he most famous Southern Baptist statesman of his generation, Adrian Rogers, remarked at the Southern Baptist Convention in 2002: “As the West goes, so goes the world. As America goes, so goes the West. As Christianity goes, so goes America. As evangelicals go, so goes Christianity. As Southern Baptists go, so go evangelicals.”
Rogers’s statement is not one of self-acclaimed hubris. With just under 13 million members and more than 45,000 churches, the Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest Protestant denomination (by far) and viewed by outside observers as the default barometer for American evangelicalism. One hopes that the Southern Baptist gestalt embraces Rogers’s axiom with sober responsibility in maintaining fidelity to Christ within American culture.
This article originally appeared at First Things on June 18, 2025.
