When was the Baptist Church started and by whom?

Southern Baptist? National Baptist Convention, USA? National Baptist Convention of America, Inc ? American Baptist Churches? Baptist Bible Fellowship International?

I believe there were baptists in England in the 1500s.

When was the Baptist Church started

• Urm.. Armenia?

and by whom?

• A Christian Armenian.

Roger Williams Was a minister in Salem, Massachusetts, who founded the first Church in America. More Info: He opposed forced attendance at church. He also opposed the English colonists taking over Native American lands by force. Because of his beliefs, the General Court forced Williams to leave the colony. In 1636, he fled Southward and founded the colony of Rhode Island, which Guaranteed religious freedom and the separation of Church and State.

It is thought that the first Baptist preacher was called John Smyth who was an ordained Church of England Minister. In 1609, he had left England because his theological ideas did not fit in with the Church or State at the time. He went to Holland, and in 1609 “baptised” himself, and fellow members of the congregation. This was a radical act, which affronted the authority of the English Monarch as head of the church. The movement had been growing for many years, and it is difficult to say if any one person singularly founded the Church. Smyth had been a member of a radical separatist group in Lincoln shire before leaving for the Netherlands, but it seems that his “baptism” paved the way for the foundation of the baptist ministry.