Southern Baptist Membership Hits Another 50-Year Low as Americans Keep Walking Away

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]I did a story earlier about a prominent former Southern Baptist leader um who should be condemned, but now I want to talk about the Southern Baptist Convention as a whole because they just released a stunning new report. They do this every year. One of the things about the Southern Baptists is that it uh it's not the Catholic Church. It's not hierarchical, but the organizing committee of the Southern Baptists, they do keep tabs on all their member churches. And one of the things churches can submit uh is like membership numbers. How much money are you taking in? How many baptisms have you done? And every year the Southern Baptist Convention releases that information to the public so we can tell how well they're doing or how well they are not doing. And this was the headline that just came out. Southern Baptists see attendance and baptism gains amid membership declines. And oh, those last two words are music to my ears. Let's talk about membership declines. Um, because they put out all this information and I want to highlight this one chart that you just saw a glimpse of. Check this baby out right here.

[00:01:16]Let's talk about this for a second. This is their nationwide membership as far as they can tell because not every church submits membership numbers, but generally the same ones do every year.

[00:01:29]So, you still get an inkling of what's happening here. And what we learn from this particular chart is that over the last year, the Southern Baptists lost over 390 90 390,000 members.

[00:01:48]this number uh right over here that is a 50year low.

[00:01:55]And that number, as you could tell from the shape of the chart, has been going down for 19 straight years.

[00:02:04]Unbelievable.

[00:02:06]That's amazing. And what did these Southern Baptists say? We have more baptisms. Because they really don't want to focus on this curvature.

[00:02:16]And given the record declines in previous years, like things are getting worse for them. So this is what they actually said in their report. This is from the from Lifeway, which is like their research arm. Southern Baptist churches saw sustained growth in attendance and baptisms. Uh but the two decade membership decline continued in 2025. Total Southern Baptist Convention membership fell by more than 3% from 2024 to 2025, dipping to 12.3 million. I know it's still a lot, but they are now down to 12.3 million. Um, while fewer members belong to Southern Baptist congregations, more are now attending worship services and small groups and are being baptized. Really leaning in on the whole baptism thing, which uh that's a madeup thing. Who the hell cares about that? So, you know, it's never good when you have to brag about like, sure, we're not as popular as we used to be, you guys. But at least we dunk more people in water.

[00:03:25]Couldn't have happened to a worthier organ uh worthier organiz worthier more worthy organization. Um just to give you some numbers here that are interesting.

[00:03:36]In 2003, Southern Baptists had a record high membership. It was 16.3 million Americans, making them like the largest Protestant denomination in the country. Now they are down, like I said, to 12.3. They have lost 4 million people over the past like two decades.

[00:03:58]The last time the Southern Baptist Convention saw membership at this level, like I said, over it's a 50-year low.

[00:04:06]Last time they saw 12.3 million members, it was 1973 uh when members were already uh when Jimmy Carter had yet to be elected president, right? And yes, the number of baptisms has gone up. Yes, the in-person attendance numbers have gone up, but it doesn't counteract the fact that fewer and fewer Americans want to be Southern Baptist. Like, it doesn't matter how many people get baptized if the cup is still leaking faster than they can refill it. Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense. They also issued another chart here. It's the same one I showed you earlier, but uh it has more numbers. So, the blue line at the top is their membership. And this one uh it flattens out the membership, so you can't see the drop as much, but there's the membership decline, but underneath they have worship attendance. I'll remove myself here. You could see the second line. It's going up over the past like five years. Uh and they're saying that 4.46 four six million people attend church on a regular basis and that's gone up over the past few years and I think that one makes sense right especially after COVID like or at least after 2020 people were desperate for community they are coming back to church they just want to hang out with other humans again so I kind of get why people would go back to church but it's interesting that only like 4.4 4 million people, 4.5 million people are attending church even though 12.3 million count themselves as members. Like that means what? 8 million people are just not attending church anymore even though if they call themselves Southern Baptists and they are part of these churches.

[00:05:54]Interesting. What about the baptism numbers? That's the lowest one on the list. They had uh they say I'm sorry this is small group attendance. Small group attendance has also gone up. It's at 2.65 million. That's gone up for a few years.

[00:06:09]Fine. I'm not surprised that church members want to attend church things, but also who the hell cares? Um, so what's going on here? Some of this can be blamed on just old people are dying and Southern Baptists are not finding enough young people to make up for the loss. I think that's part of it. But also, I want to show you something from 2023 which I find really, really interesting.

[00:06:38]Um, let me show this to you here. In 2023, the Southern Baptists were still dropping in membership numbers. And there's an article from Christianity Today, three years ago, when they released the same information. And I want to show you what uh the Southern Baptist uh head of this group was saying at the time. Let me see where if I could find it here. Oh, here we go.

[00:07:07]Look at this from Christianity Today.

[00:07:10]This year's annual report released by Lifeway Research. Uh look at Scott McConnell, executive director of the SBC's research arm. Much of the downward movement we are seeing in membership reflects people who stopped participating in an individual congregation years ago and the recordkeeping is finally catching up.

[00:07:32]Membership totals for a congregation immediately reflect additions as well as subtractions dot dot dot. But many congregations are slow to remove others who no longer are participating.

[00:07:44]So this guy, the executive director of their research arm, is saying, "You know why the numbers are falling so sharply?

[00:07:51]It's because we're just cleaning up our membership roles." So you saw a drop, but that's cuz we were just erasing people who were never part of our congregations at all. It's recordkeeping, which is a thing you say when you know next year it's going to go up. But that's not what happened, is it?

[00:08:08]The membership numbers kept going down, right? So, guess what Scott McConnell is saying today? Guess what he is saying now that these new numbers are out?

[00:08:20]Check this out. This is from this week.

[00:08:24]Church closers closures and churches cleaning up their membership roles to reflect those people God has currently entrusted to them have negative impacts on total membership numbers.

[00:08:37]He's still saying three years later it's going down because they're just cleaning up their membership records. That's why like my dude, it does not take several years to like have the computer delete the people who don't come to church anymore. You could do that in like a one sitting. So this guy's using the same excuse. I find that hilarious.

[00:09:01]Um so why else are people leaving the Southern Baptists? Well, nowhere in their uh press release do they mention that people might be turned off by the SBC's really awful response to sex abuse in the denomination. They don't mention sexual misconduct among former leaders.

[00:09:23]They don't mention how the SBC has punished churches for having women pastors. Um they've pushed out black pastors if they're not conservative enough. Uh they've lost a lot of prominent advocates because they kicked out outspoken women as well. Remember Rick Warren, that famous pastor? They kicked out his church because he had a female he had a couple women who were pastors on his role. Um, also they're famously anti-gay, anti anti-LGBTQ, right? Um, they didn't mention any of that as potential reasons people not might not want to be associated with this church. Um, it also doesn't say how some of the most influential SBC churches in the country have chosen to leave the denomination entirely. When the SBC was going to kick Rick Warren's church, Saddleback, out of the denomination, Saddleback up and left.

[00:10:16]They said, "Fine, you need us more than we need you, so we're out." And that was true of several, like at least three massive mega churches that used to be Southern Baptist. Um, those churches left because they believe women can hold certain positions of leadership in the church, even if not the top of the pyramid. Um, but the SBC was like, "That doesn't matter." Also, their public outreach is awful. Do you remember a few years ago the president of the Southern Baptist Convention was a guy named Bart Barber? And he did an interview on 60 Minutes shortly after all the sex abuse stuff came to light to try to put a happy face on this denomination. And and he did okay according to critics. Like he came off looking okay. However, in that interview with 60 Minutes, which you can find on YouTube, he still said, "Yeah, he would totally force children to have their rapists babies cuz he's anti-abortion." He still said fetuses matter more than mothers. Uh, he promoted conversion therapy. He said pe someone in a same-sex marriage could not possibly be a good Christian. He denied the existence of trans people. He said he voted for Donald Trump in 2020.

[00:11:37]That's the best they could do when they were in front of the cameras. So yeah, why would you want to be a part of that denomination if that's your good guy?

[00:11:47]And I'm not saying the membership decline is because of Bart Barber or even his successor Clint Presley, but like when the guy who is explaining how his religion of love teaches people that Jesus is homophobic, that God wants to further traumatize child victims of sexual assault, that he voted for the thrice married racist, like why would anyone want to support that religion, right? And as Donald Trump continues to get less popular, and that's happening non-stop everywhere in every demographic, it seems, I personally would think that all the religions that are forming strong ties to him, conservative Catholics, Southern Baptists, white evangelicals, I think people are also going to leave those religions as well. because how can you claim your religion is on the ethical and moral side of things if this is the guy you're backing? And I don't think we'll see those numbers play out for a couple of years. But I do think that's what's going to happen. Now, I do want to show you one last thing here, which is in the actual report that they released here. This is it. It's a one-page report. Look at the very bottom here, cuz this is the thing that is astonishing. How much money did all the churches in the SBC make in 2024? They made $9.6 billion.

[00:13:17]And what did they make last year? It's still $9.6 billion, but it is a little more than the previous year. So, the SBC is almost a $10 billion religious denomination. It's a money-making enterprise and they are doing just fine. They will survive even if their membership is dropping.

[00:13:44]It's amazing. They've lost members from that year to that year, but they've gained more money after all those years.

[00:13:54]Uh despite that, in case you're wondering, about 4.4% of Americans are Southern Baptists, but that does make them the largest Protestant denomination in the country. Um, I don't know. I don't think Southern Baptists are going to become more popular in the future.

[00:14:09]So, you can have all the baptisms you want. I'm sure that means something to people in the fold, but it means jack to those of us out of it because I don't care what rituals you do. What I'm seeing is people are not wanting the Southern Baptist label. That's why membership is dying. And by the way, a lot of your members are much older. The demographics are not on your side here.

[00:14:31]Um, and I also hope people start to realize how damaging their beliefs are and their political views are. And I hope that makes them walk away, too. I don't think they're all going to ditch the idea of God altogether, but I hope they're realizing their lives are perfectly fine, even if they're not supporting churches that do more harm than good. All right, I will stop there.

[00:14:52]What questions we got here?

[00:14:55]I'm so proud to have contributed to that drop in membership. My wife, too. Hey, congratulations. Well done.

[00:15:05]They'll be baptizing the deceased next.

[00:15:08]Going over their graves, sprinkling some water on them, finding the Jew next door. Like, yeah, I I wouldn't be surprised if they resorted to tactics to try to uh punch up their numbers here.

[00:15:20]They haven't done it yet, though. Uh but that is kind of what the Mormon church was accused of doing to Jewish people, right?

[00:15:28]the other 8 million probably only attend on Christmas and Easter. That happens with a lot of churches. I do think you are right. Thank you for pointing that out. It's not that those 8 million the gap between members and people who attend church. Uh that gap isn't just people who don't go to church. It's people who don't go to church regularly.

[00:15:45]And I'm not surprised that that number is is much much higher.

[00:15:51]I remember you bringing this up a while back and thinking he was full of it. You mean me or the guy talking about this stuff in uh the guy talking about blaming voter roles and cleaning up that? I don't know who you're talking about. I could be full of it. I don't know.

[00:16:08]I uh have you covered the people doing the speedruns through the Scientology buildings here in California. It's fantastic. No, I haven't covered it. I have seen some of the Tik Tok videos. I don't know how I I I don't know if I like that. I I don't like it when people go into other places of worship, even if it's like the Scientology Center in LA for whatever reason they have. Now you are interrupting their religious place of business. You know what I mean? And also I feel like there are consequences for doing that. I mean for the same reason you should not cannot break into a church. Um and like I know we saw that in Min uh Minneapolis too, right? people protested at a church service and there were questions over whether they should be held criminally uh there should be criminal charges against that. But in this case where you are just running into the Scientology building to do a speedrun so you can get it on camera. I mean what are you accomplishing? You're annoying the people in the building.

[00:17:11]You're getting police involved. I don't know what that's supposed to accomplish.

[00:17:15]Um I think correct me if I'm wrong here.

[00:17:18]Even Leah Remeny, the actress who has been outspoken against Scientology, even she said she was not a fan of this. So, um I'm sure the videos are amusing. I am not a fan of doing that. There are plenty of things to criticize Scientology about and right now a lot of those runs seem like you're almost making me feel bad about for the Scientologist and I don't think that's what you're hoping to accomplish.