400 Years

Last week, the Baptist World Alliance celebrated the 400th anniversary of the Baptist movement with a large celebration in Amsterdam. You can read a bunch of articles from the BWA about the meeting here. Ethics Daily and the Associated Baptist Press both carried several stories, as did some non-Baptist publications (the Baptist Press, however, ignored the celebration). I doubt that John Smyth and Thomas Helwys imagined how many Baptists there would be today when they started the first Baptist congregation four centuries ago and led their small band of persecuted believers.