The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the US, with about 12,982,090 adult members, held its annual convention last week (June 9-12) in Indianapolis, Indiana.
On June 11 th , the Board of Governors of the convention decided to reverse a decision made almost a year earlier, which called for the banning and expulsion of all Southern Baptist churches with female pastors from the denomination.
Reasons for the hotly contested reversal include: the Convention wanted to avoid further alienation of women, as well as a need to help stem the further erosion of the total congregation membership numbers. Currently, the adult membership stands at 12,982,090, whereas at its apex, in 2006, the adult membership totaled just over 16.3 million.
Nationally, 48.9% of Americans are Protestant, while about 20% are Catholic (as of April 2024). Catholic memberships stands at about 52 million adults, while Southern Baptist memberships total 12.9 million, making them the second largest religious group in the country. The third largest group are National Baptists, with 7.5 million members. The primary difference between
Southern Baptists and National Baptists? The answer is black and white: The Southern Baptists are white (and rooted in their belief that slavery was a noble institution), while the National Baptists are black (and rooted in their belief that slavery was an abomination). It was only in 1995, that officials of the Southern Baptists renounce their church’s support of slavery and
segregation.
Note: The National Baptist Convention will hold their Convention June 16-21, 2024 in Memphis, TN (about 195 miles west of Pulaski, TN, where Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was started).
