Baptists are people from all walks of life who believe that salvation is through the work of Jesus Christ and is received individually and personally by faith alone. Baptists believe that the local church should be self governed. This means that no hierarchy in church leadership outside the local church should govern the affairs of the local church. Baptists also believe that only believers should be baptized upon confession of faith, and that baptism is a public confession, symbolizing the act of regeneration that has already taken place by faith alone in the life of the one to be baptized. They believe that separation of church and states means that the state should not dictate spiritual matters to the church and the church should not use government to dictate how people must worship. Or to put it another way, separation of church and state means that people are to be free to worship however they please, without coercion from the state. “Roger Williams (1603-1683) was forced to leave Massachusetts Bay Colony because of his views favoring church-state separation. Williams established both the first Baptist church in America and the colony of Rhode Island. The colony afforded religious freedom to all. He wrote advocating a “hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.”’¹

Baptists have other distinctives as well, many of which they share with other denominations and Christian groups throughout the world. Baptists are a diverse mixture of people with a rich history that began in the 17th century.

Some very good resources for more detailed information about the history and beliefs of Baptists can be found at http://www.baptistdistinctives.org, and at http://www.baptisthistory.org.

[1] http://www.baptistdistinctives.org/artpdf/article25_11_21_05.pdf