"But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first." Revelation 2:4, ESV
The denomination is facing issues that, thirty years ago, it never imagined it would face, when fundamentalists, who were not in the majority, but who had a significant following in the denomination, began an effort to affect the election of officers who controlled appointments on two of the most powerful committees, in order to change the makeup of trustee boards at all of the denomination's six seminaries, two mission boards, publishing house and commissions, to place it under fundamentalist control. The claimed objective was to enforce a doctrinal position on Biblical Inerrancy that fundamentalists believed, and claimed that those who didn't were liberals who were subverting the Christian gospel.
But one of the distinguishing characteristics of Baptists, that make them different from other Protestants, is that they don't gather in denominations to force doctrinal unity on independent, autonomous churches. In reality, the leaders of this fundamentalist takeover, known as the "Conservative Resurgence," were introducing Christian Reconstructionism into the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, to bring about political change leading to the imposition of Christian nationalism on the country, culminating in what we now know as Project 2025.
It was at that moment that the Southern Baptists reached the peak of their influence and set events in motion that would lead to the denomination experiencing its steepest declines in membership and attendance since Reconstruction. I believe it was at that moment in 1979, clearly explained by Bill Moyers in the documentary linked above, that the Southern Baptist Convention destroyed itself.
Business matters attended to by the convention's delegates, known as messengers, attending the annual meeting in Dallas this month provide some hints of issues that are fallout from the fatal decision the denomination made in 1979, which at least one pastor who was interviewed in Moyer's report claimed was "the first time a major denomination was turned back to its conservative roots," and that this event "may have been more significant than the Protestant Reformation. Southern Baptists were actually turned away from their roots, as Moyers clearly demonstrates, onto a fundamentalist pathway that was a clear diversion from its historic roots.
So what did the denomination devote most of its time and energy at this annual meeting?
- Stymied in efforts of the past five years to develop some means of handling multiple complaints of sexual abuse by pastors and other church leaders, they simply turned their attention away from the scandal, hoping that by ignoring it, it will go away. They have failed, for almost five years now, to wrap up and resolve issues related to widespread sexual abuse by church pastors and leaders, uncovered in an investigation called Abuse of Faith, launched by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express News in 2019. After an independent investigation uncovered significant problems in reporting abuse, allowing abusive pastors to move on to different churches, and failing to develop a system of reporting that would help prevent this from happening, and abandoning victims with no system of support, the messengers just moved on.
- The fundamentalist takeover in 1979 has led to increased pressure on churches which have women serving in roles that use the title "pastor." For the third time, an amendment to the SBC constitution was proposed which would kick churches out of the denomination if they have ordained females in a pastoral ministry role. The amendment failed to gather the two thirds vote required for passage.
- For the third time in a row, a motion was brought forward to completely defund and disband the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which is the lobbying group representing Southern Baptists on religious liberty issues in Washington, DC. The motion's defeat turned into a vote of confidence in the commissions work. The opposition has more to do with politics than with religious liberty. The former executive director, Russell Moore, now editor of Christianity Today, is an outspoken never-Trumper, so these motions to defund and disband the ERLC are an attempt to continue to punish the trustees and the organization for not calling him out or firing him.
- An inordinate amount of time was spent on a single resolution, devoted to expressing support for the Supreme Court to overturn the Obergefell decision, which allowed for same-gender marriage. It's a resolution, worded in such a way as to leave many people wondering what the connection is to the work of what is supposed to be a Christian, not a political, denomination.
The Largest Collapse of Attendance and Membership Since Reconstruction
In Bill Moyer's documentary, God in Politics, linked above, one of the first statements made is from a North Carolina pastor, Robert Tenery, who states that the vote taken by messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention, in June of 1979, when a group that became known as the "Conservative Resurgence" elected Dr. Adrian Rogers, a high profile fundamentalist pastor from Memphis, Tennessee as President of the Southern Baptist Convention, was the first time a major denomination had ever turned back to its "conservative roots," and that the move was perhaps even more significant than the Protestant reformation.
That's a laughable statement, along with pity for Tenery's ignorance.
It was turn toward hard line, far right fundamentalism, at least on the surface, and a turn toward a commitment to Christian Reconstructionism for the purpose of using the voting power of the Southern Baptists, along with other conservative Evangelicals, to completely reform American politics, pushing toward Christian nationalism. The last 46 years of control of the leadership of the denomination have made their political aims very clear, and their concern over enforcing the uniformity of the doctrine of inerrancy a mere ruse to achieve their political purposes.
Southern Baptists were founded by churches in slave states who objected to the increasingly abolitionist perspective of the Triennial Baptist Convention, which refused to appoint a slave owner nominated as a "test case" by a group of Baptists in Georgia as a missionary. So their "roots" are found in their support for the enslavement of black people, based on the false doctrinal belief in their inferiority to white people. It was not until 1995, 150 years after the denomination was formed in Augusta, Georgia, that any formal apology for their role in the enslavement of human beings came about.
Think about that. The largest Protestant denomination in the United States was founded on beliefs and convictions of people claiming to be Christian in a false, inhumane, unChristian doctrine and practice. And it took them 150 years to realize the error of their ways.
So it should not be surprising that another false doctrine would be at the core of a "Conservative Resurgence" aimed at using the voting strength of this same denomination to bring about radical political reform leading the United States down the path to Christian nationalism. Nor should it be surprising that this movement has led to the largest collapse of attendance and membership in this same denomination since Reconstruction.
The Southern Baptist Convention is Dying
The decline in attendance actually started in the late 1990's. The membership of a typical Southern Baptist church is, on average, about 45% larger than the actual number of people who are involved in and engaged in the ministry life of the church. In fact, at its peak, in 2006, while total membership reached 16.2 million, the average weekly attendance across the denomination was slightly over 6 million. Membership records are kept by local churches and reported annually, so there are always variations, but the fact of the matter is that if all of the churches counted the members who attend at least one service per year, that figure would be, at best, about 7.5 million. So the numerical strength of the Southern Baptists, among the whole of American evangelicalism is about half of what it claims.
Figures from the denomination itself, as reported by its churches, show a staggering decline in both membership and attendance, that has grown particularly steep over the past decade, coinciding with the first election of Trump to the Presidency. Membership has fallen from just over 16 million to a current 12.8 million, the lowest number since World War 2. And weekly attendance dropped from a peak of 6.2 million down to a bottom figure of 3.8 million two years ago, some of that due to COVID. Since the pandemic, attendance has come back up slightly, to 4.2 million.
Does the intrusion of Trump's right wing extremism, along with his lack of any religious background or interest, and his troublesome dishonesty and immorality, have anything to do with the exodus of membership from this denomination? Yes, the evidence certainly points to the fact that too much Trump from the pulpits translates into too many members streaming out the door. The largest drops in membership figures, from year to year, occurred between 2018 and 2022, when more than 400,000 members left each year. That figure slowed down, to around 200,000 a year for the past two or three years, but has started to climb again with this year's report.
It's a combination of circumstances that are all connected. Last year, after debating the issue and requiring the credentials committee to come up with a more rigid definition of the title "Pastor," the fundamentalists succeeded in kicking out its largest and most evangelistic congregation, Saddleback Valley Community Church in Mission Viejo, California. That caused an immediate subtraction of 40,000 members, and several other churches, including Elevation Church, a 25,000 member congregation in Charlotte, North Carolina. Altogether, it is believed the churches which left the denomination as a result of Saddleback's exit have, to this point, added up to over 100,000 members and more than $10 million in contributions.
The failure of the leadership to follow directives of convention messengers in cleaning up the sexual abuse scandal, and putting a system in place to help churches avoid calling ministers who have prior abuse records has also led to an exodus. It's seen as being connected to a general attitude of misogyny which characterizes fundamentalist Christianity, not compatible with historic Baptist tradition or values, but since they control the leadership, and have decided to find ways to distract the rank and file members from the real issues, there's been a loss of interest in staying the course.
Victims of abuse have been openly and publicly criticized, instead of being comforted, and helped with restoration to their own peace of mind and mental stability. Denominational leaders do not seem to notice how bad that appears to the broader Christian community in this country, nor that it is costing them the commitment and loyalty of another wave of churches and members.
And the increased presence and influence of right wing extremism is driving ethnic congregations, mainly those made up of majority Latino and Black membership, out of the denomination. White supremacy being such a natural part of Christian nationalism makes it difficult for those who push for Project 2025 support among Southern Baptists to recognize how racist they are. And at a time when Southern Baptists were just beginning to welcome and work with black Baptist congregations, this has raised its ugly head. [see New Blog for a Pneuma Time by Dr. Dwight McKissic for insights into how this has affected the denomination's relationship with its black pastors and churches]
Where is the Bottom?
At its current rate of decline, Southern Baptists might have had to cede their title of "largest Protestant denomination in the United States" to the United Methodist Church by 2030, except that the latter is also fragmenting into several different denominations, also caused by right wing fundamentalist, Christian nationalist political influences. I see a couple of scenarios for the Southern Baptists, who face a future of diminished influence as a result of their decision to become dependent on political power of the GOP, rather than on the spiritual power of the Holy Spirit.
There is already a splinter group of Baptists, called the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which formed in the late 1980's when those who still followed historic, traditional Baptist doctrine and values decided that being Southern Baptist was no longer compatible or practical for their own ministry purposes, and formed a new fellowship to provide theological education and missionary opportunities. Over 3,500 churches have affiliated with this group, but they have a distinctive theological and doctrinal character that has probably attracted all of the ex-Southern Baptists it will find.
Denominational identity has shrunk in importance among American Christians over the past 50 years. I think many of the churches that have left will find their place among independent, autonomous, non-denominational churches which now make up the majority of non-Catholic Christians in the United States. And many of the members who have left their churches have found their way into other non-denominational churches that minister to their needs.
At some point, the decline in membership, and departure of entire congregations from the Southern Baptists will stop, when the only ones left are the hard liners who pushed for this political reform to occur. They misjudged how much support they could drag out of a Christian group that got its start defending the practice of slavery as "Christian". My best guess, from personal knowledge and experience, having grown up in a Southern Baptist church, is that it will lose at least half of what remains. And in the long run, that may be good news for those who are hoping to see the end of Project 2025 and Christian nationalism.
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