Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to another segment of the nonprofits and Eli
Speaker 1: Slack is going to take us on a step step
Speaker 1: step step step step step in the right direction.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, you LII.
Speaker 3: So in twenty twenty one, the Southern Baptist Convention had
Speaker 3: just under thirteen point seven million members, and over the
Speaker 3: past four years that number has fallen by just about
Speaker 3: nine hundred and sixty thousand to now just over twelve
Speaker 3: point seven million members. Pastors boast about how new member
Speaker 3: baptisms are increasing, seemingly to provide the illusion that things
Speaker 3: are not only well but flourishing. But after losing almost
Speaker 3: half a million members in twenty twenty two, they've never
Speaker 3: fully recovered from the pandemic and continue to lose about
Speaker 3: half that many people each year since. I wouldn't be
Speaker 3: concerned though, if I was the SBC, because what's a
Speaker 3: million people when you've got twelve more of those? This
Speaker 3: story is from The Friendly Atheist by him and Meta
Speaker 3: on May first, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, if you've lost one to twelve of
Speaker 1: them over that shorter period, that's that might be something
Speaker 1: that might.
Speaker 2: Be a little bit alarming.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I do find funny about
Speaker 1: this story is that you see so many Internet Christians
Speaker 1: on TikTok, YouTube and other platforms, social platforms who keep
Speaker 1: telling us over and over and over about how fat
Speaker 1: Christianity is growing, you know, and obviously they're ignoring all
Speaker 1: of the data. I mean, I like all of the data.
Speaker 1: I've actually had this very conversation with several Christians online
Speaker 1: and they're totally convernent.
Speaker 2: They're totally convinced the church is growing.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, and I mean, we even had
Speaker 1: the conversation I'm not sure if on the show earlier
Speaker 1: this week or it was in between tapings about how
Speaker 1: Christianity is growing in Africa. Protestantism is through placing Catholicism
Speaker 1: in many places in South America. But here in the USA,
Speaker 1: the churches are definitely is shrinking and have been for
Speaker 1: decades now.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't even know where these people get this.
Speaker 1: So, Jason, I know you've been keeping an eye on
Speaker 1: Pew Research polls related to this topic.
Speaker 2: Do you have any news or views on that research?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I might disagree with you. I think
Speaker 4: a lot of what's going on with the Southern Baptist Convention,
Speaker 4: what we're seeing is people dying. Honestly, the SBC is
Speaker 4: generally stalked by a lot of older folks, generally my
Speaker 4: grandparents who have passed age and older, you know, a
Speaker 4: little bit younger late sixties, early seventies, eighties, So we're
Speaker 4: seeing that happen a lot. Also, the church is growing
Speaker 4: exponentially globally. I mean, I say, you know, we talk
Speaker 4: about Africa, but we forget that this is a global world.
Speaker 4: So when you look at the Pew research, it's not
Speaker 4: only Africa, but it's the majority of developing nations versus
Speaker 4: developed nations. The majority of developing nations right now are
Speaker 4: experiencing not only a population surge, but that correlates to
Speaker 4: a religion surge. And it's very fundamentalist, traditionalist, authoritarian religiosity
Speaker 4: that is proliferating Pew Research views I think by twenty sixty.
Speaker 4: I mean again, you can go on it, so please
Speaker 4: don't quote me. So I'm just a guy pulling it
Speaker 4: out of my brain or ass or whatever. But it's
Speaker 4: religion will be is a dominant force in this world. Also,
Speaker 4: I don't think it matters that adherence to a specific
Speaker 4: denomination is depleting because when we see the current social
Speaker 4: shift and political shift, and who people who are listening
Speaker 4: to and adhering to it is a cult of personality
Speaker 4: that is fueled by a non denominational fundamentalist foundation. So
Speaker 4: I think any belief that religiosity is lowering and or
Speaker 4: losing traction, I think is an uninformed belief, and I
Speaker 4: think it is inherently false and can be easily demonstrable
Speaker 4: and should be feared.
Speaker 1: Ye on good points, I mean argue with that. Well
Speaker 1: I could, but you're bigger than me. So, Town, I
Speaker 1: was looking through your notes and I noticed there was
Speaker 1: a quote from a really wise and super intelligent person
Speaker 1: in there. You want to talk about that for a moment,
Speaker 1: you know, not the quote or the quote, not the
Speaker 1: incredibly talented person who made the quote, but the quote.
Speaker 5: Okay, well, he who shall remain nameless I will paraphrase
Speaker 5: in my own words, and that for a long time now,
Speaker 5: this particular individual of my acquaintance has been saying, we
Speaker 5: are witnessing the desperate attempt to cling to power by
Speaker 5: religion as it enters its dying throws. After what Jason
Speaker 5: just said, Actually, it doesn't surprise me that the nations
Speaker 5: that have been dealing with this evangelical, authoritarian religious thing
Speaker 5: other than Islam, which used to be the fastest growing
Speaker 5: religion on the planet. I don't know if it still is.
Speaker 5: I think there's a few others that might be making headway,
Speaker 5: But it is hard to say that religion is dying.
Speaker 5: But I think in the developed world it is because
Speaker 5: people are just figuring out that there's not a lot
Speaker 5: of truth value to it, and they're eventually, as we've
Speaker 5: seen with a lot of the people we've I've seen
Speaker 5: deconverting or starting to deconvert. The reasons they have for
Speaker 5: doing that are fairly valid. So I think that what
Speaker 5: we're going to have to do is we need to
Speaker 5: allow allow people to see whether or not this religion
Speaker 5: they're doing is valuable enough to them to forego the
Speaker 5: truth of what their life actually is. But we also
Speaker 5: have to keep pointing out that it's not helping. You know,
Speaker 5: there these are some desperate people in some of these countries,
Speaker 5: and desperate in a way that Americans just can't not
Speaker 5: under us. Americans cannot understand. If you've been in any
Speaker 5: of these places, you'll see what I'm talking about. I
Speaker 5: have lived in other countries and I can tell you
Speaker 5: that unless they're developed world, yeah, it can be pretty rough.
Speaker 5: And that is the understatement of the year. So I
Speaker 5: the fact that people take solace in that horrible condition
Speaker 5: to it by a religion, or if that religion gives
Speaker 5: them some advantage in the political power structure they're in,
Speaker 5: so that they can pull themselves out of the of
Speaker 5: the shithole that they're living in at least a little bit,
Speaker 5: or maybe get another meal out of it, because they
Speaker 5: live meal to meal, not day to day. You know,
Speaker 5: I think that it's a tragic situation, but if a
Speaker 5: religion can give them some sort of hope, then I'm
Speaker 5: not so sure. I'm against that. You know, as a humanist,
Speaker 5: I think people need to grab onto whatever they can
Speaker 5: in those situations to pull themselves out of it. Help you,
Speaker 5: help people around them pull themselves out of it, and
Speaker 5: we should be doing an awful lot more to do that.
Speaker 1: I was curious, John, so I looked it up, and
Speaker 1: Islam is still considered the fastest growing religion, but it's
Speaker 1: mostly because of higher birth rates. So that's what I've
Speaker 1: been saying, Yeah, not because of conversion. And interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: though seventy seven percent of new converts into Islam are
Speaker 1: Christians or ex Christians.
Speaker 2: I thought that was kind of an interesting statistic called
Speaker 2: I don't know what it means. It's a power but
Speaker 2: it's an interesting Now.
Speaker 4: It's a power up move. It really is, due to
Speaker 4: the concessions given to men and authority and family structure.
Speaker 4: It's a power up move with more theater, more authoritarian liberties.
Speaker 5: That's what it is, which Christianity has gradually lost compared
Speaker 5: to Islam. Though, if you go back into an Islamic situation, yeah.
Speaker 4: If you read it all back, if you read The
Speaker 4: Temptation to Exist by em Chiorian, really good book, one
Speaker 4: of my favorite books. He discusses kind of the rise
Speaker 4: and fall of civilizations and power struck sures and different
Speaker 4: structures within the structures, and it just follows suit I'm sure.
Speaker 4: And The Temptation to Exists hands down, it's one of
Speaker 4: the few I've read it over multiple times. It's an
Speaker 4: amazing book. That was so cool.
Speaker 1: I love that the article and Eli it is opening
Speaker 1: mentioned that there was a ten percent rise in baptisms.
Speaker 2: Now, now my first thought was.
Speaker 1: Okay, so baptists had ten percent more kids, right, I
Speaker 1: mean just because you baptized your baby doesn't mean they're
Speaker 1: going to stay a Baptist their whole life.
Speaker 2: Does anybody have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 3: Well, so, so as I understand its, Southern Baptist convention
Speaker 3: is that baptism is a conscious choice. I think Baptists
Speaker 3: don't baptize babies.
Speaker 6: They don't. They don't accept that.
Speaker 1: And if you that's that, that's and I I'm sorry
Speaker 1: if I misunderstood that.
Speaker 6: No fair enough.
Speaker 3: But I think too though that like I think that
Speaker 3: I agree that the rise in baptisms is a non
Speaker 3: data point, like it's a it's a non issue because
Speaker 3: basically what they're doing is they're.
Speaker 6: Like, oh, like we're like, we're we're losing numbers.
Speaker 3: Either it's because like their members are passing away, or
Speaker 3: you know, people aren't joining and you know they just
Speaker 3: never came back after the COVID pandemic, whatever the case is.
Speaker 3: They're like, we need a way to lock in some
Speaker 3: of these members. If we get them to if we
Speaker 3: like pressure them to get baptized, then we can pressure
Speaker 3: them to be here, Like you kind of committed to
Speaker 3: this now, so like you're a member of the church. NU,
Speaker 3: So I think it's it's publicity. Basically, it's internal publicity
Speaker 3: to be like, you know, like everything is fine, like
Speaker 3: to not encourage others or to not give others the
Speaker 3: idea of also leaving the church.
Speaker 4: One thing that I think would be interesting, And I
Speaker 4: mean this is a speculation, but I grew up Southern Baptists,
Speaker 4: and a big part of Southern Baptists kind of lore
Speaker 4: is the whole idea of like rededicating yourself to Christ
Speaker 4: kind of re the idea of backsliding is a big part.
Speaker 4: So it would make sense to me that during COVID,
Speaker 4: if people quote straight away from God that you generally
Speaker 4: do you go get rebaptized, you do it in front
Speaker 4: of people, because it involves a lot of like doing
Speaker 4: things in front of people holding accountable. I grew up
Speaker 4: in a boat again, That's how I grew up, So
Speaker 4: it would make sense to me that if people slipped
Speaker 4: away quote unquote during COVID and they're rededicating, they're doing baptisms,
Speaker 4: it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Is it sort of like a rebirth.
Speaker 4: It's a rebirth. It's just a ritual that seems to
Speaker 4: be kind of typical within the Southern Baptist community. You
Speaker 4: there's a lot of like social shaming involved, and you
Speaker 4: always have to tell everybody about everything about you, even
Speaker 4: though it's not really the things you did, but it is,
Speaker 4: but it isn't. It's just it's a whole game.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of like cleaning your sleep.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just like it's like re like married couples
Speaker 4: who do their vows again in ten years and then
Speaker 4: do their vows again in ten years and hey, I
Speaker 4: just want to let you know that I'm still with you, babe,
Speaker 4: type of thing. That's kind of what it is.
Speaker 3: Jesus forgiveness war off because they didn't give enough money
Speaker 3: to the church in a certain amount of time, so
Speaker 3: they need more of Jesus's forgiveness so they can keep
Speaker 3: getting money that they try.
Speaker 4: Or Yeah, I mean, honestly, that's what it truly is.
Speaker 4: But the way you think it is is that you're
Speaker 4: the one who wore off. And the reason you don't
Speaker 4: feel it is because you need to rededicate it and
Speaker 4: you were back slid in and you have to get
Speaker 4: right with God, and it's all these little catchphrases and
Speaker 4: then you have to go up and like humble yourself
Speaker 4: in front of the congregation where really it's just it's
Speaker 4: a it's a narcissistic shaming technique. It's just a way
Speaker 4: to devalue you back into your heart. Yeah, by by
Speaker 4: prostrating yourself in front of people and letting some person
Speaker 4: tell you about yourself. And yeah, it's really fucked up.
Speaker 4: I don't like it.
Speaker 6: Put your body fully underwater, that makes.
Speaker 4: Me so uncom Yeah, let another person push you underwater,
Speaker 4: and it's its total kick. It's like subcink shit. Man,
Speaker 4: It's just nobody really, it's like voyeurism and subkink stuff,
Speaker 4: and nobody wants to admit what it really is.
Speaker 2: Waterboarded For Jesus.
Speaker 4: It sounds hot. I mean he was a carpenter and
Speaker 4: he was a you know, Mediterranean guy. So I'm sure
Speaker 4: you're just fucking ripped. Try to do is fucking sexy,
Speaker 4: but you know, it's neither here nor there. I'm getting distracted.
Speaker 1: Sorry, you know, I really like this article. It was
Speaker 1: pretty comprehensive. One of the things I think hadn't really
Speaker 1: summed up the whole thing. I think in one sentence
Speaker 1: when he wrote, instead of addressing the actual problem, the
Speaker 1: spc's members are focused on how to rearrange the deck
Speaker 1: chairs out of the Titanic. I thought that was a
Speaker 1: pretty good quote. But he does go on the list
Speaker 1: several things. But what do you all think is responsible
Speaker 1: for the overall decline in the SBC church attendance in
Speaker 1: the USA.
Speaker 4: I think they're busy on the internet with their new religion.
Speaker 4: I think all they're doing is just playing musical fucking chairs.
Speaker 4: At this point, I don't think there's any room to celebrate.
Speaker 4: I don't think there's any room for optimism. I don't
Speaker 4: think that we should even think these people are not
Speaker 4: Christian or losing any faith. They're just buying into the
Speaker 4: new thing. They're modernizing their beliefs. Also, there's a die
Speaker 4: off of people, but yet religiosity is booming, immigration is booming,
Speaker 4: globalization and time space compression is booming. So we can't
Speaker 4: view this as like as a rock or an island.
Speaker 4: This is a global community with no borders at this point.
Speaker 4: So what we're seeing is more people at home, but
Speaker 4: they're still obsessing over the religious fucking algorithm that is
Speaker 4: at this point religiously charged in the United States, so
Speaker 4: are or politically charged, but religious religio political religio however
Speaker 4: you want to put it so I can't. All they're
Speaker 4: doing is just shifting chairs. I don't think there's a decline.
Speaker 4: I think there's an increase. Uh.
Speaker 1: And well we know there's a decline though, I mean
Speaker 1: we do not I mean.
Speaker 4: To a group.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, but the amount of nuns has risen considerably.
Speaker 2: Not affiliated, right, not no.
Speaker 4: Belief iligious, They're not affiliated.
Speaker 6: You point that out there, Kelly.
Speaker 1: But that's what I said, that decline of the church,
Speaker 1: the church, the DeLine of religion, I said, the decline
Speaker 1: of the church.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the kline of the church really means nothing at
Speaker 4: this point, is probably even scarier because I would rather
Speaker 4: a church body overseeing some people. When you go rogue,
Speaker 4: you start doing a bunch of weird nuanced ship and
Speaker 4: that's where cults form, because you take the original thing
Speaker 4: and then you bastardize it and take and make it
Speaker 4: like a cut here different this way and a cut
Speaker 4: hair different that way. But that's how you do fucking cults.
Speaker 4: So all we have now are a bunch of fucking
Speaker 4: cults everywhere, which eventually merge into a cults of personality.
Speaker 4: The religiosity, if anything, increases at that point, because you're
Speaker 4: sucking a fucking a ball of reinforced dog shit.
Speaker 1: What do you think is when one of the things
Speaker 1: most responsible for it that the the church.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure that I know that I know, Like
Speaker 6: the number.
Speaker 2: One I said was church attendance, actually.
Speaker 3: My notes, and I'll answer that because it's quicker, but
Speaker 3: I want to I I have something to say about
Speaker 3: what Jason said too. I think that Hemmant gave a
Speaker 3: really good kind of breakdown in the in the article
Speaker 3: that he wrote about it. You know, in between two
Speaker 3: thousand or in twenty twenty one, they had the thirteen
Speaker 3: point six eight million. In twenty twenty two it dropped
Speaker 3: by four hundred and fifty thousand roughly, and then by
Speaker 3: by two hundred and forty thousand, and then two hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty thousand in the two U proceded or succeeding years,
Speaker 3: so and then he had the number. I don't think, uh,
Speaker 3: it's it remains at twelve point seven for so far
Speaker 3: this year roughly. So.
Speaker 6: I think the.
Speaker 3: Big part of it was the COVID pandemic, and people
Speaker 3: have just as Jason said, they're kind of like modernizing,
Speaker 3: like people sort of doing virtual online churches. They're like, wait,
Speaker 3: I don't have to get up like two hours early
Speaker 3: to get my whole. I don't have to dress up exactly.
Speaker 3: I don't have to iron these clothes. I don't have
Speaker 3: to come home and like you know, were these close
Speaker 3: a few times and then like steam press them or
Speaker 3: dry clean them.
Speaker 6: So that like I don't have to be the all
Speaker 6: the gossip exactly.
Speaker 3: It's more can be more comfortable and more you know,
Speaker 3: at home, worshiping at home.
Speaker 6: Right, So that's what they're doing.
Speaker 3: But I think that the I think the decline in
Speaker 3: the numbers.
Speaker 6: They're their power is in their numbers.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So Ashmittt mentioned the SBC is responsible for like mission
Speaker 3: tripes where people go and like build houses, but only
Speaker 3: if you learn about God first, as if they've never
Speaker 3: like they don't worship yahweh in South America or you know,
Speaker 3: they they they lobby against anti LGBTQ or sorry, they
Speaker 3: lobby against LGBTQ, IA plus people against women and marginalized
Speaker 3: groups and all these things reproductive rights. So the thing
Speaker 3: is that and why I said at the beginning that
Speaker 3: if half of the SBC churches close down because they
Speaker 3: lose too many members. That's going to be their least
Speaker 3: profitable half, and they're still talking sixteen point three million
Speaker 3: or sorry, six point three million people right in their
Speaker 3: most profitable churches. And Southern Baptist churches operate independently of
Speaker 3: the convention of the SBC, So the power the SBC's
Speaker 3: power comes from the money they get from their churches
Speaker 3: that'll operate independently, and they can kind of just change
Speaker 3: what they're doing to fit with what people around them
Speaker 3: want and still be a part of the SBC and
Speaker 3: still send that money back. And I think if they
Speaker 3: start bleeding for money and they really need it, they're
Speaker 3: not going to like pick and choose. They're going to
Speaker 3: pick and choose a lot less what their churches are
Speaker 3: teaching if it's going to Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: That's a really good observation.
Speaker 1: I want to give John a chance to answer this
Speaker 1: question since we're running out of time.
Speaker 2: John, where do you think is responsible for the decline
Speaker 2: in church attendance?
Speaker 5: I think everybody's kind of covered most of it. I
Speaker 5: think the decline in church also is that we live
Speaker 5: in a much more computer and electronic driven society, and
Speaker 5: it's always getting people to think in new and different ways.
Speaker 5: So anytime you're not having a structure that is fundamentally stable,
Speaker 5: then things are going to fall away and people are
Speaker 5: going to find new areas do that, like like Eli
Speaker 5: was saying, you know, online or something like that. But
Speaker 5: as that changes, that's a different environment. It's not the
Speaker 5: environment that religion, that particular religion grew up in or
Speaker 5: evolved in. It's now where you can see that it's
Speaker 5: not going to be the same religion at all. It's
Speaker 5: you know, and what it turns into could be even
Speaker 5: scarier than the one you got, but it's not going
Speaker 5: to remain the same. And that's that's where we're seeing now,
Speaker 5: is that, Yeah, a lot of people aren't affiliating with
Speaker 5: a particular church or religion, But then what are they
Speaker 5: doing with all those questions they had right? Are they
Speaker 5: actually looking into them or are they finding another dogma
Speaker 5: to follow? You know? Uh, you know, So it's like
Speaker 5: what's easier doing your own science or reading somebody else's
Speaker 5: take on it? You know, I'm afraid that people are
Speaker 5: going to get sucked in to a lot of very
Speaker 5: charismatic people and go down in even worse road than
Speaker 5: we've been on.
Speaker 4: Yep, I agree, Yeah, I've.
Speaker 2: Some great insights there.
Speaker 1: Hey, I want to remind everybody if you're not don't
Speaker 1: have anything to do, you can always go check out
Speaker 1: the twenty four seven AXP Chat or AXP live feed
Speaker 1: on YouTube. It's a lot of fun. There's a live
Speaker 1: chat there. That's why I thought chat. There's a really
Speaker 1: cool group of people that hang out there. I do
Speaker 1: too as well sometimes, so come and hang out with
Speaker 1: us and if you'd like to see more of the
Speaker 1: nonprofits because