Baptists, combating malaise, preoccupied by numbers

(RNS) Ask a Southern Baptist about the state of the denomination and you’ll probably get an answer with numbers in it. Numbers of baptisms in particular. And recently, declining numbers of baptisms. As members of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination ready for their annual meeting June 15-16 in Orlando, Fla., statistics loom large in their […]

(RNS) Poly Rouse, left, pastor of Hermitage Hills Baptist Church in Hermitage, Tenn., baptizes musician Eric Kilby, during the Southern Baptist Convention's 2005 assembly in Nashville. A years-long decline in baptisms has many Southern Baptists concerned about the vitality of the denomination. RNS file photo courtesy Matt Miller/Baptist Press.

(RNS) Poly Rouse, left, pastor of Hermitage Hills Baptist Church in Hermitage, Tenn., baptizes musician Eric Kilby, during the Southern Baptist Convention’s 2005 assembly in Nashville. A years-long decline in baptisms has many Southern Baptists concerned about the vitality of the denomination. RNS file photo courtesy Matt Miller/Baptist Press.

(RNS) Ask a Southern Baptist about the state of the denomination and you’ll probably get an answer with numbers in it.

Numbers of baptisms in particular. And recently, declining numbers of baptisms.


As members of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination ready for their annual meeting June 15-16 in Orlando, Fla., statistics loom large in their plans to chart a new direction after years of malaise.

“In 2008 we baptized only 75,000 teenagers,” reads a new Southern Baptist report called “Penetrating the Lostness.” “In 1970 we baptized 140,000. Why? … Churches in America are losing ground with each successive generation.”

Why are Southern Baptists so focused on statistics? Simply put, they view them as a tangible way of tracking how well they are reaching those they call the “lost” — people without Jesus Christ.

“I think the hand-wringing is driven by an angst of do we want to join so many other denominations in decline?” said Ed Stetzer, president of SBC-affiliated LifeWay Research, which compiles and analyzes statistics.

Stetzer has issued blunt assessments of the denomination’s baptism rates and membership decline — a reversal of fortunes that some Baptists have had trouble acknowledging. In a May commentary, he reviewed the ups and downs of baptism rates over the last six decades and declared that membership has probably peaked at 16.1 million.

“Blips, untended, become dips … and dips, untended, become crypts,” he warned in the commentary that appeared on Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary’s “Between the Times” blog.

Other observers look at the numbers with worry.

“In our history as Southern Baptists, we’ve never had the kind of malaise statistically we’ve had in the last five years,” said Alvin Reid, professor of evangelism at Southeastern.


The latest baptism statistics — 349,737 reported in 2009 — represent a 2 percent increase from 2008, when baptisms hit their lowest level since 1987.

The Southern Baptist emphasis on baptisms is rooted in the theological belief — deeply embedded in Baptist DNA — that each baptism is evidence of a new Christian life, said Dale Jones, secretary-treasurer of the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.

“They would be looking far more at the baptism rate itself,” said Jones, who directs a research center for the Church of the Nazarene. “Most of us tend to look at attendance or actual membership. Their emphasis is on how many new people they got this year.”

Some Southern Baptists have begun to wonder if some of the numerical focus is misplaced, with a subtle — and sometimes not-so-subtle — belief that bigger is better.

The Rev. Les Puryear, a North Carolina pastor who recently launched the SBC Majority Initiative, is pushing for a greater representation of small churches on Southern Baptist agency boards.

“There is that small church bias that if you’re not growing like 100 people in a month or baptizing a lot of people then you’re not as valuable, you’re not doing something as good as the larger churches and that’s just not true,” he said.


Stetzer said Southern Baptist researchers have found that new smaller churches tend to have higher percentages of baptisms than established churches.

The Rev. Bill Leonard, outgoing dean of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity, said the denomination, known for its conservative-moderate theological fights in the `80s, is now facing a demographic crisis.

“Finally, after years of trying to avoid their demographic downturn or hoping it was just a glitch on the radar … the statistics have become so dire in terms of membership and baptisms and funding and connections that they’re really having to revisit who they are and what they’re going to be and do,” he said.

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Baptists hope part of the solution will be a report from a “Great Commission Resurgence Task Force,” which seeks a new vision for the denomination.

The recommendations, which call for restructuring Baptist agencies to revive a focus on evangelism, have been met with criticism from some Southern Baptist leaders. On Wednesday (June 2), retiring Executive Committee President Morris Chapman harshly criticized the plan, saying it “will demote, devalue, and potentially destroy the cooperative spirit” in the denomination.

In addition to potential restructuring, Southern Baptists are anticipating several key leadership changes, including tapping former SBC President Frank Page to replace Chapman.


During the June meeting, Baptists also will choose from four candidates — three Southerners and one Midwesterner — as their next president.

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