Baptist World Alliance
international Christian denomination
The Baptist World Alliance (BWA) is an international communion of Baptists, with an estimated 53 million people from 283 member bodies in 138 countries and territories as of 2025. A voluntary association of Baptist churches, the BWA accounts for about half the Baptists in the world, becoming Christianity's seventh-largest communion (see list of Christian denominations by membership).
The BWA was founded in 1905 in London during an international congress of Baptist churches. Its headquarters are in Falls Church, Virginia, United States. It is led by general secretary and CEO Elijah M. Brown, Karl Johnson of the Jamaica Baptist Union, Chair of the Alliance and Lynn Green of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, Vice Chair.
History
The roots of the Baptist World Alliance can be traced back to the seventeenth century when Thomas Grantham, the Baptist Messenger and leading divine (theologian) of Lincolnshire, proposed the concept of a congregation of all Christians in the world that are "baptised according to the appointment of Christ." Similar proposals were put forward later such as the call of John Rippon in 1790 for a world meeting of Baptists "to consult the ecclesiastical good to the whole."
It was, however, only in 1904 when such a congregation became a reality. John Newton Prestridge, editor of The Baptist Argus, at Louisville, Kentucky, called for a world gathering of Baptists. John Howard Shakespeare, editor of The Baptist Times and Freeman, London, endorsed the proposal. In October 1904, the Baptist Union of Great Britain passed a resolution to invite a Congress to meet with them in 1905. At the Congress, a committee was formed, which proposed a Constitution for a World Alliance.
The public source identifies “Baptist World Alliance” as international Christian denomination. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Baptist, World and Alliance.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1929251. VIAF identifies the subject as 135839727. The Library of Congress control number is n80020431. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2025, 1905, 1790 and 1904.
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This entry incorporates text from “Baptist World Alliance” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.