If you press me for a single name, historians point to John Smyth as the technical starter of the first Baptist congregation. But the real answer is: thousands of nameless, stubborn peasants who read their Bibles in English for the first time and thought, “Wait, this ‘believer’s baptism’ thing is in the book. Why aren’t we doing it?”
Baptists have always been allergic to top-down authority. No pope, no bishop, no CEO. Every local church is autonomous. So you can’t point to one pope-like founder—that’s against their whole vibe. It’s like asking, “Who started the internet?” Well, a bunch of nerds in labs, but also every person who posted a cat video.
