This is unsurprising news, given evangelicals’ embrace of the former President:
The long, slow decline of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination continues.
Membership in the Southern Baptist Convention [known as the SBC] was down by nearly half a million in 2022, according to a recently released denomination report. Nashville-based Lifeway Research reported Tuesday (May 9) that the SBC had 13.2 million members in 2022, down from 13.68 million in 2021. That loss of 457,371 members is the largest in more than a century, according to the Annual Church Profile compiled by Lifeway.
Once a denomination of 16.3 million, the SBC has declined by 1.5 million members since 2018, and by more than 3 million members since 2006. The COVID-19 pandemic played a role in the downturn, as did the reality that as older members die off, there are fewer young people to replace them. [Religion News]
This, no doubt, contributed to the decline:
[Delegates] at the [annual] meeting [in June] will also discuss the role of women in church leadership. Earlier this year, the SBC’s Executive Committee voted to expel several churches for having women pastors, including Saddleback Church, a California megachurch and one of the denomination’s largest congregations, for having women pastors. Saddleback is expected to appeal that decision.
But is this a theological dispute, an arbitrary display of power – or a concern that women leaders would be more likely to interfere with the general leadership inclination towards loyalty to former President Trump, who has been accused of, and even admitted to, sexual improprieties?
