Who We Are
The name of the Baptist movement derives from the New Testament practice of baptising those people who have made a personal confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Baptists, together with other evangelical churches, are part of a spiritual movement for the renewal and separation between the State and the church, the baptism of believers and a conscious commitment for a personal faith in Christ.
The first Baptist churches were established in Holland and England during the 17th century, within the protestant reform of a Calvinist type, holding fast the ideal heredity of the Anabaptists of the 16th century. Differing from other protestant churches, the Baptists did not have an assembly with eminent theologians but rather were a popular movement formed by churches of laymen who directly confronted the Bible. They matured a civil commitment which was expressed in the English and North American revolutions in the battle for religious freedom and the separation between the State and the church.
Today there are about 30 million Baptists with a total population of about 100 million people (including also the families of the believers who are baptised). There is a strong representation of Baptists present in the USA, Brazil, India and Great Britain.