The Baptist religion is the most plentiful religion in the USA. And it’s not hard to see why. Almost everyone in the South belongs to it.
You can travel for miles in any direction, and find nothing but Baptists. The one exception being Louisiana, which tends to be R. Catholics, owing to the large French population.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. I think religion can (**sometimes **) have a very positive effects in people’s lives.
But this is not a debate about religion. I just want to know why.
Who converted all these people en masse? And did it in any way involve the co-mingling of church and state?
Let’s see…I live in the South, I’m a Baptist deacon and trustee, I attended Baptist seminary, and my wife has both a Masters and Doctorate in Theology, as well as a Masters of Divinity.
I still can’t answer your question because it is basically, “Why Baptists?” Could you be more specific? The history of Baptists, of which there are many, many sub-groups, is fairly complex, just as with any other denomination.
It goes back to the first Great Awakening. The Anglican church was the state religion in most of the south at the time and while they did not encourage the Baptists they let them exist.
Firstly, in the US Roman Catholics outnumber Baptists, of which about half are Southern Baptists which tend to be regionally concentrated.
Secondly, like most Christian groups developed in recent centuries they don’t grow by very large numbers converting at once. It’s a few here and there. Sometimes a church congregation switches. Tent revivals and such add some more.
Being the biggest church in a town helps a lot. People want the status/help of belonging the most influential church.
Some things to keep in mind about the Southern Baptists in particular:
They split from the main Baptist body prior to the Civil War over slavery. The hard core racist background of their origin has been difficult to overcome. Some noticable changes at the top but not so much some of the members.
The foundation precepts of the Southern Baptists include some technically liberal ideas in terms of church organization. Each church is supposed to be independent and make their own decisions on matters of faith outside of a few set out at the beginning. The church members are considered capable of making their own decisions on matters of faith. The pastor is there to help explain things but not force decisions.
This is part of the general Baptist rejection of the papal-style rule from the top.
If you’ve been around any Southern Baptists you know that the latter rules have been significantly ignored. The top guys issue rules about the role of women, gay marriage, etc. and the churches and members are expected to obey the rules or else.
First, there is not one Baptist group. There are something like 30 different groups that describe themselves as Baptist, so I’m pretty sure there was no en masse conversion. But more importantly, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that “almost everyone in the South is Baptist”. Christians in the South may be predominately non-Catholic, but there are certainly Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, etc in the South. And there are Catholics even in the non-Louisiana South - the Atlanta archdiocese has about 100 parishes and about 10% of the metropolitan Atlanta population is Catholic.
I’d like to add that each church makes its own decision whom to hire or “call” as pastor as well.
I belonged to a Southern Baptist church that actually went the “or else” route. We had an openly gay ordained deacon and in 1998 the Baptist General Convention showed us! They decided to stop taking our money. Ouch. That hurt. Not much else they can do.
Even in the South, it’s an exaggeration to say “nearly everyone is a Baptist.”
Here’s the breakdown on religion in Alabama, for example. 86% consider themselves to be Christian of some flavor, while “Evangelical Protestant” (which includes Baptists, among other groups) are just under half, at 49%.
Other groups include:
Historically Black Protestant (denominations like the African Methodist Episcopal Church) 16%
Mainline Protestant 13%
Catholic 7%
Only 12% of Alabamians are “Unaffiliated” (compared to, say, California, at 27% “unaffiliated”).
I guess also the question is, how vigorous is the proselytizing to recruit new members from outside the family? It’s my impression, based on those accounts and depictions of revivalist tent meetings etc. that the more fundamentalist religions, particularly the southern ones (where the weather was more amenable to frequent tent meetings) were more likely to be chasing converts within the USA than some of the more sedate religions. Catholics, for example, probably got that big by relying on successive waves of immigrants from assorted mostly-Catholic European countries rather than stealing converts in numbers from other groups.
Correct friedo, however the Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant Christian group in the USA. This seems to confuse folks from time to time.
Baptists have been around for a looooong time in this country. Blame this guy if you must for establishing the first Baptist church in North America back in 1638. Ironically, one of his big issues was separation of church and state. This was still a big part of what the Southern Baptists stood for as recently as the late 70s/early 80s when I was growing up. They still pay lip service to it but seem to have forgotten exactly what the idea means.
Other Baptist groups seem to adhere to the concept more than the SBC these days.
I am not sure I understand your question. Obviously African Americans are just as much part of the South as anyone. And they are typically (not always, of course) Baptists. Please explain your post more :).
BTW I did hear in the news, about 30 years ago, Baptisms were the most numerous religion in the US. Maybe they meant most numerous Protestant religion:confused:?
Baptists are a type of Christian—a member of one of several specific denominations. Unless you’re talking about the Biblical character John the Baptist, so-called because he baptized people (including Jesus).
Baptism is a ritual/sacrament practiced by virtually all Christians, but in different ways by different denominations (e.g. sprinkling vs. immersion; infant vs adult baptism).
Definitely a typo. Not entirely my fault, though. When I post with my smart phone, it assumes I mean something I don’t (I definitely meant Baptist,not baptism). And if I don’t catch it in time, it inserts its own correction. Technology. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
