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.
Continue reading at Theopolis Institute here.
Mark Tooley is the President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, and editor of Providence.
Comment by David on April 25, 2025 at 8:20 am
As is the case with other denominations, Southern Baptists are aging out. There are more members over age 65 than under age 50.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-denomination/southern-baptist-convention/
Persons who identify as atheist and agnostic are 11% of the US population, the same as the membership of Mainline Protestant denominations.
Comment by Td on April 27, 2025 at 1:37 pm
The Catholic Church in the US has 67 million. How are the Southen Baptists larger with 17 million?
Comment by Larry Collins on April 28, 2025 at 3:53 pm
Td: please note the conversation is about the largest non-Catholic denomination. Baptists don’t baptize babies and add them to the rolls for life. They practice believers’ baptism AFTER the age of accountability and personal public faith.
The greatest loss association with the unaffiliated Baptist congregations is the loss of funding to the collective Cooperative Program that has funded missionaries for decades and generations. The CP was the universal common denominator that held all Baptists together – both left and right.
Comment by J. Lee Smith on April 28, 2025 at 4:51 pm
He said largest Protestant. Roman Catholicism is not Protestant.
Comment by J. Lee Smith on April 28, 2025 at 5:02 pm
As a nearly lifelong Southern Baptist I’ve found that SBC are now generally Christian fundamentalist sans the KJV-only characteristic. I’ve been disappointed in the lack of compassion so many SBC members, including many pastors, demonstrate for fellow Christians. They also have become scriptural literalists who don’t seem to be able to think for themselves. Too much “inbreeding” with so many parents, who went to “Christian” schools sending their kids to Christian schools taught by teachers who went to only Christian schools. The SBC losing Saddleback Church was a real black eye because the SBC needed Saddleback far more than Saddleback needs the SBC. At 70 years of, my wife and I have the SBC and will now join a non-denominational Christian congregation.
Comment by Pat Cardin on April 28, 2025 at 5:13 pm
I find that non-denominational churches to be Pentecostal and Wesleyan in their theology. Non Denominational churches with a Baptist theology, is a more recent development.
Comment by Td on April 28, 2025 at 9:11 pm
To be clear, the article says “America’s largest church”. I understand that the article is about protestants, but the wording is incorrect; it should have said “America’s largest protestant church”.
Also- to be clear, the numbers cited for Catholics is based on self-identification,; they are not based on “baptismal rolls”.
Comment by Tim Ware on April 29, 2025 at 12:16 am
From the fundamentalists to the moderates to the Evangelicals to the Pentecostals to the Wesleyans to the mainline to the liberals…it’s all crumbling.
Comment by David Gingrich on April 29, 2025 at 8:05 am
Former UMC now SBC here. The SBC seems more open minded than any other denomination. Over 40,000 churches include both reformed and Arminian theologies.
I believe ‘in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.” For me, the SBC best represents those ideals.
Comment by Colin Ross on April 30, 2025 at 1:00 pm
Ha, the Baptist have got to be the most insane version and the funny thing is they really arnt very old. For people claiming to have figured out the universal truth they are very new. Also, the sbc is totally collapsing for good reason. Growing up in the upstate of sc I get to watch it first hand. The structures of organized religion are destroying the mainline faster than ever but the Baptist don’t have anything to brag about. Can’t wait till they shut down the last of these scams