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Conservative Churches Not Growing After All?

September 28th, 2003

“Conservative” Christian church leaders occasionally boast that their churches are growing like gangbusters while so-called “liberal” denominations (mainline and orthodox Christian denominations, or any denomination that veers from the given church leader’s ideology) are shriveling due to the non-conservatives’ alleged accommodation with the broader culture.

The Associated Press cites an internal report by the Southern Baptist Convention that finally admits what some mainline churches have known all along: The unbridled growth of conservative churches may be a myth — financially speaking, at least.

Since 1968, donations by Southern Baptists to the church have steadily decreased to just 2.03 percent of their income — far below the 10 percent that some Biblical literalists expect of donors.

The report cites the same reasons for the decline in SBC finances that, until now, conservatives have attributed to the alleged decline in mainline Christianity. One additional factor: The rise of fundamentalists has generated a churlishness toward the denomination’s shared missions program and a refusal among moderate and conservative local churches to support one another’s activities.

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  1. Rich
    September 29th, 2003 at 16:52 | #1
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    This article speaks to the need for local control of funds. If there is a disconnnect between the theology of the central office and the member (to either the left or right) there will be a de-funding effect. There is significant rebellion in the ranks over forced per-capitas in both the PCUSA and ECUSA. The day of reckoning for the Baptists is in the future. For the churches I just mentioned, it is right now.

    A recent Barna study on giving gave a more complicated description of giving patterns than can be explained by internecine fights over missions boards.

    The Barna study discovered that several people groups are more likely to tithe than are others. Groups with the highest proportion of tithers were people 55 or older, college graduates, middle-income individuals, Republicans, conservatives, residents of the South, evangelicals, Protestants, and those who attend mainline Protestant churches.

    The group that had the highest proportion of households tithing was evangelicals. While that group represents just 6% of the public, nearly 9% of the group tithed in 2002 – roughly three times the national average.

    Several population segments emerged as highly unlikely to participate in tithing. In fact, there were five segments identified among which less than one-tenth of one percent tithed in 2002. Those segments included Hispanics, liberals, downscale households (defined as earning less than $20,000 and not having a head of household who graduated from college), Catholics, and parents who home-school their children.

    The research indicated that three other groups that were significantly below average in their likelihood to tithe were people not registered to vote, those registered as independents, and residents of the Midwest.

    Note: Barna’s research methodology bins born-again Christians and evangelicals as follows:

    “Born again Christians” were defined in these surveys as people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as “born again.”

    “Evangelicals” are a subset of born again Christians in Barna surveys. In addition to meeting the born again criteria, evangelicals also meet seven other conditions. Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; contending that they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; stating that Satan exists; maintaining that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; asserting that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; saying that the Bible is totally accurate in all it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Being classified as an evangelical is not based on church attendance nor on the denominational affiliation of the church they attend. Further, respondents were not asked to describe themselves as “evangelical.”

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