Over the last sixty years or so, conservative Protestant churches in the United States have grown in membership, whereas "mainline" churches have declined. This trend is not in doubt. However, the conventional wisdom that tries to explain it is.

The conventional explanation says conservative churches have grown because they have held to doctrines like the literal inspiration of the Bible and demanded conformity in belief and behavior. Mainline or ecumenical churches, by contrast, have supposedly given up their theological distinctiveness and demands on members. As a consequence, say many commentators, there has been a dramatic increase in the rate at which Americans switch from the mainline to the conservative evangelical groups because they find these strict churches more meaningful.

As early as 1987, sociologists Wade Clark Roof and William McKinney challenged this explanation when they analyzed General Social Survey (GSS) data and found, among other things: (1) liberal churches won proportionately more members from other churches than did conservative ones, but they also lost more; (2) conservative Protestant memberships were, on average, younger than mainline memberships; and (3) conservative Protestant families had more children, on average, than did moderate and liberal ones (American Mainline Religion: Its Changing Shape and Future).

A year ago, a different team of researchers published its study of a longer run of data from the GSS and conveyed their main conclusion in an article: "The Demographic Imperative in Religious Change in the United States" (Michael Hout, Andrew Greeley, and Melissa J. Wilde, American Journal of Sociology 107 (Sept. 2001): 468-500).

According to this team, conservative Protestant ascendancy is explained mainly by differences in fertility between conservative and mainline populations. Put more concretely, there are more people today in the Assemblies of God and Southern Baptist Convention and fewer in the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches because Assemblies and Baptist women were having more babies while Episcopal and Presbyterian women were having fewer.

This difference in fertility accounts for more than three quarters of change from mainline to conservative dominance. The GSS data also show that by the early 1970s the conservative advantage in fertility was disappearing.

Patterns of switching between churches have changed, but not in the ways assumed by the conventional wisdom. There has been no increase in the rate of conversions from mainline churches to conservative ones. Rather, the longstanding trend of "upward movement" from low-status conservative Protestant churches to higher-status liberal ones has decreased dramatically since the 1960s.

The upwardly mobile status seekers represented in these trends did not tend to stay with the conservative churches of their birth, however. Conservative churches are no better now than they were fifty years ago at holding onto their young people. Instead, greater numbers of them have been switching to Roman Catholicism, to miscellaneous other religions, and to no religion.

Indeed, Roof and McKinney found that "no religion" has been the big winner in game of religious switching since the 1960s, and that its "membership" is disproportionately male, well-educated, and urban-dwelling. These changes in switching patterns combine with the fertility data to explain 100 percent of the rise of conservative churches and decline of the mainline.

Can conventional wisdom be turned around to explain the decrease in conservative-to-mainline switching? Hout, Greeley, and Wilde say no. On the issue of conservative belief, for instance, they find that the cohorts of conservative-born Protestants least likely to switch to the mainline (those born 1960-73) are also less likely to take the Bible literally than those most likely to switch to the mainline (those born before 1940).

The conventional wisdom predicts the opposite. These younger cohorts are also no more likely to believe in an afterlife, heaven, hell, the devil, or religious miracles. Neither are they more likely to have had a born-again experience or to have tried to win others to Jesus.

The conventional wisdom also assumes higher participation in church-related organizations among conservative Protestants and expects this to result in lower levels of apostasy. Hout et al. do find somewhat higher rates of participation in church organizations among conservative Protestants, but they also find that this does not make members less likely to switch to more liberal churches. Those who switch, moreover, have higher rates of participation in the organizations of their new mainline churches than do those born in the more liberal churches.

The only behavior that explains the new patterns of conservative apostasy is a change in intermarriage. Since the 1960s, conservative Protestants have decreased their rates of intermarriage with mainline Protestants and increased intermarriage with Catholics and people of "no religion." Intermarriage is the main source of switching from conservative Protestant to Catholic, even though about 60 percent of intermarried conservative Protestants remain so.

Only a few of the many implications for Seventh-day Adventist church planning and policies can be mentioned here. First, these findings help remind us that interpretations of Scripture and resulting doctrines should be judged on their intellectual merits, not on speculations that becoming more "liberal" or "conservative" theologically will hinder or help church growth.

Second, it seems wise to put thought and resources into helping young Adventists meet and marry, as intermarriage is likely a significant source of apostasy.

Third, special effort should be directed toward retaining Adventist young men, as they are most at risk of being lured into the secularized life of those with "no religion."

Finally, and in summary, natural increase and nurture, at least in the United States, are the main engines of church growth, not evangelism. Having heard high-level church leaders in recent years call "nurture" a four-letter word, I feel it necessary to put the matter this baldly.

Far from being the foul or profane activity implied by such reckless language, nurture of children into adults who can and will nurture children in their turn is the main business of any religious community. Any evangelistic activity must be secondary to and supportive of this primary imperative.

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