Jack Waters suggests that the collapse of Mainline Protestantism leaves Baptists, specifically the Southern Baptist Convention, as the “rightful inheritors of mantle of leadership in American Christianity. He notes that shifts in U.S. population favor it:
The many outsiders who move to the South from around the country need to hear the gospel, just as the native population still needs to be constantly reminded of it. This means they need to be met by a confident church willing to articulate the gospel clearly and incarnate it in all of life. That church must be the Southern Baptist one.
And Waters offers good advice for these Baptists to step up their game to meet their historical moment.
But if it is the Southern Baptist Convention, and not generic Baptists, who are here addressed, then I think that moment is already passing. The age of great national Protestant denominations in America seemingly is itself concluding.
The Southern Baptist Convention surpassed United Methodism as America’s largest church in the 1960s and peaked in 2006 with 16.2 million members. But it’s been declining ever since, and in 2023 dipped to 12.9 million. It’s losing about 200,000 members annually and there are no signers of reversal.
Don’t blame the Southern Baptist Convention. Nearly all U.S. Protestant denominations are declining. The Mainline Protestants have shrunk since the 1960s. Evangelical denominations have been shrinking over the last two decades. Protestant growth in the U.S. is largely confined to nondenominational churches, who, if they were collectively a denomination, would be America’s largest.
But Baptists can still be credited. “Non-denominational” is usually just another word for Baptist. These unaffiliated congregations are nearly always Baptist in theology and ethos. They self-govern congregationally, practice only believer’s baptism, affirm “once-saved, always saved,” and stress the conversion moment in salvation.
As a Methodist, I congratulate Baptists for overtaking Methodism, once America’s largest religious movement. Baptists, even those without the name, have captured the soul of American Protestantism. And they are succeeding largely, and likely thanks to, the absence of denominational affiliation.
It’s very rare to find church-going American Christians under age 60 with strong attachments to denominations. I often meet students from Christian colleges and ask about their church affiliation. One recent delegation of about a dozen included only two students in denominations, both of whom freely admitted they were indifferent to those denominations. Their professor was also nondenominational. With another Christian college delegation, I found that ten of the dozen or so students did not even know what denominations are! I was glad to explain, but it was like introducing them to a distant historical phenomenon.
I find the same to be true for the many young professionals in D.C. who attend the scores of new church plants in the nation’s capital. Whatever their background is in the South or Midwest or wherever, they pick churches here for reasons unrelated to affiliation. Some of them like Reformed theology, which can be found in most of these church plants. Others like liturgy, which often draws them to Anglican churches. These Anglican churches have lots of former Baptists, Southern or otherwise. Yet I don’t detect that these now-young Anglicans are very committed specifically to the Anglican Church in North America or to any other ecclesial body.
Interestingly, the fastest growing Protestant church in D.C., planted almost a decade ago, is officially Southern Baptist but never discusses it. There is no reference to the convention on the website. And it would be surprising if it still has the affiliation in a few years. The same is true for many growing Southern Baptist churches whose signage and websites are silent to their denominational identity.
Many large Southern Baptist churches are quitting the convention. Recently some have cited the stricter rules against any pastoral title for female church staff, though this is likely only part of the reason. Large, successful congregations, especially if they are young and lack generations of historical ties to the convention, increasingly see no purpose to denominational affiliation.
This trend is nationwide across Protestant and evangelical Christianity. During the recent United Methodist schism, nearly 8000 congregations quit the denomination during a four-year window allowing exit with church property. The presenting issue was church teaching on marriage and sexuality. But for many congregations, who saw the denomination as an expensive nuisance, escaping with church property was an opportunity for indepence. About half of the exited churches so far have not joined the newly formed Global Methodist Church. Most presumably will stay independent, defying historic Methodist connectional ecclesiology. Some by default will effectively become Baptist. I’ve heard of exited United Methodist churches hiring Baptist preachers and practicing rebaptism, a Methodist no-no.
Many U.S. Protestant denominations likely will not meaningfully exist in ten years, including the Southern Baptist Convention. They might still legally exist. There might be endowments. Some of their agencies might independently survive. Some seminaries will survive. The Southern Baptist seminaries seem poised to serve nondenominational America.
But the age of great U.S. Protestant denominations, a mostly 20th century phenomenon, is closing. By “great,” I mean national in scope, with millions of members, large church agencies, national leaders, publications, publishing houses, affiliated seminaries and college, campgrounds, and retreat centers, with a strong identity and subculture that is transgenerational. Current U.S. Protestantism and evangelicalism have little use for any of this.
This decline of great denominations is arguably not good or bad, just a new phase in U.S. Christianity. Those denominations bequeathed to us by the Second Great Awakening are fading. New movements are replacing them. This is the constant churn of Protestantism. What next?
Jack Waters wants a Protestant institution to accept the mantle of leadership discarded by Mainline Protestantism. But there is no such national institution available for this task. New institutions, with different premises, will have to arise. Maybe they are already doing so. Let’s wait and see.
Mark Tooley is the President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, and editor of Providence.
Jack Waters suggests that the collapse of Mainline Protestantism leaves Baptists, specifically the Southern Baptist Convention, as the “rightful inheritors of mantle of leadership in American Christianity. He notes that shifts in U.S. population favor it:
The many outsiders who move to the South from around the country need to hear the gospel, just as the native population still needs to be constantly reminded of it. This means they need to be met by a confident church willing to articulate the gospel clearly and incarnate it in all of life. That church must be the Southern Baptist one.
And Waters offers good advice for these Baptists to step up their game to meet their historical moment.
But if it is the Southern Baptist Convention, and not generic Baptists, who are here addressed, then I think that moment is already passing. The age of great national Protestant denominations in America seemingly is itself concluding.
The Southern Baptist Convention surpassed United Methodism as America’s largest church in the 1960s and peaked in 2006 with 16.2 million members. But it’s been declining ever since, and in 2023 dipped to 12.9 million. It’s losing about 200,000 members annually and there are no signers of reversal.
Don’t blame the Southern Baptist Convention. Nearly all U.S. Protestant denominations are declining. The Mainline Protestants have shrunk since the 1960s. Evangelical denominations have been shrinking over the last two decades. Protestant growth in the U.S. is largely confined to nondenominational churches, who, if they were collectively a denomination, would be America’s largest.
But Baptists can still be credited. “Non-denominational” is usually just another word for Baptist. These unaffiliated congregations are nearly always Baptist in theology and ethos. They self-govern congregationally, practice only believer’s baptism, affirm “once-saved, always saved,” and stress the conversion moment in salvation.
As a Methodist, I congratulate Baptists for overtaking Methodism, once America’s largest religious movement. Baptists, even those without the name, have captured the soul of American Protestantism. And they are succeeding largely, and likely thanks to, the absence of denominational affiliation.
It’s very rare to find church-going American Christians under age 60 with strong attachments to denominations. I often meet students from Christian colleges and ask about their church affiliation. One recent delegation of about a dozen included only two students in denominations, both of whom freely admitted they were indifferent to those denominations. Their professor was also nondenominational. With another Christian college delegation, I found that ten of the dozen or so students did not even know what denominations are! I was glad to explain, but it was like introducing them to a distant historical phenomenon.
I find the same to be true for the many young professionals in D.C. who attend the scores of new church plants in the nation’s capital. Whatever their background is in the South or Midwest or wherever, they pick churches here for reasons unrelated to affiliation. Some of them like Reformed theology, which can be found in most of these church plants. Others like liturgy, which often draws them to Anglican churches. These Anglican churches have lots of former Baptists, Southern or otherwise. Yet I don’t detect that these now-young Anglicans are very committed specifically to the Anglican Church in North America or to any other ecclesial body.
Interestingly, the fastest growing Protestant church in D.C., planted almost a decade ago, is officially Southern Baptist but never discusses it. There is no reference to the convention on the website. And it would be surprising if it still has the affiliation in a few years. The same is true for many growing Southern Baptist churches whose signage and websites are silent to their denominational identity.
Many large Southern Baptist churches are quitting the convention. Recently some have cited the stricter rules against any pastoral title for female church staff, though this is likely only part of the reason. Large, successful congregations, especially if they are young and lack generations of historical ties to the convention, increasingly see no purpose to denominational affiliation.
This trend is nationwide across Protestant and evangelical Christianity. During the recent United Methodist schism, nearly 8000 congregations quit the denomination during a four-year window allowing exit with church property. The presenting issue was church teaching on marriage and sexuality. But for many congregations, who saw the denomination as an expensive nuisance, escaping with church property was an opportunity for indepence. About half of the exited churches so far have not joined the newly formed Global Methodist Church. Most presumably will stay independent, defying historic Methodist connectional ecclesiology. Some by default will effectively become Baptist. I’ve heard of exited United Methodist churches hiring Baptist preachers and practicing rebaptism, a Methodist no-no.
Many U.S. Protestant denominations likely will not meaningfully exist in ten years, including the Southern Baptist Convention. They might still legally exist. There might be endowments. Some of their agencies might independently survive. Some seminaries will survive. The Southern Baptist seminaries seem poised to serve nondenominational America.
But the age of great U.S. Protestant denominations, a mostly 20th century phenomenon, is closing. By “great,” I mean national in scope, with millions of members, large church agencies, national leaders, publications, publishing houses, affiliated seminaries and college, campgrounds, and retreat centers, with a strong identity and subculture that is transgenerational. Current U.S. Protestantism and evangelicalism have little use for any of this.
This decline of great denominations is arguably not good or bad, just a new phase in U.S. Christianity. Those denominations bequeathed to us by the Second Great Awakening are fading. New movements are replacing them. This is the constant churn of Protestantism. What next?
Jack Waters wants a Protestant institution to accept the mantle of leadership discarded by Mainline Protestantism. But there is no such national institution available for this task. New institutions, with different premises, will have to arise. Maybe they are already doing so. Let’s wait and see.
Mark Tooley is the President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, and editor of Providence.
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