformation period, although the first Baptist congregation appeared in in Holland. The Bible, not church tradition or religious creed, was the guide in all matters of faith and practice. The church should be made up of believers only, not all people born in the local parish. The church should be governed by those believers, not by hierarchical figures like bishops.
Baptists initially developed in two streams of theological thought: General Baptists believed that when Christ died on the cross he died for everyone in general. Both the Separatists and the non-Separatists were congregationalist. They shared the same convictions with regard to the nature and government of the church.
They believed that church life should be ordered according to the pattern of the New Testament churches, and to them this meant that churches should be self-governing bodies composed of believers only.
They differed, however, in their attitude toward the Church of England. The Separatists contended that the Church of England was a false church and insisted that the break with it must be complete.
The non-Separatists, more ecumenical in spirit, sought to maintain some bond of unity among Christians. While they believed that it was necessary to separate themselves from the corruption of parish churches, they also believed that it would be a breach of Christian charity to refuse all forms of communication and fellowship. While many non-Separatists withdrew and established a worship of their own, they would not go so far as to assert that the parish churches were devoid of all marks of a true church.
Although the Particular Baptists were to represent the major continuing Baptist tradition, the General Baptists were first to appear. In religious persecution induced a group of Lincolnshire Separatists to seek asylum in Holland. A contingent settled in Amsterdam with John Smyth or Smith , a Cambridge graduate, as their minister; another group moved to Leiden under the leadership of John Robinson.
This, he contended, was the practice of the New Testament churches, for he could find no scriptural support for baptizing infants. Smyth published his views in The Character of the Beast and in the same year proceeded to baptize first himself and then 36 others, who joined him in forming a Baptist church. Shortly thereafter Smyth became aware of a Mennonite Anabaptist community in Amsterdam and began to question his act of baptizing himself.
This could be justified, he concluded, only if there was no true church from which a valid baptism could be obtained. After some investigation Smyth recommended union with them. This was resisted by Thomas Helwys and other members of the group, who returned to England in or and established a Baptist church in London. The parent group in Amsterdam soon disappeared.
In a number of its members withdrew under the leadership of John Spilsbury to form the first Particular Baptist Church. The two decades from to constituted the great period of early Baptist growth. The greatest gains were made by the Particular Baptists, while the General Baptists suffered defections to the Quakers. After the Restoration of the Stuarts in both groups were subjected to severe disabilities until these were somewhat relaxed by the Act of Toleration of During the following decades the vitality of the General Baptists was drained by the inroads of skepticism , and their churches generally dwindled and died or became Unitarian.
The Particular Baptists retreated into a defensive, rigid hyper-Calvinism. Among the Particular Baptists in England renewal came as a result of the influence of the Evangelical Revival , with a new surge of growth initiated by the activity of the English Baptist clergymen Andrew Fuller , Robert Hall , and William Carey. Carey, in , formed the English Baptist Missionary Society —the beginning of the modern foreign missionary movement in the English-speaking world—and became its first missionary to India.
By the end of the 19th century Baptists, together with the other Nonconformist churches, were reaching the peak of their influence in Great Britain, numbering among their preachers several men with international reputations. Baptist influence was closely tied to the fortunes of the Liberal Party , of which the Baptist David Lloyd George was a conspicuous leader. In Canada , Baptist beginnings date from the activity of Ebenezer Moulton, a Baptist immigrant from Massachusetts who organized a church in Nova Scotia in In Ontario the earliest Baptist churches were formed by loyalists who crossed the border after the American Revolution , while other churches were established by immigrant Baptists from Scotland and by missionaries from Vermont and New York.
Baptist churches in the English colonies of North America were largely indigenous in origin, being the product of the leftward movement that was occurring among the colonial Puritans at the same time as it was in England. While some emigrants went to the New World as Baptists, it was more typical for them to adopt Baptist views after their arrival in the colonies, as happened in the case of Henry Dunster , the first president of Harvard College, and Roger Williams.
Williams soon came to the conclusion that all churches, including the newly established church at Providence, lacked a proper foundation, and that this defect could be remedied only by a new apostolic dispensation, when new apostles would appear to reestablish the true church. The defection of Williams left the church with no strong leadership and thus made it possible for it to be reorganized on a General Baptist platform in There was scattered General Baptist activity throughout the colonies, but the only large cluster of General Baptists was in Rhode Island, where the churches were united into an association in The early General Baptists never gained great strength.
Most of their churches decayed, and some, including the Providence church, were reorganized as Particular Baptist churches. The half dozen churches that survived never entered the mainstream of American Baptist life and exerted little influence upon its development.
The earliest strong Particular Baptist centre in the colonies was at Newport , Rhode Island, where, between and , a church that had been gathered by the physician and minister John Clarke adopted Baptist views. Except for a church that had a brief existence at Kittery, Maine, there were only two other Particular Baptist churches in New England for the better part of a century. One was at Swansea, Massachusetts; the other was organized at Boston in In five churches in New Jersey , Pennsylvania, and Delaware were united to form the Philadelphia Baptist Association , and through the association they embarked upon vigorous missionary activity.
By the Philadelphia association included churches located in the present states of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia , and West Virginia; and by further multiplication of churches had necessitated the formation of two subsidiary associations, the Warren in New England and the Ketochton in Virginia.
The Philadelphia association also provided leadership in organizing the Charleston Association in the Carolinas in Although this intercolonial Particular Baptist body provided leadership for the growth that characterized American Baptist life during the decades immediately preceding the American Revolution, that growth was largely a product of an 18th-century religious revival known as the Great Awakening. In the South, however, they maintained a separate existence for a longer period of time. The churches he organized were brought together in to form the Sandy Creek Association.
By , however, a reconciliation had been effected. In several of the colonies, Baptists laboured under legal disabilities.
The public whipping of Obadiah Holmes in for his refusal to pay a fine that had been imposed for holding an unlawful meeting in Lynn, Massachusetts, caused John Clarke to write his Ill News from New England Fourteen years later Baptists of Boston were fined, imprisoned, and denied the use of a meetinghouse they had erected. Payment of taxes for support of the established church was a cause of continuing controversy in New England, while the necessity to secure licenses to preach became an inflammatory issue in Virginia.
The problem of travel had made it difficult for the Philadelphia association to serve as a bond uniting Baptists, and the rapid multiplication of churches made it impossible. It has been estimated that immediately before the American Revolution there were Baptist congregations; 20 years later, in , Isaac Backus estimated the number at 1, The initial expedient of the Philadelphia association had been to organize subsidiary associations, but during the war the churches, left to their own devices, proceeded to organize independent associations.
By there were at least 48 local associations, and the main problem was to fashion a national body to unite the churches. The final impetus in this direction came from an interest in foreign missions. Among the first missionaries of the newly organized Congregational mission board were Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice, who had been sent to India. On shipboard they became convinced by a study of the Scriptures that only believers should be baptized. Upon arrival at Calcutta, Judson went on to Burma , while Rice returned home to enlist support among American Baptists.
Its scope was almost immediately broadened to include, in addition to the foreign mission interest, a concern for home missions, education, and the publication of religious periodicals. In the General Convention once again was restricted to foreign mission activities, and in the course of time it became known as the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society.
Other denominational interests were served by the formation of additional societies with similar specialized concerns, such as the American Baptist Home Mission Society and the American Baptist Publication Society. The unity achieved through these societies was disrupted by the slavery controversy.
During the decade prior to various compromises between the proslavery and antislavery parties in the denomination were attempted, but they proved to be unsatisfactory. The oldest congregation in England was organized in near London, and the first in America at Providence, Rhode Island, in Both congregations ceased to exist in the mids, although the church in Wolfville, recovenanted in , is the oldest continuing Baptist church in Canada.
The Great Awakening in Nova Scotia, and revivals in the 19th century, led to rapid growth in the Maritimes. In New Brunswick Baptists became the largest Protestant denomination. Originally, the majority adhered to the Regular Calvinist theological orientation while a minority endorsed the opposing Free Will Arminian position, maintaining the possibility of salvation for all.
Only in the Atlantic provinces have Canadian Baptists avoided organizational schism. In Upper and Lower Canada Baptist life was shaped from the beginning by conflicting convictions and traditions among immigrants from the US and Britain. English immigrants to Upper and Lower Canada gave rise to open communion in churches established by American ministers in the late 's who refused to allow Baptists to take communion.
From on, immigrants from the Scottish Highlands brought the revivalist tradition of James and Robert Haldane to the Ottawa Valley. Controversy over communion practice and other disagreements hindered co-operation in missionary work and education for several decades. From the s on, slaves escaping from the southern US by the Underground Railroad established a network of black congregations.
In Ontario Baptists sent a minister to Winnipeg. Meanwhile, churches were founded on the Pacific coast, in Victoria and New Westminster With the growth in church membership in central and western Canada since the s, Baptist congregations, composed of immigrants, worship in more than 30 different languages. In recent years, the fastest-growing Baptist churches in Canada have been Chinese-speaking congregations.
In a national fellowship was formed called the Baptist Federation of Canada, which became the Canadian Baptist Federation in Although their roots are in the Canadian Protestant tradition, several smaller groups maintain a relationship with Baptist groups in the US even though they have Canadian administrations. The oldest such congregation was organized in Bridgeport, Ontario near Kitchener in but most of the churches today are located in the western provinces and have long since lost ethnic identity.
Eastern Orthodox Greek Orthodox of G. Evans, Acadia Divinity College, has become internationally known for his critique of populist interpretations of Biblical literature. Williams soon came to the conclusion that all churches, including the newly established church at Providence, lacked a proper foundation, and that this defect could be remedied only by a new apostolic dispensation, when new apostles would appear to reestablish the true church. By there were at least 48 local associations, and the main problem was to fashion a national body to unite the churches. Baptists in Ontario gave leadership in the Clergy Reserves dispute and as a result were instrumental in establishing a non-sectarian university in Toronto. 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.
Their descendants continue a separate fellowship known as the Baptist General Conference of Canada. The majority of their congregations today are in western Canada. Against the protests of the older indigenous Canadian Baptist bodies, the largest Protestant denomination in the US, the Southern Baptists, expanded work into western and central Canada from the s on. In the congregations, which were initially associated with the American body, formed the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists renamed the Canadian National Baptist Convention in , with affiliated churches originally in all except the Atlantic provinces, and subsequently from coast to coast.
The Canadian Baptist mosaic has been further enriched by several small groups with distinctive identities. For example, the Alliance of Reformed Baptist Churches, founded in New Brunswick as part of the holiness movement, merged with the Wesleyan Methodist Church in There are also many independent Baptist congregations which are not affiliated with any larger group. Many Baptists have made significant contributions to the Baptist community in Canada. These leaders and scholars include Dr Jonathan Wilson, professor of theology at Carey Theological College, who added considerably to the theological thought and discussion of Canadian religion and social justice.
Dr Gary Nelson, former general secretary of Canadian Baptist Ministries, contributed to the global influence that Baptists have exercised in missionary work and overseas partnerships. In the field of Biblical scholarship Dr Craig A. Evans, Acadia Divinity College, has become internationally known for his critique of populist interpretations of Biblical literature.
Several conventions or conferences co-operate in the Baptist World Alliance. With more than member conventions in countries, the BWA reports global membership of 47 million adults. Baptists have been divided in their attitudes to ecumenical relations. Many congregations co-operate with other churches in Evangelism , joint services and social ministries, and many support the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.