Dont mean to jump in your thread but there are a ton of independent baptist churches even in NY, my town and a few towns around me say a 50 mile radius has atleast a hundred of them, and this sure isnt the bible belt
With all due respect, hundreds does not equal 200,000.
There are 3,537,441 square miles in the United States. (source:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/area.shtml) 3,537,441 divided by 200,000 = 17.68. That would be one INDEPENDENT baptist church for every 17.68 miles. Seems reasonable, no? However, if you've ever driven or flown across the country you would know that there are THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of undeveloped acres. In fact, less than 5% of the Nations land is developed (source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=LC...ts=ZZTHA-NOyY&sig=tr70Vlna_8n09oowi22YGhEiSJA) Thus, we're looking at about one Independent Baptist church for every square mile in the USA.
Then take into consideration dense residential areas, industrial areas, commerce centers far from residential congregational members and the numbers fall further still.
And remember, we're not talking about ALL baptist churches, we're talking about Independent Baptists. Wikipedia lists over 50 baptist sub-denominations. Independent Baptists include those Baptists that are "independent from the authority" of these denominations. source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Baptist
Here is another interesting thread reporting about 3,600 Independent Baptist churches in the USA.
http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=16690 While I'm certain this number is far less than the actual number, it is still less than 2% of the OPs claim.
I think this is a GREAT domain name with excellent potential. However, in my opinion the 200,000 claim is not realistic and should not be cited without a source.
Farmer.