A Denomination By Any Other Name

One of my favorite jokes is an old Lewis Grizzard chestnut about the difference between a Northern and Southern Baptist. The Northern Baptist says “They ain’t no Hell” while the Southern Baptist says “The Hell they ain’t”. (It helps if you tell this joke to yourself in a redneck accent ).

Recently, though, Southern Baptists have been under going some soul searching regarding their name because, as it turns out, many Post Modern people (Yankees) have an adverse reaction to the word “Southern”. This awful, terrible word, “Southern” brings up images of slavery, segregation, and ignorance unlike the “F-word” which apparently is okay to use as a noun, gerund, verb, adverb, and adjective. Not every Post Modern individual uses that word, just seems like a lot of them do.

The leadership of The Southern Baptist Convention has appointed a task force to study the possibility of a name change. You know something is serious in Church World when a task force is appointed. It is not as simple as you might think to change your name when you are a denomination.

First of all, there are a lot of boring legal issues and since lawyers are involved,it could become expensive. The denomination may not want to spend the kind of dough it will take to change the name in this economic environment. You can’t have a “Lottie Moon Foreign Missions Christmas and Name Change Offering”.

Secondly, many of the real good names have all ready been taken. American Baptist Churches: taken. Baptist General Conference: taken. Conservative Baptist Association of America: taken. Reformed Baptist: taken. Reformed American General Conservative Baptist: taken. Regular Baptist: taken. Irregular Baptist: taken. Baptist That Eat Yogurt To Be Regular: taken. Irregular Baptist That Want To Be A Regular Baptist Without Eating Yogurt Or Having Something Kick In At Work: taken Indian Bottom Association of Old Regular Baptists (IBAORB): taken. Baptist Church Of The Electric Guitar Where Nobody Sits Down Until The Sermon Is Given By A Guy That Doesn’t Tuck In His Shirt: trademark applied.

I have tried my hand at renaming the Southern Baptist Convention. My idea is to do what Kentucky Fried Chicken did: change your name to KFC. Seriously, change the name to “SBC”. Surely people can’t be prejudice against the letter “S” can they?

There are some that want to argue that Southern Baptists do not need to change their name. I know it may be hard for you to believe that a Southern Baptist will want to argue, but it happens. Southern Baptists have been Southern Baptists for a long time and if was good for Paul and Silas it is good enough for them.

However, to do so is to ignore the obvious. People, not from the South, think Southerners are stupid. I remember meeting some people from a Northern state with my wife. The men thought my wife was a cat on a hot tin roof-they were entranced by her accent and Southern womanly charms. Their wives thought she was domestic help. Both the Northern men and women saw me as Jethro Bodine even though I have a college degree and have never been to a NASCAR race. That was the last time I bragged I was a “Double Naught Spy” in public.