Facts about Baptists
Baptists generally, but not in all cases, believe in the literal Second Coming of Christ and the Final Judgment.
Currently the Baptist World Alliance serves as a global fellowship of Baptists, uniting 210 Baptist groups that they claim represent over 47 million baptized believers in more than 200 countries.
The majority of Baptists worldwide reside in the United States, an estimated 47 million.
Large populations of Baptists exist in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, notably in India (2.4 million), Nigeria (2.3 million), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1.9 million), and Brazil (1.5 million).
Baptists share so-called "orthodox" Christian beliefs with most other moderate or conservative Christian denominations.
The Anabaptists were comprised of widely scattered churches in Europe who rejected infant baptism.
Only those people who are baptized members of a local Baptist church are included in the total number of Baptists.
Baptists insist that baptism is only for those who have come to their faith through a conscious, voluntary commitment.
Some historians see the Anabaptists and Baptists as one and the same people.
The majority of U.S. Baptists live in the southern United States, and the Baptist church has historically exerted a powerful influence in that region of the country.
Baptists adopted an anti-creedal theology in which all authority stems from the Bible.
The term Baptist has its origins with the European Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, but the modern Baptist denomination is more closely linked to the English Separatist movement of the seventeenth century.
Open debate among them, together with close contact and interaction with continental Anabaptists, led the congregation to question the meaning and practice of baptism.
In 1616, Henry Jacob led a group of Puritans in England to establish the Particular Baptists, with a more strictly Calvinist theology.
In 1845, however, the American Baptists split over the issue of slavery.
One country outside of the United States where Baptists play a very public role is Russia.
Baptists generally believe that the New Testament churches were of baptist character.
Baptists usually are considered Protestants, although a minority of Baptists reject that term.
The label Protestant is rejected by some Baptists (primarily those in the Landmark movement) because in their view Baptists have existed separately since the early church days.
The modern Baptist movement, however, is descended either from the sixteenth-century Anabaptists and/or from the English Separatists of the seventeenth century.
Anabaptists held to many of the teachings of modern-day Baptists, such as believer's baptism by immersion and freedom of religion.