I understand the appeal of the nondenominational church. In an age weary of faction, weary of institutional decline and weary of ecclesial infighting, the promise can sound fresh: No inherited baggage, no denominational machinery, no old quarrels: just Jesus, the…
‘When are half your members going to be dead?’
In the concluding chapter of American Mainline Christianity: Its Changing Shape and Future, Wade Clark Roof and William McKinney predicted this: The churches of the Protestant establishment, long in a state of relative decline, will continue to lose ground both…
Baxley says CBF is adapting as churches face financial crunch
Recent staff reductions at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship are the result of a downturn in unrestricted income, according to Executive Coordinator Paul Baxley. The change is a somewhat rapid response to real-time conditions, Baxley told BNG in a Feb. 3…
On being ‘just Christian’
A couple years ago, when I first moved to Wisconsin, I joined a local megachurch Bible study that wasn’t attached to my church. Despite attending a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod congregation, I found Wisconsin was generally bereft of young folks…
How Protestant Denominations Have Voted from 2008 to 2024
In the last couple of months I have written posts on how evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, and Black Protestants voted in the 2024 election cycle and I also dug into some of the possible reasons why things have shifted towards…
Meddling with Methodism and domesticating the Baptists
American religious historian Nathan Hatch famously argued that when you scratch beneath the surface of piety and polity that distinguishes them, Baptists and Methodists are actually more alike than they appear because the same cultural forces of democratic populism shaped…
Only 34% of evangelicals are loyal to a single denomination
The reported death of denominations has a key side effect, according to new national polling data: The death of denominational loyalty. Grey Matter Research and Infinity Concepts just released survey results titled “Denominational Loyalty: What Churches Can Learn from Consumer…
Prominent Texas church quietly quits the SBC
Note: This story was updated Oct. 29 with additional comments from church leaders. One of the most prominent Baptist churches in Texas quietly quit the Southern Baptist Convention Oct. 27 — part of an unnoticed trend that’s hard to…
Southern Baptists have voted heavily Republican in last four elections
Southern Baptists have voted consistently Republican in the last four presidential elections, researcher Ryan Burge says. In his analysis of 40 U.S. denominations, “the Southern Baptists and the independent Baptists are clearly the most Republican of the bunch,” he reported…
Where will churches leaving the SBC go?
In the past week, I’ve been asked two questions related to the back-to-back meetings of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship: Will churches leaving the SBC because they support women in ministry join CBF? What is the…
‘Broken Churches, Broken Nation?’ A crisis of our times
“The very worst omen of the times is the fact that the religious (people) of the country stand apart to so great an extent in this hour of trial. Most of the Churches have split on the very rock upon…
My obituary for the Baptist General Convention of Texas
Losing something that once was valued and respected is painful. It doesn’t matter if it’s been circling the drain for years. When death finally comes, the grief is real. Such was the case for me recently with the Baptist General…