5 Comments to 'Should we read anything into declining Baptist membership?'
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Should we read anything into declining Baptist membership?
Posted By katie allison granju
Apparently there are fewer Baptists than there were previously:
The number of people baptized in Southern Baptist churches fell for the third straight year in 2007 to the denomination’s lowest level since 1987, while total membership dropped by nearly 40,000.
Baptisms last year dropped nearly 5.5 percent to 345,941, compared to 364,826 in 2006, according to an annual report released by LifeWay Christian Resources, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Total membership was 16,266,920 last year, a less than one percent drop from the 2006 figure — 16,306,246.
The decreasing number of followers in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination coincides with declines at other mainline Protestant churches, while non-denominational churches are gaining and ranks of the unaffiliated are growing.
I have noticed more of these hip-sounding, non-denominational churches springing up around Knoxville (I hear through the neighborhood grapevine that one of the preachers from this groovy-sounding church, which meets on Market Square, just rented the house two doors down from me). I wonder if these new-style churches are drawing many folks who previously identified as Baptists? Or whether they tend to draw from the less conservative Protestant denominations, which are also declining.
I also wonder whether the slowdown in Baptist growth, after three decades of steady increases, is an indicator that the country’s hyper-conservative mood, which started with the Reagan/Moral Majority era, may be ending.
What do you think?
Apr 25th, 2008
The fact is, ‘Mainline’ Denominations have been declining for decades and the SBC is just now beginning to catch up to this decline. It’s all part of the wider decline of Christianity around the world. Christians simply are not committed to Churches they way they used to be.
I think it has less to do with the decline of conservatism than with desire to be entertained.
All of the new churches pursue a more active, entertainment oriented type of worship than the mainline protestant churches. More like fans in the stadium on Friday night football, rather than the Sunday-go-to-meeting crowd.
There is also that non-denominational environment which gives more leeway than in the more doctrinaire mainline churches.
I think you should take them (new neighbors two houses down) some cookies, welcome them to the “hood” and find out what they are about.
Bien sur!
Our neighborhood is super friendly, very diverse… I look forward to getting to know any new neighbors who arrive on the street.
(Although as a terrible cook, I’m more likely to deliver a bottle of wine than a platter of cookies…)
>Jim said: “. It’s all part of the wider decline of Christianity around the world.”
Christianity is not in worldwide decline. There are some regional declines, Europe. There are also great regional increases, Africa and China. Africa is poised to become over 50% Christian in the next few years. (Chrsitianity overtook Islam in Africa in the 1960’s.) The Catholic Church, which accounts for just over 50% of Christians, grew by about 17-19 million in just the past year.
God bless…