Some of the reasons for the growth of the Southern Baptist churches and decline of the Northern
Baptist churches in the years after the split are: 1) There was diversity in demographics and in
their spiritual needs. In other words, they had different issues. The Baptist church growth was
due largely to the nearly four million slaves that was liberated because of the Civil War. This
caused both spiritual and material needs. These needs were increased by political problems,
economic destruction, sharecropping and poor health. This became a way of life for the South
since the war. These conditions along with the pain and suffering opened the door for people to
readily accept the Gospel. Scotch-Irish immigration now provided these ready converts to the
Baptist way. At this time many blacks that came to Christ became Baptists.[1] These factors
contributed greatly to the growth of the Southern Baptist churches.
Whereas the Northern Baptists were faced with a different issue. They were faced with
“European immigration, the rise of organized labor and the development of an industrial
economy.” [2] Because of these issues one of the most probable reason for the decline of the
Northern Baptist could be from overextending their work in other places and not focusing more
on the work in the North. Their original mission was “the cultivation of the entire continent.” [3]
Because of trying to fulfil this mission the HMS sent one-third its mission force to the South
(thus the work became so great that the HMS had to create the Freedmen’s Fund to sponsor this
evangelical effort as well as other efforts in the South. [5] Due to the North’s involvement in the
enormous amount of work in the South they had difficulty with the demands of the vast
immigrant population of nearly twenty million in the North. Most of these immigrants came
“from non-evangelical backgrounds and proved resistant both to the Christian conversion and
assimilation into traditional American cultural patterns.” [6] The North felt that the belief system
in America would change greatly if the new immigrants “were not converted and assimilated.”
[7]
One problem that affected both the North and South Baptist home missions was a spirit of
“localism.” [8] The spirit of independence through the societal form of church leadership that
characterized the North led to several local independent societies. These small societies often
chose their own home missionaries “which created overlap, duplication, and no end of confusion
as missionaries on the same fields jockeyed for position.” [9] Although the South experienced
their own controversy with localism in Landmarkism, the Southern Baptist Convention was able
to galvanize the churches to resist its influence while persuading the South to closely examine its
beliefs and organizational structure.
Since both Northern and Southern Baptists hold the same basic belief and practice, the
decline of the North was most likely caused from the way the North handled the spiritual needs
of their region. In Acts 1: 8, Jesus gave the formula for evangelism: local, region, then
worldwide. Instead of focusing all of their efforts in their region, Northern Baptists exhausted
valuable resources in the South, established schools in various places in the South and West,
while allowing localism to disrupt unity and focus within their own denomination.
[1]Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage. (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1972), 392.
[2]Ibid.
[3]Ibid., 404.
[4]Ibid.
[5]Ibid.
[6]Ibid., 406.
[7]Ibid.
[8]Ibid., 410.
[9] Ibid., 410
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