Only Half of Kids Raised Southern Baptist Stay Southern Baptist
Recent research by University of Oklahoma sociologist Samuel Perry concluded that evangelical Protestants have seen a decline in fertility in recent years. It’s a well-known phenomenon that young people drift away from church attendance in their 20s and 30s but return when they get married and have children.
The GSS, which asks respondents about their current religious affiliation as well as what religion were they were raised as, shows that fewer Southern Baptists are sticking with their parents’ denomination.
For much of the ’80s and ’90s, Southern Baptist kids were pretty likely to grow up to become Southern Baptist adults: Seven in ten maintained their SBC identity into adulthood in surveys conducted between 1984 and 1994.
That has declined precipitously. In the most recent surveys conducted between 2015 and 2018, just over half of those raised Southern Baptist were still with the SBC. In...
