Park Baptist Church, in
Greater London,
Baptist Union of Great Britain. at
City Church, affiliated to the
Brazilian Baptist Convention, in
São José dos Campos,
Brazil, 2017. , affiliated with the
Nagaland Baptist Church Council (India). 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." 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 Baptist World Alliance was founded in
London, during this first Baptist World Congress in July 1905. Every five years since, the BWA holds a
Baptist World Congress in different locations around the world, and multiple international meetings and programs are held in the times between Congresses. The gathering was referred to as an "alliance" and not a council in order to establish the nature of the dialogue as a meeting. This means that the body wields no authority over participating churches or national Baptist unions, serving only as a forum for collaboration. In 2003, the
International Baptist Convention, an international association of English-speaking churches, became a member. In 2004, the messengers of the
Southern Baptist Convention voted to withdraw from the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) because a member association, the
American Baptist Churches USA had accepted an organization that included 2 churches favorable to the
blessings of same-sex marriage as well as perceived
anti-American sentiment, which were partly attributed to Alliance Secretary General Denton Lotz's visits to Fidel Castro in Cuba. A year later, two state denominational members of the Southern Baptist Convention—the
Baptist General Association of Virginia and the
Baptist General Convention of Texas—affirmed their continued support and applied for membership in the Alliance, and were subsequently admitted. In July 2025, Karl Johnson of the
Jamaica Baptist Union became Chair of the Alliance and Lynn Green of the
Baptist Union of Great Britain became Vice Chair. == List of members ==