Please don’t start a fight… if I wanted smoke in a pit, I’d get some Sonny’s Real Pit Barbecue instead of sitting at a computer desk.
My question: What are the differences in Baptist (specifically Southern Baptists) and Methodists (United Methodists) in beliefs, general thought, political leanings, and interpretation of scriptures?
I was brought up in Southern Baptist churches, and while I still believe in my own form of Christianity, I don’t agree with the SBC in most areas. They seem far too concerned with following ruled, dotting every T, and such, wrather than the real intents and thoughts behind actions. They remind me of extremely conservative high schools implementing “1 foot” rules (1 foot between males and females at all times), and other such nonsense.
I am trying to find a church which is more open to reason, intelegent interaction, and the spirit and intelegent interpretation of the scriptures as opposed to the almost blind, literal interpretations to which I’ve been subjected.
Rather ironic that you look to the Methodists because the Baptists are concerned with following the rules. The name “Methodist” was a derogatory name applied to the followers of John Wesley because they thought by following the “method” they could achieve salvation.
One major difference between Baptists and Methodists include a more heirarchical structure to the Methodist Church, as opposed to the Baptists where each church can do as they believe, if I’m not mistaken. If I recall correctly, Baptists don’t practice infant baptism, while Methodists certainly do. And, in Baptism, anyone can be ordained a minister (I believe this has to do with the fact that each church is a separate organizational entity), while I believe in Methodism one must obtain the appropriate education.
My general impression is that Methodism is more liberal (for lack of a better word) than Baptism. I view Methodism as the “generic” Protestantism–not High Church like Episcopals or Lutherans, not fire-and-brimstone like (some) Baptists, just vanilla Protestants.
I was raised Methodist, but attended several Baptists services before I stopped going altogether. The only differences I could see was the the Bapts. seemed to be more open minded and actually listened, actually studied when the pastor would point out a passage. The songs were the same, the prayers were the same, the responsive readings were the same. The Bapt. preachers also seemed more accessible to the congregation, and even cracked a joke or two. That was never done in the Meth. church I grew up in. Everything was very staid and proper.
And johnson was right about the infant baptism.
When attending a service in whatever church, the impression one takes depends in no small part on the character and the personality of the shepherd of the worship (and, by extension, that of his or her flock). In response to the OP and with only mirth intended, I recall reading or hearing somewhere that the difference between a Methodist and a Baptist was that a Methodist was a Baptist who could read.
Whilst Enkidu is correct that the church-going experience depends in large part on the attitudes, experience, etc. of local authorities, if this question is to remain a General Question, we’re going to have to stick to a discussion of differences in official church doctrine.
Anybody familiar with the differences as expressed by the Southern Baptist Conference, or whoever, and the Methodist higher-ups?
My experience has been that Methodists are more liberal (less literal interpretation of the bible, more open to varying beliefs, less strict, etc.) than Baptists, particularly Southern Baptists, hence my decision to attend Methodist churches. Although, it does vary based on geography and individual churches. Max Torque surprised the hell out of me by saying that he had been witnessed to by Methodists when he was in college. However, I think that for the most part in a given region, the Methodist churches are going to be more liberal than the Baptist churches in that region.
Before I piss manny off by turning this into a Great Debate (if I haven’t done so already), I’ll point you to a couple of websites stating the beliefs and practices of each group:
If I were searching in that direction, I’d start with some of the most traditionally liberal denominations – such as the U.S. Episcopalians and the United Church of Christ. They tend to be tolerant of a wide range of interpretations and, as such, encourage more active discussion of what a particular passage in Scripture means.
Of course, you could always join our friend Espirix in the Unitarian-Universalist movement. They pretty much start with the assumption that there is a higher power and leave everything else to personal interpretation.
I think that there are an amazing number of sub-denominations within the denomination “Baptist”, of which Southern Baptist is merely one of the largest. In much of the south, they are The Church to which conventional believers go. Structurally, as johnson pointed out, the Baptists are less centrally ruled, meaning that individual congregations could differ from theological positions taken by the central Conference and that they can send the preacher packing and pick a different one if they don’t like the preacher’s message. You’d think that would correlate with a less fundamentalist stance, wouldn’t you? But somehow it doesn’t seem to…
I gather that some very conservative fundies have gone a long way towards taking over the central leadership (underpowered though it may be in the structural sense) and with them sitting in many places of power, the churchgoers who believe along with them have tended to assert themselves locally. All of this I hear second-hand from my Dad, who converted to Baptist a few years back and isn’t happy with the fundy stuff.
Anyway, I believe there are still other flavors of Baptist with different beliefs and attitudes, including one called (IIRC?) “Primitive Baptism”? where they don’t believe in musical instruments in the church and do all their singing a cappella. (It conjures up images of raw unplaned bleeding-sap pine plank benches for pews, doesn’t it? But the a cappella singing thingie is the only thing I know about them).
I was raised Methodist in northeastern Ohio back in the 60s-70s, just outside Cleveland. The explanation of differences I heard was that “the Methodists sing more.” It’s true that every prayer, scripture reading, sermon, etc., was followed by either an anthem from the choir or a hymn sung by the entire congregation.
I agree with the earlier post calling Methodism plain ol’ white-bread Protestantism. Alhough I think the Presbyterians were supposed to be even more boring.
I lay the blame for my current attractions to Roman Catholic Mysticism, Vedanta Hinduism, and Snake-Handling directly at the door of the United Methodist Church. Dull, dull, dull.
I was raised in a fundamentalist baptist church (they even frowned upon the Southern Baptists because they prayed with Catholics one time, the horror :)). My wife is Catholic and we attended a Methodist wedding and she was surprised at how similair the service was.
You can find the info you need on United Methodists on the web. Since there are many factions of Baptists, it may be difficult. I’d recommend going to a neighborhood Baptist church yourself and talk with the pastor and see if the church is a right fit. Each one is unique, that’s the nature of Baptist churches, independence.
The other respondents are all more or less right; expressed as a probability, it’s more likely that a United Methodist congregation would fit the bill than a Baptist one, but there’s no guarantee that of any pair of churches, one Baptist and one Methodist, the Methodist would be the more liberal. I attended Methodist churches throughout my childhood, including one in my teens that would have been ideal for you (I was so taken with it and the minister that I seriously considered the ministry myself); among the churches I attended, however, there were a couple that could have given any Baptist church a run for its money in intolerance and scriptural literalism.
That being said, the United Methodist Church has formally declared, in its official doctrinal statement, the Book of Discipline:
If you’re in a community with several churches of each denomination, you’ll likely find that there is a diversity of tone among the Methodist churches; often, a new Methodist church is born from a schism within an existing church over issues that are left up to individual conscience in the Book of Discipline, or over specifics of the form of worship, etc. I’ve been in Methodist churches that were nearly indistinguishable from High-Church Anglican, and in those that were practically Pentecostal. I’m given to understand that there’s also a spectrum of belief and practice among Baptist congregations, but the Southern Baptist Convention in particular places the infallibility of Scripture above question.
Oddly, the Methodist church is much more tightly organized than the Baptist churches. Local Baptist churches are autonomous, recognizing no official organization above the local church, except insofar as the local church voluntarily adheres to the Statement of Baptist Faith and Message and voluntarily supports one of the national or regional conventions. Methodist ministers are appointed for a fixed term of a year to their churches by a bishop who is responsible for all churces in a given geographical area known as a “conference”; these appointments are handed down at an annual conference meeting and may be renewed by subsequent annual conferences so long as both the minister and the congregation are content with the appointment. There are also five Jurisdictional Conferences in the U.S., as well as the General Conference of the entire UMC – General conferences occur every four years, jurisdictional conferences as determined by the conference itself. Generally speaking, then, each annual conference appoints ministers to congregations within that conference, jurisdictional conferences elect bishops to serve each annual conference, and the General Conference governs the denomination as a whole. (There are also district conferences within each annual conference, and a charge conference for each congregation, but these are unimportant for our purposes). It’s rare for a minister to be appointed to a congregation over the objections of that congregation, and rarer still for the congregation to rebel at an appointment, but it has happened (I know of at least one case in which the church board locked out the appointed minister in the middle of his term). Ministers are unlikely to refuse an appointment, just as employees of large companies are unlikely to refuse transfers, for the same reason: it damages one’s prospects for future advancement. In short, then, the United Methodist Church has an elaborate and well-defined hierarchical structure that rivals even that of the Roman Catholic Church in its complexity, albeit on a much smaller scale. Among the effects of this is that it’s difficult for a few loud-mouthed zealots in a particular congregation to dominate that church by influencing the hiring and retention of its clergy – the annual conference typically will take steps to move the ministers involved should intolerance begin to dominate a local church (as my first paragraph indicates, sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t). In Baptist churches, on the other hand, ministers are hired and fired by the individual congregations, with no oversight by any higher authority (except, presumably, the Highest). In that circumstance, it’s much easier for a particular congregation to run to extremes. It’s also the case that the formal structure of the Methodist church tends to make its ministers take a more “professional” approach to themselves and their careers; I mean “professional” in a fairly strict sense here: Methodist ministers, while concerned with the needs and desires of their congregations, ultimately advance by impressing their superiors in the church hierarchy and dutifully fulfilling their assignments, while Baptist ministers need more of an entrepreneurial spirit (including the ability to attract attention to their accomplishments) in order to convince ever-larger congregations to hire them.
In the small town I grew up in, the Methodist service started (and therefore ended) 15 minutes earlier so the congregation could get to the local restaurants first.
