Baptists in the United States
[2][3][4] Baptists adhere to a congregationalist structure, so local church congregations are generally self-regulating and autonomous, meaning that their broadly Christian religious beliefs can and do vary.
Baptist theological reflection informed how the colonists understood their presence in the New World, especially in Rhode Island through the preaching of Roger Williams, John Clarke, and others.
Theologically all Baptists insisted that baptism was the key ritual and should not be administered to children too young to understand the meaning.
Roger Williams and John Clarke, his compatriot in working for religious freedom, are credited with founding the Baptist faith in North America.
When Harvard's first president Henry Dunster abandoned Puritanism in favor of the Baptist faith in 1653, he provoked a controversy that highlighted two distinct approaches to dealing with dissent in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
There was a sharp contrast between the austerity of the plain-living Baptists and the opulence of the Anglican planters, who controlled local government.
The struggle for religious toleration erupted and played out during the American Revolution, as the Baptists worked to disestablish the Anglican church.
[15] Beeman (1978) explores the conflict in one Virginia locality, showing that as population became more dense, the county court and the Anglican Church increased their authority.
[16] Kroll-Smith (1984) suggests the strength of the evangelical movement's organization determined its ability to mobilize power outside the conventional authority structure.
[6] In the 1770s, White Baptists went on conversion missions in the Southern United States as a part of the period known as a Great Awakening.
[18] The result of this was the creation of "hush harbors" where slaves would secretly blend Christianity with their African religions and practices, creating their own communities.
[18] Some of these spaces were also used to plot against slaveowners, such as the 1831 rebellion in Virginia led by Nat Turner, a Baptist preacher in his community.
[21] In 19th century Virginia, slaves applying for membership in Baptist churches were required to get written approval from their master to join a congregation.
In 1840, the Board of Managers of the Baptist General Convention for Foreign Missions repeated that the slavery question, which it never mentions by name, is not relevant to their work.
"[23] There was set up an American Baptist Free Mission Society in 1842, whose founding President was Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor.
One thing is certain, we can never be a party to any arrangement which would imply approbation of slavery.In Baptist churches in both free and slaveholding states during this period, people of color were required to sit in a segregated "negro pew" regardless of whether they were members of the church, were licensed ministers, or even were invited into the pews of other white churchgoers.
[7] In 1872, Henry Tupper of the Southern Baptist Convention's Foreign Mission Board appointed Edmonia Moon for missionary service.
Women were recognized and encouraged to form missionary circles and children's bands in churches and Sunday Schools.
[27] Formation of the Black Baptist convention During Reconstruction, policies and practices such as literacy tests, poll taxes, and racial violence lead to the continued disenfranchisement of freed slaves in the South.
[28] According to a census published by the Baptist World Alliance in 2023, it self-reported a total of 21,145 churches and 8,415,100 members,[29] although the Association of Religion Data Archives reported a membership of 1,567,741 in 2020.
Until the early 19th century these Baptist associations tended to center on a local or regional area where the constituent churches could conveniently meet.
The Triennial Convention was a loose organization with the purpose of raising funds for various independent benevolent, educational and mission societies.
According to the Pew Research Center's 2014 Religious Landscape Study, 9.2% of Americans belong to Evangelical Baptist congregations.
Some of these schools such as Brown University and Bates College eventually became secularized, but others have maintained close bonds with their original founding groups and goals.
[73] Many of these congregations have a history of employing evangelism techniques that critics consider too extreme and abrasive for modern American culture.
