Messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting worship together in between small group and corporate prayer time during the June 16 evening session dedicated to prayer at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.
Posted on 03/09/2018 7:42:02 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Are there any significant differences between nondenominational and Southern Baptist churches?
A common joke among evangelicals is that nondenominational churches are for Southern Baptists who want to drink booze, suggesting there is not much difference between them.
But what does the data show?
In an article for Religion in Public titled "Nondenominational Protestants are Basically Southern Baptists (With a Few Caveats)" that was published Wednesday, Ryan P. Burge, a political science professor at Eastern Illinois University who specializes in religion and politics, analyzed data compiled by the Cooperative Congressional Election Study to compare the SBC, nondenominational churches, and the mainline United Methodist Church.
On issues like politics and worship attendance, SBC and nondenominational churches do bear a strong resemblance, but there are slight variations on how literal they take the Bible and how conservative they are on social issues.
"Nondenominational parishioners are slightly more supportive of same-sex marriage and slightly less supportive of abortion rights, but these differences are small," wrote Burge.
"Taken together it makes sense that there is so much movement between Southern Baptists and nondenominational churches as the differences are in many cases small or nonexistent."
Burge did note that nondenominational churches tended to be younger and more racially diverse than SBC churches. While both have about the same proportion of whites, nondenominational churches have a wider variety of non-whites, with larger percentages of Asians, Hispanics and mixed-race members. The non-white Southern Baptists are mostly black. (The UMC had, by far, the least racial diversity of the three denominations.)
SBC members were also more likely to believe the Bible is literally true than nondenominational members.
"While 44 percent of nondenominationals think that the Bible is literally true, 16 percent more of Southern Baptists espouse literalism, while about 16 percent less of United Methodists are theologically conservative," wrote Burge.
"This is an area which casts some doubts on the idea that nondenominationals are just Southern Baptists with a different label. Clearly, they have a more moderate theology than a typical SB evangelical."
The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the country with over 15 million members. The SBC describes its churches as "cooperating" churches, emphasizing that each local church is "fully autonomous and retains its independence" and the denomination "claims no ecclesiastical authority over any local church."
Burge's research comes weeks after SBC International Mission Board President David Platt announced that he was stepping down to focus on his role as teaching Pastor at McLean Bible Church, a megachurch congregation based in Fairfax, Virginia.
"I have come to the realization that it is not viable long-term for me to lead as president of the IMB while serving as teaching pastor in a church," stated Platt in an announcement to IMB staff.
"This realization has been sobering, for I don't believe I can choose between preaching and leading in the local church, and mobilizing and shepherding people in global missions. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that if I am going to serve in this way in the local church, then I need to serve in different ways for the cause of global missions."
Founded as a nondenominational church, McLean Bible has been in cooperation with the SBC since 2016, according to a spokesperson for IMB in comments given to The Christian Post last year.
SBC has chosen to wander in the wilderness.
SBC is less conservative than Independent Baptists, most of whom still use the hymns that SBC has spurned for two decades now. If an SBC church preaches The Bible, it is fine; non-denominational would be acceptable too if the church is Bible-based.
Baptists have more different flavors than Baskin-Robbins...................
That depends on the non-denominational church in questions. There are some that are very orthodox and bible believing and there are some very heterodox. With regard to the SBC, it's interesting. A year ago our Baptist church made a proposal to the congregation to affiliate with the SBC and scheduled it for a vote. I started researching them. Their statement of faith and theology is rock solid. But I stumbled onto the writings of its influential officer Russel Moore. The more I read from him the more disenchanted I got. I came out against the proposal and communicated to fellow parishioners the reasons why. I also urged them to investigate themselves. The proposal was defeated by a wide margin.
..as long as the big tent philosophy prevails where a Russell Moore can continue to be a major voice, the convention will suffer—still many great SBC churches...
So, what was it about Russel Moore that disappointed you?
SBC and non-denominational congregations differ most widely on the issue of cessationism vs Pentecostalism. I have heard some endearingly refer to their group as “Bapticostal”.
So, what was it about Russell Moore that’s worrisome?
I think nondenominational churches pretty much have Baptist theology. Especially that baptism and communion are just symbols and you make a profession of faith and only then get baptized, etc. Generally no bishops, etc. Grape juice probably used for communion.
I’ve attended non-denominational churches for many years. The ones I have been at spurn the concept of church membership. (we are members of the body of Christ instead.
That said, I had the pleasure of being asked to promote an organization that I belong to at the Southern Baptist annual meeting a few years ago.
An older lady was asking about our group and said she was a member of the WBA or some acronym group. I looked at her with a blank stare that indicated I had no idea what the group was. She said “You’re not Baptist are you?”
When I said No, she did a quick 180 and walked away.
I thought it was pretty funny. One think I’ve noticed is that some Baptists seem to be Baptist first and Christian second.
Having little involvement with denominational churches, the concept is very foreign to me.
That said, if I were to move on, a Baptist church would be on my list of churches to check out.
So Southern Baptists don’t drink? ha ha “Non-denomination” churches represents a pretty wide spectrum of beliefs. You can’t lump them all together.
This article is so full of generalizations and stereotypes as to be meaningless.
I have been a member of a nondenominational church for almost 3 years now. One of the main guiding principles behind why my church is nondenominational is that denominational churches tend to build barriers between each other. Can’t help but take a little offense to the “common” joke about drinking booze. I’ve sure never heard that but whatever. It’s about THE WORD anyway......just my 2 cent.
..his position on illegal immigration echoes the leftist open border crowd. His attacks on Trump are well documented.
Nondenominational just means the local pastor gets to come up with his own doctrinal error rather than having it imposed by someone else.
Spot on.
SBC can run the spectrum, but most SBC churches are bible believing and conservative.
Maybe in the cities it's different. I'd say that's where the divide might be.
Really, most rules of thumb with respect to denominations are hard to justify anymore. There are conservative Methodist, Episcopalian, and Presbyterian congregations. And there are far left "rainbow" congregations from the same denominations.
One rule of thumb that does work is that a lady preacher generally means a liberal congregation, and liberal preaching.
Baptists used not to do that beaming back at you thing with the raised up hands. That’s the charismatic type of people, more like Pentecostals
I agree but the only reason she is doing it is because she knows where the camera is. Look at the rest of the people.
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