W-a-a-a-y back in 2011, the Southern Baptist Convention confronted the fact that it has a branding problem. Thanks to Calvinist fundies like Albert Mohler, Boss Hogg-types like Richard Land, and opportunistic sexual predators like … well, on and on, it had gotten so bad that churches were actually changing their name to eliminate the word ‘Baptist.’<\/p>\n
Deep thought culminated in this solution: Let’s call ourselves Great Commission Baptists! The idea created a week-long splash, and died. Now, the denomination’s head, J.D. Greear, wants to revive it<\/a>.<\/p>\n Back in the dark ages, we appointed a name-change committee to see about the possibility of changing from being the SBC to something more reflective of who we had become \u2013 a nationwide Baptist convention. We ran into two problems.<\/p>\n All the good names had been taken. American Baptists. National Baptists. Conservative Baptists. I don\u2019t think any of us wanted to go with trendy names like Converge.<\/p>\n The biggest obstacle was our founding charter from Georgia which locked us into the name SBC. I don\u2019t remember all the ins and outs, but the only want to change the name is to nullify the charter and redo everything \u2013 costly and unwise.<\/ul>\n \nSo, what the name-change task force came up with was the idea of a moniker, a DBA that we could use. That motion was approved (in 2012, I think) and then it drifted into oblivion. No one followed up on it. Recently, a group of people began to advocate for using it and our president, J.D. Greear has seen the wisdom of it. That is his announced theme for 2021.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I share the view that the brand has gone bad, but am extremely skeptical that a new name will resolve anything; more likely, it will simply soil a second name.<\/p>\n After all, it’s going to be the same ignoramuses with shaky character sitting in the pews. Christianity is an innately degrading religion; you can shake your head, get all red-faced, and stamp your feet — but you can’t make that fact go away. Why, after all, does Christianity claim that you need salvation? Because you’re no damn good!<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n The Southern Baptists are the low end of that degrading religion — the most poorly educated, the most troubled, the most unstable relationships. If you take a look at any map of the distribution of virtually any family– or social-pathology that has a name, you’ll see that it invariably is most acute where the Southern Baptists are strongest. That’s not a coincidence; it is the direct and predictable consequence of the systemic degradation embedded within Southern Baptist culture.<\/p>\n Changing the name won’t change that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" W-a-a-a-y back in 2011, the Southern Baptist Convention confronted the fact that it has a branding problem. Thanks to Calvinist fundies like Albert Mohler, Boss Hogg-types like Richard Land, and opportunistic sexual predators like … well, on and on, it … Continue reading \n
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