Whether Baptists Live or Die

It's time to do those things necessary to reverse the decline.

by Rod D. Martin
June 26, 2016

At last week’s otherwise outstanding Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, messengers were confronted with news of a net loss of 200,000 more members – we had 16,000,000 five years ago, now just 15,300,000 – and the lowest number of baptisms since 1947.

Baptists grew virtually every year of their history until 2011. This news isn’t entirely unexpected, but it is a shock to the system.

Many explain this as the product of the demise of cultural Christianity (fewer have been willing to admit the degree to which that demise has been the result of just two lost elections). In the Obama era, it’s no longer especially valuable to one’s business, nor will you feel any peer pressure, to be seen on Sunday morning: if anything it’s quite the opposite.

Whatever benefits may come of that, fewer people are hearing the Word preached, fewer consciences are being pricked, fewer cultural roadblocks restrain evil. So those rejoicing in the demise of cultural Christianity ar…