Southern Baptists are holding their annual meeting in Phoenix today and tomorrow. And this largest Protestant denomination in America is having to face up to the fact that their numbers are dwindling.
From 16.3 million members in 2003, the church body is down in members (to 15.2 million), worship attendance, and baptisms of new converts. This has been happening over a number of years, so it constitutes a trend.
The problem isn’t that the country is turning away from conservative Christianity. The trend documented over the last several decades that conservative churches are growing, while liberal churches are declining still holds true. But not all conservative churches are growing, as Missouri Synod Lutherans and now the Baptists well know. The Assemblies of God denomination is still booming, for example.
Not that numerical growth should be the sole criterion for assessing how a denomination is doing. Integrity and faithfulness are far more important. But the question is, if conservative churches are growing–as Dean Kelley documented in his important study back in 1972–why are some growing and some are not?
Some are blaming the Baptists’ association with the Christian right as part of the reason for their decline. But Pentecostals went all in for Donald Trump and they are doing fine.
Any ideas for why the Baptists are having trouble?
And are there any lessons for us Lutherans?
From Kate Shellnutt, Hundreds of New Churches Not Enough to Satisfy Southern Baptists… | News & Reporting | Christianity Today:
There’s no denying the decline of America’s largest Protestant denomination any longer. The SBC lost almost 78,000 members in the past year, according to the Annual Church Profile (ACP) released ahead of its upcoming annual meeting. Southern Baptists have now lost a million members since their peak of 16.3 million in 2003.
The denomination is down to its “lowest baptisms since 1946; lowest membership since 1990; lowest worship attendance since 1996,” according to historical analysis from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
“The true bad news is that when you put last year in the context of all previous years, it indicates the SBC is in the midst of a decline that shows no signs of either slowing down or turning around,” said Chuck Kelly, the seminary’s president.
The only measure where Southern Baptists are growing is their number of churches, adding 479 churches last year for a total of more than 47,000. But leaders are concerned that they have fewer people to fill those churches. Congregations reported an overall drop in Sunday service attendance (down 7%) and fewer new believers being added through baptism (down 5%).
[Keep reading. . .]
Illustration from Patheos
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