Southern Baptist Convention Continues to Lose Members

The Southern Baptist Convention ("SBC") seems to be in a competition with the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy in terms of who can be the most virulently anti-gay (the Mormon Church has seemingly dropped out of the competition given its support of the Boy Scouts of America's policy change that allows openly ay scouts until they reach age 18 and then are unceremoniously thrown out.)   And like the Catholic Church in America, the SBC is steadily losing membership, although the full extent of the losses are hidden since, like the Catholic Church, individuals are kept on membership rolls even if they have not attended services in decades (I was only removed from the Catholic Church membership only after I contacted the local bishop's office and asked that I be purged from all membership rolls).  A story in Baptist Press looks at the SBC's growing problems.  What's amazing are some of the lunatic reasons given for the decline that blame everything but the denomination's increasing insanity.  Here are some highlights:

Annual baptisms in Southern Baptist churches have declined by 100,000 in the last 12 years, last year dropping to the smallest number in 64 years.

LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention released figures June 5 reporting 314,959 baptisms in 2012, down 18,385 – or 5.5 percent – from 2011.

Total membership of 15,872,404 marked the sixth straight year of statistical decline for the nation’s second-largest faith group behind Roman Catholics. Membership dropped by 105,000 – two-thirds of a percent. Weekly worship attendance, meanwhile, fell below 6 million to 5,966,735, down 3 percent.


Concerned leaders offer various explanations for the trend, which experts say began in the 1960s.


Ed Stetzer, head of LifeWay Research, has suggested that the “conservative resurgence,” while affirming the convention’s commitment to the Bible’s truthfulness, failed when it comes to evangelism.

"Satan has used our incessant bickering over non-essentials to promote his last great mission on earth -- to keep lost people lost," Stetzer wrote on his blog in 2008. "The communities in which we live simply do not want to hear what we have to say when we cannot speak kindly to one another."

Thom Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources, contends in his new book I Am a Church Member that evangelicals have shifted toward a “me first” rather than “others first” attitude, viewing church membership as something similar to joining a country club that caters to their needs. 

While most key metrics in 2012 showed decline, there was a modest increase in the number of churches – up 270 from the previous year to a total of 46,034 – and church-type missions, which increased by 40 to 4,992. 

Rather than blaming Satan, the gay-hating, anti-modernity modern day Pharisee leaders of the SBC need to take a good look at themselves in the mirror.  Like the Catholic Church hierarchy, they are destroying the Christian brand.

 

Those Reporting "No Religion" Doubles Since 1990

There is more good news for those who view religion as a toxic in society: the number of Americans claiming no religious affiliation has doubled since 1990 and I would argue that much of the change has been driven by the ugly face of Christianity demonstrated daily by the Christofascists, the pure moral bankruptcy of the Catholic Church leadership and the ineffectiveness of more liberal and enlightened denominations to stem the negative view of religion offered by "conservative"Christians and fundamentalists who seem most motivated by fear and hatred of others rather than the Gospel message.   Perhaps most notable is that for the under 30 generations, 30% report no religion.  That's not to say the "nones" aren't spiritual, they simply are over the meanness, divisiveness, hypocrisy, pettiness and corruption of institutional religion.  Here are highlights from a Washington Post article on the issue:

One-fifth of U.S. adults say they are not part of a traditional religious denomination, new data from the Pew Research Center show, evidence of an unprecedented reshuffling of Americans’ spiritual identities that is shaking up fields from charity to politics.

Their numbers have increased dramatically over the past two decades, according to the study released Tuesday. About 19.6 percent of Americans say they are “nothing in particular,” agnostic or atheist, up from about 8 percent in 1990. One-third of adults under 30 say the same. 

For the first time, Pew also reported that the number of Americans identifying themselves as Protestant dipped below half, at 48 percent. But the United States is still very traditional when it comes to religion, with 79 percent of Americans identifying with an established faith group.

Members can be found in all educational and income groups, but they skew heavily in one direction politically: 68 percent lean toward the Democratic Party. That makes the “nones,” at 24 percent, the largest Democratic faith constituency, with black Protestants at 16 percent and white mainline Protestants at 14 percent.  By comparison, white evangelicals make up 34 percent of the Republican base.

The study presents a stark map of how political and religious polarization have merged in recent decades. Congregations used to be a blend of political affiliations, but that’s generally not the case anymore. Sociologists have shown that Americans are more likely to pick their place of worship by their politics, not vice versa.

“We think it’s mostly a reaction to the religious right,” said Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, who has written at length about the decline in religious affiliation. “The best predictor of which people have moved into this category over the last 20 years is how they feel about religion and politics” aligning, particularly conservative politics and opposition to gay civil rights.

For the presidential campaigns, the data reflect a simple fact on the ground. Three-quarters of unaffiliated voters voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Today, the unaffiliated break like this: 65 percent for Obama, 27 percent for Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

The nones are strongly liberal on social issues, including abortion and same-sex marriage . . . If they have an issue, it’s that they don’t believe religion and politics should mix. 

Lorna Stuart, 74, of Newport News, Va., describes herself as having “no particular religion” and says she votes Democratic because she is strongly in favor of abortion rights. She likes the fact that she doesn’t often hear Democratic candidates talking about religion. . . . . she thinks traditional religion is too focused on rules and sin and “things that really don’t apply to God,” she said in an interview Monday.

The nones are far less likely to attend worship services or to say religion is important in their lives. But 68 percent say they believe in God or a universal spirit, one-fifth say they pray every day and 5 percent report attending weekly services of some kind.

Let's hope the Christianist continue to be the best advertisement for leaving organized religion and that over time the number of "nones" sharply increases.  It is far past time that fear and hate based religion dies a much needed death in this country.  Religion in my view does far more evil than good.

 

Pope Admits Mistakes; Catholics Decline in Wisconsin

As I have noted in other posts, membership in the Roman Catholic Church is falling in many areas of the country. While an influx of Hispanic immigrants principally in the Southwest has so far protected the Catholic Church from overall significant declines in membership, I suspect that as those immigrants become assimilated and in some cases more educated, devotion to the Church will wain as in other demographic groups and regions of the country. A Church leadership that continues to have a 12th century mindset and which takes positions in direct contradiction with medical and scientific knowledge will almost guarantee that alienation of the new immigrant group will occur over time. The Pope's grudging admission that he made mistakes - and is clearly NOT infallible - in connection with his dealings with Holocaust denier, Bishop Richard Williamson, doesn't even scratch the surface of things about which Benedict XVI and the Church hierarchy need to admit error. The Church's treatment of gays is certainly another area where profound wrongs have occurred yet the Church continues to denigrate and demonize LGBT individuals. Here are some highlights from the Washington Post:

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LONDON, March 12 -- Pope Benedict XVI, acknowledging "mistakes" that he "deeply regretted," issued an unusual letter Thursday attempting to quiet a storm of protest over his embrace of an excommunicated bishop who denied that Nazis killed Jews in gas chambers. The letter also appeared to be a broader attempt to answer recent criticism of his papacy.

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The pope suggested that the controversy over Bishop Richard Williamson could have been avoided with a simple Internet search. Church critics have said that his handling of the issue exposed a bungling Vatican bureaucracy and that this and other recent errors threatened to disillusion some of his followers.

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In an interview before the letter was published, George Weigel, a papal biographer and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, said the Vatican operation is "dysfunctional." Benedict "is not well served by the apparatus at the Vatican," Weigel added. "I think it is going to change. It has to change."

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The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center, said that it was "insane" that the Georgetown basketball team had a bigger media operation than the Vatican. . . . Reese said that one out of four Catholics born in the United States has left the church, which should be "working on how to make the Gospel intelligible to people in the 21st century." But the handling of the Society of St. Pius X, he said, makes it appear that the pope is consumed with a small group who seek a return to old Latin rites.

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Meanwhile a story in the Greenbay Press Gazette illustrates the hemorrhaging of members that is occurring in many parts of the Church in the USA., fueled I believe by the Church's refusal to (a) punish members of the hierarchy involved in the sex abuse cover up and (b) move into a 21st century level of knowledge and modernity. Here are some highlights:

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Wisconsin's fish fry tradition at Catholic churches has no problem reeling in large crowds, but a national religion survey shows that fewer people are filling pews in churches of all faiths. The American Religious Identification Survey, released this week, shows a 10 percentage point decline in the past 18 years in the number of Wisconsinites who identify themselves as Catholic — 29 percent compared with 39 percent in 1990.

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The changes have long been evident. Parochial schools are consolidating. Some parishes have dissolved, and the church continues to grapple with a shortage of priests. Nuns, who at one time ran local hospitals and schools, have all but vacated their posts.

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Disillusionment with the church in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse scandal and some financial scandals also have contributed to declining rates of Catholics in Wisconsin. The state has had its share of cases, most recently with the 2004 sentencing of Father John Feeney for molesting two youths in 1978 while he was at St. Nicholas Parish in the town of Freedom. "The church looks like a hypocritical institution for some," Carey said.

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I continue to believe that only sustained massive losses of members (and money) will force the Catholic Church to make long needed changes. The chances of such changes occurring under Benedict XVI I rate as somewhere between slim and none.