Over the weekend I wonderfully enjoyed speaking at both a Methodist church and a Baptist church outside Knoxville, Tennessee. The experience was a good reminder that Baptists and Methodists largely shaped America and its democracy as the two largest Protestant forces in America for most of our history. But, as a I shared in my remarks, America’s religious scene is fast changing.
The first church where I spoke exited from United Methodism and has joined the new Global Methodist Church. It’s in a small Knoxville city, in an attractive and fairly modern building, with a robust congregation. Its pastor is an Asbury Seminary graduate. The next morning, I spoke at a prayer breakfast at a Southern Baptist congregation, in the country, but with a good-sized congregation. Both churches belong to an ecumenical coalition committed to extolling Christian teachings about marriage and family.
At both churches the best of the old spirits of Methodists and Baptists were present. But such churches are much less common than they once long were. Methodism in the 19th century was America’s biggest religious force, with an estimated one-third of all Americans associated with it. The Baptists were not far behind. Early in the 20th century the main Methodist denomination, what eventually became United Methodism, theologically liberalized, losing interest in Wesleyan distinctives. Its membership decline began in the 1960s.
The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Baptist denomination, surpassed Methodism in the 1960s. It eventually reached 16 million but has declined for 20 continuous years, to now under 13 million. United Methodism peaked at 11 million in the 1960s and now is about 4 million. Over one-quarter of United Methodist congregations in the U.S. quit their denomination in the recent schism. About half of these nearly 8,000 churches in the U.S. have joined the new Global Methodist Church, whose membership is not yet ascertained.
Apparently several thousand exited United Methodist churches will stay independent, although Methodism is theologically connectional, not congregational. Many of these conservative congregations are effectively Baptist in ethos. For decades under liberal United Methodism the laity often relied on evangelical and Baptist materials, which indelibly shaped them. I’ve heard of a few exited churches that have since hired Baptist preachers. And sometimes they re-baptize the congregants. Many conservative Methodists now reject infant baptism, believe in “once saved, always saved,” and prefer congregationalist governance.
This should not be shocking. American Protestantism has effectively become Baptist. The Southern Baptist Convention is probably in irreversible decline, as many of its congregations, like Methodists and many others, lose interest in denominations. Last week a South Carolina megachurch with over 10,000 worshippers quit the Southern Baptist Convention. The presenting issue was women pastors, which the convention rejects. But the church only dates to the year 2000, and likely very few of its members have historic ties to the Southern Baptist Convention. Surely, they wondered why a church their size needs a denomination.
The fastest-growing church in Washington, DC whose progress I have followed over the last decade has been nominally Southern Baptist. But it is never discussed, and the church removed any reference to the Southern Baptist Convention from its website last year. Most church members are in their 20s and do not have a background with the Southern Baptists.
This story repeats itself over and over. Denominational loyalties among church goers under 60 are nearly nonexistent. Consequently, both the United Methodist Church and the Southern Baptist Convention may not meaningfully exist in ten years, as congregations establish other identifies. America currently has almost no growing denominations. Growing congregations are typically nondenominational. And if they do have denominational ties, those are often hidden.
So “Methodist” and “Baptist,” at least as denominational monikers, may disappear from common American religious parlance. Most Protestants and evangelicals now have Baptist beliefs, but they do not realize they are Baptist. They simply identify as Christian and assume their Baptist outlook is just “biblical.” The remaining Methodists and Wesleyans are spread across several remaining denominations, almost none of which are growing, except, at least at this time because of its new creation, the Global Methodist Church. But how many congregants in it, or the Free Methodist Church, Wesleyan Church, or Church of God (Anderson), among other Wesleyan denominations, strongly cleave to denominational identities or even realize they are Wesleyan?
Last year I met a young adult ministry leader at a large Northern Virginia church he said was nondenominational but affiliated with the Church of God (Anderson). I replied that he was a fellow Wesleyan. He looked at me quizzically, even after I repeated myself. Either he did not know what Wesleyan means, or he did not know that the church for which he works is tied to a Wesleyan denomination.
So, the Methodist and Baptist churches I visited over the weekend are part of a largely vanishing world of American Protestant denominations. These denominations arose in America near the start of our republic, and their influence across two centuries has been profound. It’s unclear what their successors are. Is non-denominationalism the new permanent reality in American religion? Or with time will new strong denominational institutions arise? Will American Protestantism continue to become Baptist in ethos? Or can Methodists and Wesleyans reanimate their communities in this new paradigm, through Global Methodism and other networks?
These questions have no certain answers. One hundred years from now there could be entirely new Protestant networks and communities that, like Pentecostalism, gain millions of adherents globally that we cannot yet imagine. Protestantism is an endless churn, always in motion, with unknown destinations.
Comment by Rev. DUPRE on April 7, 2025 at 5:08 pm
Here in France, it is fairly common for many Protestant church plants to be Baptist ! Even the Evangelical ones.
Though here in France, the Union of Methodist Churches who left the UMC last year, and the UMC in France both run conservative (the Union of Methodists left over polity) both reject infant baptism, agree on once-saved-always-saved, they disavow the three graces of Methodism, they remove clergy who practice infant baptism, they reject usage of liturgy or Wesleyan hymns, and by their own accounts say they align more theologically with Baptists.
American Evangelicalism is spreading in its model, and in some countries making denominations blend further.
Comment by Reynolds on April 7, 2025 at 8:17 pm
First of all, Presbyterians founded this country and the Constitution is based on Presbyterian polity. Currently, Baptist are worried about Calvinism taking over
Comment by Scott on April 7, 2025 at 10:44 pm
Not all former United Methodists are willing to become pseudo-Baptists. I do not accept infant baptism to be somehow invalid. I do not hold to the false doctrine of once saved always saved. I have been disillusioned with Methodism outside the UMC which seems to be essentially coffee house churches. Were there a vibrant Anglican Church (NOT Episcopal) in my area like Christ Church- Plano, I would be there. But for now I’m willing to quietly worship at a local Catholic Church, knowing I cannot receive communion, but experiencing spiritual communion there nonetheless.
Comment by Tim Ware on April 8, 2025 at 12:54 am
At least in the area around where I live, most of the former UMC churches who disaffiliated were essentially Baptist anyway. Few of them have joined Global, realizing the truth that 20 years from now, Global will have changed to become indistinguishable from the present UMC (yep, Global will, in the not too distant future, affirm homosexuality and have gay pastors). And some have in fact installed Baptist “preachers.” They just want someone to come in on Sunday mornings and coo at them with a nice “thought for the day.”
But I also think that God is standing in the shadows and will bring about something more than ersatz Baptist nondenominationals. Maybe not with 500 people in the pews, maybe small congregations of 25 to 30, but nonetheless places where the Gospel is preached, kept alive, and passed down.
I am excited to see what God will do in the future, when the detours of Calvinism. Wesylanism, Evangelicalism, Lutheranism, Zionism, Scientism, Papism, Institutionalism, etc have bern purged. No doubt He has something much better planned!
The wheels of history turn slowly, but they are turning.
Comment by Louise on April 8, 2025 at 7:44 am
Whenever someone starts talking about Wesley and Calvin, and all the Protestant denominations, and the Catholics and Pope, all I can think of is this passage from the Bible:
When one of you says, “I am a follower of Paul,” and another says, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you acting just like people of the world?
“After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only God’s servants through whom you believed the Good News. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us. I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow.”
1 Corinthians 3:5-7
Comment by Tim Mc on April 8, 2025 at 8:25 am
Quote: “Not all former United Methodists are willing to become pseudo-Baptists. I do not accept infant baptism to be somehow invalid. I do not hold to the false doctrine of once saved always saved. I have been disillusioned with Methodism outside the UMC which seems to be essentially coffee house churches. Were there a vibrant Anglican Church (NOT Episcopal) in my area like Christ Church- Plano, I would be there. But for now I’m willing to quietly worship at a local Catholic Church, knowing I cannot receive communion, but experiencing spiritual communion there nonetheless.”
My thoughts exactly!!! Thank you Brother Scott.
Comment by David Gingrich on April 8, 2025 at 8:26 am
Former UMC now SBC here. I believe the SBC will evolve and continue to be a positive, uniting, theologically disciplined organization for a long time.
The UMC? Meh.
Comment by Wilson R. on April 8, 2025 at 10:44 am
Some of what is described here is very familiar to me, and other parts of it are utterly unrecognizable. In the rural and small-town Southern churches where I grew up, the theological lines between Methodists and Baptists were always blurred. Most of the church folk couldn’t define any real differences at all apart from infant baptism, the openness of the communion table, and the congregational vs. episcopal structure. I found the Methodists had little if any understanding of such Wesleyan ideas as personal holiness, sanctifying grace, or a spiritual journey toward perfection. Most of them had a more Baptist view that you were saved by confessing Jesus as your savior, that you should be able to date your salvation to a particular date and place, and that, once saved, you were always saved. I saw little if any effort in these Methodist congregations to educate people about what made them Wesleyan.
So it’s not like these churches ever “turned away from Wesleyan distinctives.” They never embraced the most important ones to begin with. To the extent that there’s a shift away from Wesleyanism in the breakaway churches, it’s not some new phenomenon.
Comment by Brian L Boley on April 8, 2025 at 11:21 am
One key reason that the denominational labels are being removed is the “contagion” effect. As a retired UMC pastor (who left over the latest changes to the BOD), I saw the effects that a handful of dissenting pastors in California had on our churches in WV. In the past, a heretical preacher or congregation didn’t make much difference outside the immediate area. But today, one nut affects the entire tree. So, if I were starting a new denomination or association today, I would make a rule that none of the churches involved can advertise their affiliation. Work together, yes. But use the same “brand name”? No. That way a crazy preacher in the middle of northern Nevada that wants headlines can’t affect my church as much. A handful of rebels get the negative headlines in every denomination, so the megachurches are detaching their branding from the denomination and developing their own branding.
Comment by Bill Messersmith on April 8, 2025 at 12:16 pm
Read Ephesians 4:1-8 and stop arguing about infant baptism and other issues. We are looking at the trees while the forest Burns.
Comment by Gary Bebop on April 8, 2025 at 1:52 pm
I’m grateful to Mark Tooley for holding a campfire around this topic. He has endured the season of extreme novelty that (essentially) destroyed the institutional unity and orthodoxy of the UMC. The UMC is withering because it has resolved to continue in an unsustainable direction. But I’m more intrigued by the Re-Reformation talk now animating us. Let’s have that conversation and leave behind a blighted past.
Comment by Daniel on April 10, 2025 at 9:00 am
The reason that denominational lines are blurred between Baptists and Methodists is that they do a very poor job of catechesis, as do Episcopalians. Most of their members don’t really know what they believe, and don’t understand the historical development of Baptist and Methodist distinctives. Unfortunately, they belong to the branch of religion termed moralistic, therapeutic deism. Alone among American Protestantism, the orthodox Presbyterians and confessional Lutherans place emphasis on knowing what their congregants believe and why. For the person who commented about looking for a good Anglican congregation to attend, let me recommend a good LCMS congregation, if you are sacremental and liturgical, or an ECO or PCA Presbyterian congregation if you like somewhat less formality in your church service.
Comment by James Pakala on April 12, 2025 at 3:06 pm
The ancient Churches (Western & multiple Eastern) have survived for about 2,000 years and Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed traditions have survived the last quarter of that time. Then there are the Amish, various Mennonite, various Pentecostal and so on (and the cultic LDS and such, though the Seventh Day Adventists are real vs. cultic “Christians”). I’ve read that the world has 35,000 or more denominations and of course countless independents and mavericks. I heard someone claim 45,000 but don’t believe that. It changes all the time of course.
Comment by Td on April 15, 2025 at 12:46 pm
I think the big question here may be. “Why does Wesley matter?”
Did Christ establish the Methodist Church or not? Did He establish the Baptist Church? Is it really logical that our Lord established all these different “denominations”? And that we thought He did until protestantism? And what does “protestant” mean today? What is being protested?