The Christian Science Monitor notes that Southern Baptists are among the denominations “’planting’ new churches in the rocky soil of secular New England”:
In eight years, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has more than doubled its Vermont church count, from 17 to 37. Among them is Capstone, which opened on this site in December. Likewise, Southern Baptists have planted at least 24 new churches in New Hampshire over the past 10 years. The Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination, has planted at least six new congregations in New Hampshire and Maine since 2006.
Northern New England, however, is a land of rocky soil. This year it replaced the Pacific Northwest as America’s least religious region, according to Trinity College’s American Religious Identification Survey. Vermont tops the list in unbelief: 34 percent of Vermonters claim no religious affiliation.
Even so, conservative Christians see opportunity in a land of empty churches and unconverted souls. They’re sending teams of volunteers from other states to restore old buildings. They’re adapting outreach styles, much as they might in Africa or Eastern Europe, to fit the local culture. So far, they are getting a largely – albeit cautiously – warm reception.
What is remarkable is that the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in America and yet in Vermont—a state with a population of 623,908 people—there are only thirty-seven SBC churches.
It’s true that Vermont is a small state; only Wyoming has fewer people. But compare it to Tulsa, Oklahoma, which has just over half that number of people (pop: 384,037). Each of the red dots on the map below represents a Baptist church.
With an estimated sixteen million SBC members and more than 42,000 churches in American—there are more Southern Baptists in Louisiana (757,639) than there are people in Vermont—it would appear (especially to those in the Southern states) that the denomination is everywhere. Yet it’s still likely that many Americans (especially those in the Northern states) never encounter an evangelical, much less one that attends an SBC church.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising, then, that so many of our fellow Americans are leery of evangelicals (especially Baptists) when—despite our ubiquity—they’ve never met one of us. Perhaps we need to branch out more and introduce ourselves to our (mostly Northern) neighbors.
August 4th, 2009 | 10:40 am
Yeah, more SBC groups will help. It’s not enough that the entire South is one big evangelical tent.
What is it exactly that you’re converting them to? Emotionalism? Praise and worship music? Jesus as their “buddy”?
Spare me.
August 4th, 2009 | 2:23 pm
REM – Perhaps they could be introduced to the Bible – something most mainline denominations and many Roman Catholics haven’t really looked at.
August 4th, 2009 | 2:36 pm
Oh, we’ve been reading stories like this for a generation in New England. Every few years, someone decides there’s a story to repeat.
We already have Baptist churches in New England. Just not SBC churches. Some astute readers might recall that New England is the home base for the Baptist church in the USA – it’s a very different Baptist tradition here than the SBC.
Anyway, while there are a variety of conservative Protestant communities flourishing in this region, on the whole, it’s not where the momentum is. The momentum is: the institutional collapse of the Roman Catholic Church and the increased dis-affiliation of Catholics. The Catholic Church was during the mid-20th century almost like an established church in most if not all of the New England states in terms of its bishops ability to influence legislation. But it has suffered the fate typical of worldly-powerful churches, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant: with power comes responsibility. And the Church used its power irresponsibly in some ways. It is reaping what it sowed in that regard, not just from the enmity of the bogeymen of the Fourth Estate. When bishops assert a commanding level of power of governance, they unwittingly set themselves up to have commensurate responsibility. The two dimensions of authority are linked inextricably in any organization.
And the first leading New England Baptist, Roger Williams, might have something to say about that.
August 5th, 2009 | 10:16 am
If they’re just restoring old buildings, that sounds fine, but something tells me that getting to know Southern evangelicals won’t make us like them any more. Do they honestly think they can avoid imposing their culture while sharing their particular strain of Christianity? I would guess that they usually don’t avoid doing so, based on the ‘Crosswalk Community Center” and “LifewayEastbrooke” type SBC churches that pop up in schools every now and then. Why do they name these things after housing developments, anyhow?
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