The Southern Baptist Convention: A New Name

I had planned on posting another blog post today, but I had to interrupt my regularly scheduled writing so that I could address an important issue.  The Southern Baptist Convention is thinking about changing its name.  There are so many reasons, going all the way back to the convention allowing slave owners to be missionaries to being limited by the regional implications of the name.  I am a lifelong Southern Baptist, albeit an irreverent one at times.  So I thought I would chime in on some possibilities for the new name.  With no further adieu………….

The Biggest, Baddest Baptist Denomination.  The Southern Baptist Convention was descriptive of what the denomination was at one time.  It was Southern.  Baptist.  Has a yearly convention.  It’s kind of like Belk.  Modern. Southern.  Style.  We always hear about how big we are as a denomination.  Let’s just go ahead and tell everyone what we really are.  We can even call ourselves 3B or B Cubed.

The Baptist Convention Between Canada and Mexico.  We no longer wanted to thought of as a regional denomination.  Let’s go ahead and take over the entire United States.  This tells everyone in the world exactly where we are.

The North American Baptist Convention.  We already have the North American Mission Board.  We could just co-op a name we already have and use it to describe the entire organization.  The only problem is that we have an International Mission Board.  What will they have to say?

The International Baptist Convention.  The entire reason we have denominations to fund missions.  Our International Mission Board administers our foreign missionaries.  We may luck out and get both it and the North American version if the two split over the name.

The Conservative Baptist Convention.  Since 1979, the Southern Baptist Convention has been known for biblical inerrancy and conservatism.  Let’s go ahead and tell everyone what we are about.

Let’s face it.  None of these are really good names to change to for the SBC.  Worse than that, these are only even funny if I’m trying to write a humorous piece.  However, here is my favorite possibility for what the SBC should change its name to:

The Convention Formerly Known As The Southern Baptist Convention.  Here everyone would get what they want.  It’s not the SBC anymore, but the old timers would still have what they want in its name.  It’s Southern.  Baptist.  A Convention.  I’m just not sure what kind of strange symbol would become the name of the group.  Hey, don’t laugh.  Prince did it for a while.

All of this is intended to have fun with what is going on in my denomination.  From what I read, the main reason is so that we can evangelize more people.  If the Lord uses us changing our name for that, I’m all for it.  Good luck to those who are involved in making this decision.

Do you think the Southern Baptist Convention should change its name?  If so, what should it be changed to?