The decline in Episcopal Church membership relative to America’s population growth is often attributed to our “lack of biblical faith”. Interestingly today, the Southern Baptist Convention, which prides itself on a focus on biblical faith above all else has announced that it must recognize that it is a “denomination in decline”.
According to an article published on EthicsDaily.com;
“New statistics released by LifeWay Christian Resources listed total SBC membership in 2007 as 16,266,920, a 0.24 percent decrease from the 16,306,246 reported in 2006. Baptisms, long used as a marker of Baptist vitality, dropped more than 5 percent to their lowest level since 1987.
LifeWay President Thom Rainer called the report ‘truly disheartening.’
Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research, said membership growth has been moving toward a plateau for some time.
‘Many have predicted that membership (an inflated statistic anyway) would soon began to decline, but the statement, ‘Southern Baptists are a declining denomination’ was not ‘officially’ accurate,’ Stetzer wrote in a LifeWay blog. ‘Until today.’
‘For now, Southern Baptists are a denomination in decline,’ Stetzer wrote.”
Stetzer goes in the article to say that membership in the SBC has peaked and the long term trends indicate a decrease that should continue for the foreseeable future given that baptisms are at their all time low.
Read the rest here.