In 2006, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), had 16 million members. Today, the sect has 13 million members. In 2022 alone, the SBC lost almost 500,000 members. Membership is now at a fifty-year low, and the 2022 loss was the largest in a century. (Please see Southern Baptists lost nearly half a million members in 2022.)
The membership decline has led to all sorts of pearl-clutching and finger-pointing among denominational leaders. Unfortunately, these leaders cannot see the forest for the trees. They refuse to take a hard look at what, exactly, is eating the life out of the SBC: Fundamentalism, Trumpism, misogyny, extreme beliefs on abortion and homosexuality, and other hot-button social issues. A number of SBC leaders and pastors are more than willing to burn the denomination to the ground. Presently, some Fundamentalists within the SBC are trying to change the denomination’s constitution. These pastors want the denomination to expel any church that has female pastors. That’s right, the pressing issue for Southern Baptists is the sex of their pastors. Sigh, right?
Instead of focusing on the SBC’s membership decline, I want to focus on its alarming Sunday attendance numbers. Membership numbers tell us very little about the health of the SBC. Most churches have widely inflated membership rolls. I pastored an SBC congregation in Clare, Michigan in 2003. The church had over 100 members. However, 60 percent of them never attended church. They were members in name only. One of my first acts as pastor was to clean up the roll. I sent letters to every member, asking them to declare their intentions towards the church by attending its services. If they did not attend the services, their names would be removed from the roll. Several families got upset at me, saying “How dare I expect them to attend church to be a member.” Most of the people I sent letters to did not respond. I sent them a second letter, and after several months, those who didn’t respond were removed as members.
The practical effect of doing this is that it restricts voting to people who actually attend the church. People who don’t attend the church shouldn’t be making its decisions. Church business meetings are often fractious, with dissenting groups lining up non-attending members to support their causes. Cleaning up the membership put an end to this kind of behavior.
While the SBC may have 13.2 million members, on any given Sunday, only 3.8 million people attend church, down 2.6 million attendance from 2008. On any given Sunday, 70 percent of Southern Baptist church members are nowhere to be found. They may be at the lake, picnicking, or sleeping in, but they sure as hell ain’t sitting in an SBC church listening to the gospel.
The Lifeway Research study also showed that the SBC closed or lost 416 churches and 165 missions. I suspect these numbers will continue to increase going forward. The SBC is dying before our eyes, one church, one member at a time. Of course, this can be said for most Christian denominations in the United States. Mainline denominations have been dying for decades. SBC preachers used to point to the liberal beliefs of mainline churches as the primary reason for their decline. Now they are facing a serious decline too. Time to get some popcorn and enjoy the show.
Prediction: SBC leadership will announce a NEW, yes, really, really, really, NEW evangelism program that will result in thousands of people getting saved and joining SBC churches.
Good luck with that, preachers.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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It’s across the board with churches of all kinds. The SBC battle of Liberals vs. Conservatives started it in the 1980’s and the creation of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (For liberals) now, any church that is growing or maintaining is basically “Contemporary Worship style” in nature. Probably 80%. The days of the good old hymns are fading quickly. I wonder if the move to Contemporary style worship and purpose driven church of the SBC actually contributed to the loss the SBC is seeing because it became to loose. What do you think Bruce? I’m not speaking as an IFB (LOL) but I wonder if the open contemporary style the casual way contributes to decline.
There has certainly been a move towards entertainment oriented worship services. Smaller churches think that’s the answer, so they try to mimic megachurches with their paid, professional musicians. It doesn’t work.
Former SBC member here who left SBC in 1994. This is complete anecdotal, but I have friends and family members who are part of those who exited the SBC. My aunt and uncle left a long time ago because, as my uncle said, “we got tired of the pastor telling us how to vote”. A couple of my Gen X contemporaries left during the Trump era – they couldn’t reconcile the rampant cruelty associated with Trumpism and Jesus’ commands to care for those in need. I have another friend couple who are members of a church that’s still technically affiliated with the SBC but they low-key have a female pastor on staff, members who are POC, they’re LGBTQ affirming, but all these stances are under the radar and not made known to the SBC. I am not sure how they reconcile their consciences with being a member church of an organization from which they have to keep their true beliefs secret….
Meanwhile, I am jumping up and down over here celebrating the mass exodus of people from conservative religion. The political power grabs are NOT helping conservative religion.
Dan—I think you have a point. The last church I attended had a liberal, progressive philosophy—it was one of the first to hold funerals for AIDS victims—in a mainline Protestant denomination: one of the “dying “ denominations Bruce mentions. The pastor admitted that many left the denomination precisely because of churches like hers. “But if we don’t include everyone, what are we?” she wondered.
On the other hand, the people pastors like her are trying to include—including LGBTQ and other marginalized people, and the young—wonder what, exactly, such a church offers that a humanitarian or humanistic philosophy or organization doesn’t. Or, as Bruce says, they just would prefer to spend Sunday morning taking a bike ride or walk, having brunch with family or friends, or sleeping in. (Some are working really long hours to pay their student loans or simply support themselves and families.)
In short, churches are trying to sell to people who aren’t buying because they have no use for what’s being sold. And the sales tactics are driving away the “brand loyal” customers, if you will. So the churches are locked in a vicious cycle.
(By the way, I attended the church I mentioned after growing up as a Roman Catholic and spending several years in an Evangelical Church.)