2024 Marks Another Chapter in the SBC’s Long Slide
The Slow-Motion Collapse of America’s Largest Protestant Denomination
Ah, it’s springtime again. My favorite time of year. The days get longer, the grass actually becomes green again, and the school year is coming to a close. That may be my favorite part, by the way. I do enjoy teaching very much, but it’s nice to have a break for about 3 months. I usually spend my summers writing a new book. That will be the case this year, too. Michael Graham and I are in the middle of a huge data collection project that will result in a book from Zondervan that will be on shelves in early 2027.
But another nice feature of spring is that Lifeway Research, the Southern Baptist Convention’s research unit, releases the results of the Annual Church Profile (ACP). This is our best look into how things are shaking out in the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. I basically write up these results every year and so consider this to be a new addition to that ongoing saga.
The State of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2023
The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. (And, yes, I’ve read the recent discourse about how it’s not really a denomination. From a social science perspective - it’s a denomination). It’s been the largest for the last fifty years and has played an outsized role in every aspect of American culture over the last half century.
For those of you who don’t follow all the machinations of the SBC, let me give you a quick primer about where things stand right now. The Southern Baptist Convention has been in numeric decline for almost two decades now. It’s been embroiled in scandal relating to the alleged coverup of sexual abuse by members of the Executive Committee (although the Department of Justice’s investigation into this only resulted in one conviction for a fairly trivial matter). There’s also an ideological war underway with groups like the Conservative Baptist Network arguing that the reason for the decline in membership is that the denomination has become too liberal.
So, what do the 2024 Southern Baptist numbers reveal about what’s happening? A mixed bag, without a doubt.
I will never tire at marveling at just how fast the Southern Baptist Convention grew in the post-war period. The SBC was adding a million new members every four or five years. That’s just staggering growth for any organization. I mean, the SBC went from 6 million members in 1946 to 12 million by 1972. Just think about that for a second. That growth didn’t really slow down in an appreciable way through 1990. An incredible 45 year run that will never be duplicated again in the history of American Christianity. I just don’t see how it could happen - the macro level factors aren’t there.
However that engine that fueled the addition of hundreds of thousands of names to SBC membership rolls began to cool down. It took seven years to go from 14 million to 15 million. Then eleven years to add another million. By 2006, the growth was all but over. Decline started slowly. Between 2006 and 2011, the denomination shed about 400,000 folks. Not great, but not catastrophic.
But the wheels really began to come off in the last decade.