Portal:Philosophy/Selected article
Baptist is a term describing individuals belonging to a Baptist church or a Baptist denomination. The faith takes its name from the conviction that followers of Jesus Christ are commanded to be immersed in water as a public display of their faith. The term Baptist has its origins with the anabaptists of the 16th century. Baptists emphasize a believer's baptism by full immersion, which is performed after a profession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. A congregational governance system gives autonomy to individual local Baptist churches, which are sometimes associated in organizations such as the Southern Baptist Convention. Historically, Baptists have also played a key role in the idea of separation of church and state. In the late 1990s, there were about 43 million Baptists worldwide with about 33 million in the United States.
