Table of Contents:

“Relevant Statistics”

by Walter B. Shurden

I Believe . . .

             that you would profit from a close reading of the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, 2002 for two reasons.

            First, one can begin to see some significant rearranging on the ladder of the top five largest denominations in America. Quick! Can you name the five largest Christian groups in America?

In 1970, the largest denominations in America were respectively: (1) The Catholic Church, (2) The Southern Baptist Convention, (3) The United Methodist Church, (4) The Episcopal Church, and (5) the Lutheran Church in America.

In 2002 the three largest denominations have not changed from 1970. However, the Episcopal Church and the Lutheran Church, numbers four and five in 1970, have been bumped to positions fourteen (Episcopal) and six (Lutheran) in 2002. Only The United Methodist Church remains in the top five representing mainline Protestantism. Taking the places of the Episcopalians and the Lutherans are (4) The Church of God in Christ (a predominantly black Pentecostal group) and (5) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). If you add to this picture the growth of non-Christian religions in America in the last thirty years, you begin to understand something of the radical changes going on in American religion.

Second, of the fifteen largest denominations in the U.S. listed in the Yearbook four are Baptist. And of those four Baptist denominations only one is white while three are African American. Can you name those three? They are, according to their ranking, (7) The National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., (11) Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., and (13) the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America. The three together have a membership of nine million five hundred thousand. And ironically, the largest African American Baptist group, The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., apparently failed to report. This group has an estimated membership of over eight million. When added to the three black Baptist groups mentioned above one has a total of eighteen million, five hundred thousand African American Baptists. Together they bump the Southern Baptist Convention out of second place.

From the first statistical fact above I conclude that it is imperative for Baptists to reclaim their sterling principle of religious freedom for ALL. Baptists live in a different world from the one they knew in 1900 or 1950 or 1970. We must raise our collective Baptist voice for the freedom of others in the same way that we clamored for our own freedom in days gone by. 

From the second statistical fact I conclude that white Baptists must remember that they are not alone in the Baptist world. Black Baptists are central to the Baptist story in America. We must remember that fact when we write our histories, canonize our denominational saints, and celebrate our special denominational days and months. If we forget African American Baptists, we will have forgotten, among many other things, maybe the greatest tradition of preaching in the entire history of Christianity.

          Happy Black History Month! Happy Black Baptist History Month!

The Ecumenical Soapbox: Periodically we invite non-Baptists to climb upon an ecumenical soapbox and give us a piece of their mind about Baptists or current issues that should concern Baptists. In this installment of the Ecumenical Soapbox, Martin E. Marty, the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at The University of Chicago, responded to the editor’s request “to tell us what Baptists look like in 2003 to someone outside Baptist life.” Marty is without peer in interpreting American religion, and he knows Baptists well.  

The Image of Baptists in America in 2003

Martin E Marty

          The Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches each year lists a score of Baptist bodies. Many are so small that they do not contribute to the image of Baptists among any Americans except those next door or down the street or road from the little churches that make them up. The numbers of such local churches can run as low as 57 or 129 or 100.

          In northern communities where whites predominate odds are strong that the Baptists who create any image are among the 1.5 million in the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A. Those in the know, know this denomination as being one of the more racially integrated groups. But since theologically they run across the spectrum from conservative to liberal they tend to be appraised differently in each locale. Image? Engaged in community life, usually each congregation participates, as most other Baptists do not, in ecumenical and even interfaith councils of churches, where they often can be counted among the activists. The easiest way to put it is: they are the Baptists who are not like the Southern Baptists.

          In cities North and South the Baptist image is often African-American, with members affiliated with either of the two large (3.5 and 8.2 million member) bodies that have “National Baptist Convention” in their name. Whether they are then “of America, Inc.” or “U.S.A. Inc” is very important to those connected with the denominations, but of no interest beyond that. Especially in inner cities they do have a clear image: no candidate for mayor would neglect them and candidates for even higher office covet the chance to appear in their worship services.

          This image shows them to be political; centers of life and light in the inner city; often gathering places for the black middle class; known for their contributions to America at large especially through the music—gospel, soul, spiritual, and more—that issues from them. It is well known that some of the leadership of these churches and denominations have been politically conservative in very visible ways, but in the main they are pictured as deliverers of African-American votes to the Democratic Party. In 2003 many are watching to see if that image changes, as Republicans are courting their votes. Social concerns include goals such as better housing and schools and delivery of health care.

          That leaves the Southern Baptist Convention as the major maker of images, inescapable in the South, ever more visible in the North, and probably the best politically-connected Protestant body in America in the new millennium. No Protestants receive as much press coverage as those in the Southern movement, especially since annual Conventions have produced images of denominational civil war. The image of the SBC today is of a highly centralized bureaucratic and aggressive body that still cannot control the local churches. The dissenting movement receives considerable attention, and as it establishes seminaries and debates where its financial offerings go, it also projects clear images: always of what “Baptist” means, but not always of “Southern.”

          The reversal of images in the Southern Baptist Convention is astonishing. Once the guardian of the lines of separation of church and state or, better, of the line of distinction between religion and the civil authority, it is now seen as not only the main contributor to the erosion of that line and chief intruder in the civil precincts, but even as displaying theocratic tendencies and “we want to run the show” temptations. In the public imagery they remain Baptist, but they are usually perceived in undifferentiated ways among camps called “fundamentalist” or “conservative evangelical.”

          The Southern Baptist image remains that of a denomination that is missionary– and evangelistically–minded, capable of growth and successful at expanding. As its agents work ever more among Latin American and new-immigrant communities it is shedding some of the racist image that used to color it and sometimes still does. Its close identification with the current Republican administration and the almost complete refusal of its public leaders to engage in any criticism of the administration in its militant postures and actions mark it, in colloquialism, as having a hawkish image.

          Much of the motion in anti-abortion and pro-family forces is Southern Baptist and thus its activism contributes to its image as anything but a stay-at-home or stay-in-church body that it once was perceived to be. Many Southern Baptists participate eagerly in efforts to enhance the “faith-based initiatives” and “charitable choice” endeavors that compromise older Baptist “separation-of-church” practices and images, but permit more expression of the works of mercy to which the Baptists are committed.

          While three decades ago the Southern Baptist Convention was coming to produce biblical, theological, and other scholars with whom non-Baptists reckoned while it built up universities and seminaries that were taken more seriously than before, since the “Baptist Battles” have begun, the image projected and perceived—as anyone who observes headlines or academic reports knows—is of institutions preoccupied with defining themselves and excluding others, so the open engagement with scholars far beyond Baptist bounds is more closed.

          The Convention leadership seems to court disdain by “elites” and many non-Baptists when it passes resolutions promoting “female submission” or advocates boycotts of the Disney enterprises or rules against ordaining women as ministers of the gospel. Yet many Americans who know local Southern Baptist churches and their members see a more congenial side and this helps explain why millions find these their base of spiritual operation no matter what happens.

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Baptist Spirituality in America: a column on the distinctive spiritual emphases of Baptists in America by E. Glenn Hinson, Professor Emeritus of Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond, Senior Professor of Church History and Spirituality at Baptist Seminary of Kentucky, Visiting Professor of Church History at Lexington Theological Seminary, and Adjunct Professor of Church History at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary.

Baptist Women in America: a column on the specific role of Baptist women in America by Carolyn DeArmond Blevins, Professor of Religion, Carson-Newman College, Jefferson City, TN.