Introduction

Summary

The year 2009 marked the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Baptist movement. In late July, leaders from 214 Baptist conventions and unions representing 36 million members and a community of 105 million persons from more than 120 nations gathered in Amsterdam, Holland, to celebrate the event. This gathering contrasted sharply with the first Baptist meeting in that city in 1609, when a company of about 40 English exiles organized the world's first Baptist church. In that contrast lie the stories, problems, and visions that furnish the content of this book. It is generally the case that the original DNA of a movement establishes its future possibilities and limitations. The initial Amsterdam Baptists were a homogeneous, unicultural, and contentious group. After their first major schism, half of the group moved back to England to take up a Baptist witness there. Thus, an Anglocentric interpretation of what it means to be Baptist was launched.

Unwittingly, the tendency to limit Baptist identity to those cultural parameters has lived on. Most often when the Baptist story is told and contextual exploration is undertaken, the contours are confined to the Anglo Baptist cultural experiences. Where others sometimes are treated, they usually are found in the margins – the by-products of the Anglo story. But, as the foregoing description illustrates, the Baptist movement has evolved beyond those boundaries. As the twenty-first century dawns, Baptists have entered a stage of development that demands new assessments of the movement's origins, expansion, global web of partners, and identity.