Southern Baptists see ninth year of membership decline

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Southern Baptist Convention lost more than 200,000 members in 2015 -- the ninth straight year of decline for the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

Membership stands at 15.3 million, down from 15.5 million in 2014, according to denomination statistics released Tuesday.

Baptisms also fell by more than 10,000 to just a little more than 295,000.

Baptisms are an important measure for the Nashville-based denomination because of its strong commitment to evangelism.

After the numbers were announced, some denominational leaders emphasized the positive news that the number of Southern Baptist churches increased last year by 294, mostly due to new churches started by SBC pastors.

But executive committee president and CEO Frank Page refused to put a positive spin on the declines, exclaiming in a news release, "God help us all! In a world that is desperate for the message of Christ, we continue to be less diligent in sharing the Good News."

Mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches started to experience significant declines in the 1960s and 1970s, said Mark Chaves, a professor of sociology at Duke University who studies religious trends.

Significant decline for many more conservative Protestant denominations has become apparent only in the last decade or so.

"There's just a national trend of declining religious involvement, and conservative churches are not immune to it, as they thought they were for a while," he said.