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The Decline of the Southern Baptists

The view from a dying congregation in Murfreesboro, Tennessee
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The Washington Post did a good piece yesterday on a dying old-line Southern Baptist church in Murfreesboro, Tenn., that sold itself to an Arabic Baptist congregation. I didn’t know there were Arab Baptists, but there sure are. Excerpt:

If a poll referred to “white evangelical Christians,” that largely meant Southern Baptists.

Except that for the past decade, the denomination has been in what its leaders describe as a “discouraging” retreat. Although Southern Baptists remain by far the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, with an estimated 15 million members, a steady decline in overall numbers — of members, baptisms and churches — has led to much soul-searching and the realization that survival depends on becoming less insular and more diverse.

To that end, the Southern Baptists have apologized to African Americans for “racism of which we have been guilty,” expressed support for immigration reform, and in general sought to be less white, if not less conservative. A rising number of congregations are Latino, Asian and now Arab.

There are “church revitalization” conferences, too, almost every month, all over the South on topics such as “diagnosing the fears that limit church vitality.”

But all of that was coming too late for Larry Montgomery. He had seen Scenic Drive Baptist when its pews were full and watched it degenerate into petty fights over money and personalities. The membership had aged and remained white as the area was booming and becoming more diverse. The weekly offering had dwindled, and the finance committee had cut funds for salaries, Sunday school literature and paper plates, none of which was enough.

“We don’t have time to dillydally,” Larry had said when he addressed the congregation, explaining that selling to the Arabic Baptists might be their best hope of keeping the church from closing.

This WaPo story was an intimate portrait of this particular congregation in transition, so it’s unfair of me to expect it to delve more deeply into why the Southern Baptists are declining. According to that recent Pew study, the Evangelicals’ overall numbers are holding steady, but people seem to be leaving the Southern Baptist churches and moving to nondenominational Protestant churches.

Question for the room: Does anybody know why that is? Care to offer an explanation? I’m not interested in people trashing the Southern Baptists. Be critical if you like — you’d have to be critical if you’re going to explain the decline — but don’t be nasty.

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