A believer's church, a free conscience, an immersed body.
One of the largest Protestant families: baptism by immersion on profession of faith, the autonomy of every local congregation, and liberty of conscience for every soul — a conviction Baptists held while it cost them, long before it became common sense.
DeitiesOne God in three persons
Founded1609 CE · Amsterdam, then England
FounderJohn Smyth and Thomas Helwys
AfterlifeResurrection and judgment
TextsBible
The map
The Baptists’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →
c. 1000 BCE Judaism 30 CE Christianity 1517 CE Protestantism 1609 CE The Baptists
Baptism follows faith, by immersion.
The whole body under the water: burial and resurrection enacted, on a confession freely made.
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Every congregation governs itself.
No bishop above the local church: each congregation calls its pastor and minds its own discipline.
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The soul is free — the state has no say in faith.
Soul liberty: Baptists argued religious freedom from prison cells long before constitutions agreed.
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Immersion.
Down into the water and up again — the baptistery built into the church wall is Baptist architecture's one monument.
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