Baptists are also somewhat less likely to be college graduates than non-Southern Baptists, although their household incomes are just about at the national average. As would be expected, Southern Baptists are quite religious on a relative basis and report significantly higher church attendance and personal importance of religion than non-Southern Baptists. Southern Baptists are also much more likely to self-identify as evangelical or born again.
The history of Protestantism is the history of continual breakups of Christian religious traditions into subgroups based on divergent opinions across an extraordinary array of doctrinal prescriptions, perspectives, interpretations and differences. The process is usually associated with controversies, as Protestant leaders and lay members argue, fight and dispute an endless list of theological and cultural issues. Southern Baptists, who came into being as a result of the controversy over slavery, remain no stranger to this process -- and to this day are continually in the news because of one controversy or another.
Southern Baptist disputations mostly involve arguments that the denomination is straying from its fundamental roots.
The s and s saw a politically shrewd and ultimately successful effort by conservative Southern Baptist leaders to take control of Southern Baptist agencies and seminaries. This resulted in a fracturing of the denomination, with churches leaving the denomination to become independent or to form other, more moderate groupings. And it wasn't just churches that were disaffected. Former President Jimmy Carter and former Vice President Al Gore -- raised as Southern Baptists -- left the denomination in protest of its positions on cultural and values issues.
More recently, well-known author and speaker Beth Moore left the denomination saying in an interview that "I am still a Baptist, but I can no longer identify with Southern Baptists.
And, the denomination has recently seen a number of black pastors leave the denomination over Southern Baptist leaders' opposition to "critical race theory," a telling point given the history of the denomination's origin. The Southern Baptist denomination, unlike the Catholic Church and many other Protestant denominations, is an agglomeration of independent, autonomous churches, and in theory has no hierarchy.
But the denomination does have a "Faith and Message" document, last revised in , which lays out the Southern Baptist statement of faith and positions on many theological and cultural issues.
Plus, the elected president of the denomination, officers and professors at the denomination's six seminaries, and influential pastors of large Southern Baptist churches help make clear the denomination's de facto positions on key moral and values issues. These positions are generally in sync with the opinions of the majority of Southern Baptists, Gallup data show, but certainly not representative of the totality of all of its members.
One issue on which the Southern Baptist position has been clear is its opposition to anything other than heterosexual relations and heterosexual marriage. May 21, , p. In case you missed it. Vigil for year-old Black girl who died by suicide brings together mourners. The Baptist Coalition for Children and Families represents twenty-one ministries established by state Baptist conventions to serve at-risk children and their families through residential care, counseling, foster care enlistment, and adoption assistance.
Fast Facts. Membership isn't the only statistic that saw a decrease in the first year of the coronavirus outbreak. Average weekly worship attendance, baptisms, congregations and giving also dropped in Annual meeting: Southern Baptists to hold first big gathering in Nashville after pandemic 'killed' city's meeting industry. More: Southern Baptist Convention sees biggest membership drop in more than years.
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