March 3, 1999

SBC won't abandon
Orlando meeting despite boycott
___NASHVILLE, Tenn.--Despite its boycott of the Walt Disney Co., the Southern Baptist Convention will not pull its 2000 annual meeting out of Orlando, Fla., the SBC Exec-utive Committee voted Feb. 23.
___In other business, the Executive Committee voted not to study the feasibility of changing the convention's name to remove the word "Southern."
___Three separate motions at last summer's convention urged the SBC to move its 2000 annual meeting elsewhere in light of a 1997 resolution calling on Southern Baptists to boycott Disney theme parks, stores and subsidiaries. The motions, which were referred to the Executive Committee, said it would be hypocritical for Southern Baptists to meet in Orlando after boycotting Disney for alleged anti-family and pro-gay policies.
___Executive Committee members said they believe messengers to the Orlando SBC will "meet the challenge presented by worldliness" by participating in an evangelistic blitz and by staying away from Disney theme parks while in the area.
___The SBC also will present a positive witness by keeping its contractual agreements with the convention center and hotels in Orlando, the committee noted.
___Backing out now could create "adverse financial and/or reputational consequences" for Southern Baptists, warned Jack Wilkerson, Executive Committee vice president for business and finance.
___A staff report also guided Executive Committee members on the name-change issue. In a written report, Augie Boto, Executive Committee vice president for convention policy, concluded a name change would be neither practical nor popular.
___Supporters of a new name say the current regional designation hurts Southern Baptists' image in pioneer areas of the North and West. Opponents, however, argue that any bias against Southern Baptists is more likely due to the convention's policies than its geography. A new name might weaken the convention's hard-won image as a bastion of conservatism, they say.
___While a new name might "afford a modicum of relief" to Southern Baptists in new-work areas, "the Executive Committee finds no compelling rationale for changing the name of the convention nor for underwriting a study of the same," Boto's report concluded.
___Blaine Barber, a Michigan pastor who pushed for a name-change feasibility study at the Executive Committee meeting last fall, cast the lone dissenting vote against accepting Boto's conclusion. Among factors the Executive Committee report cited against a name change:
___ "There is no consensus on an acceptable alternate name." The word "cooperative," for example, "now implies alliance with groups who seek to distinguish themselves from the SBC," the report said, in a reference to the moderate breakaway Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
___ "The name 'Southern Baptist Convention' and the term 'SBC' have become brand names meaning more than just the sum of their parts. The Southern Baptist Convention no longer denotes a region as much as it does a position. It has come to mean missionary zeal, staunch Bible defense, moral rectitude, adherence to faith and dependence upon the Lord."
___In other business, the Executive Committee declined to act on a motion to amend Article I of the "Baptist Faith & Message" after referring the matter to a council of seminary presidents. The proposal would have amended a sentence describing the Bible as "truth without any mixture of error" by adding the phrase "in every area of which it speaks."
___Based on Associated Baptist Press and Baptist Press reports

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