Southern Baptists' growth stalling

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Southern Baptists' growth stalling

Convention a political power, but some fear evangelism neglected

09:19 PM CDT on Thursday, June 16, 2005
By JEFFREY WEISS / The Dallas Morning News
When Southern Baptists gather in Nashville next week for their annual convention, they'll be asking whether their baptismal pools are figuratively half full or half empty.
Half full: Claiming 16.5 million members, the Southern Baptist Convention is America's largest Protestant denomination. After a 25-year purge of moderates, it has never had a higher public profile. Its leaders are A-listed by media and conservative politicians.
Half empty: When the denomination formed in 1845, its key mission was proselytizing. But by some measures, its members have never been less successful at attracting new members.
That should matter even to people who hold no particular truck with Southern Baptist beliefs, said Arthur Farnsley, research director of the Religion and Urban Culture Project at the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Polis Center.
Numbers show that Southern Baptists are holding their own, he said. But the figures also suggest a limit to the influence of religious conservatives.
"If there's an idea that the whole country is shifting, a big group like this that seems to be treading water means 'maybe not,' " he said.
Southern Baptist leaders say the consequences of a lack of evangelism are bigger than any cultural shift.
"In a word, eternal. That's the consequence," said the convention president, the Rev. Bobby Welch, a pastor in Daytona Beach, Fla. "A person is either eternally lost when they die or eternally saved."