“At the same time, our commitment to the Great Commission and the urgency of the Gospel must exceed our emotional attachments and fears. A responsible movement of Gospel churches — of Baptist churches — must be ready to ask this question and face it fearlessly. We can and will do this together.”

Paige Patterson and R. Albert Mohler Jr., each presidents of Southern Baptist seminaries and members of the task force appointed to study the possibility of a new name for the Southern Baptist Convention, have made public comments on the issue.

“The Southern Baptist Convention is no longer a regional convention, and every Southern Baptist concerned for the lost will be interested in removing all self-imposed barriers to the evangelization of all men,” Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, said in a news release Sept. 21 after the task force was announced by SBC President Bryant Wright during the Sept. 20-21 meeting of the convention’s Executive Committee.

“By the same token Southern Baptist stands for something very significant in a number of ways and should not be abandoned without careful thought and consideration of many attending circumstances.”

Patterson, a former SBC president and an architect of the Conservative Resurgence, said he has given his life in service to the convention.

“I am not sure how qualified I am to be on the committee, but I am sure that I love the churches of the SBC and wish to do nothing to harm them in any way,” Patterson said, adding that all Southern Baptists should feel free to state their opinions and convictions publicly or to Jimmy Draper, chairman of the name change task force, or to any member of the committee.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on Baptist Press—however, the link (URL) to the original article is unavailable and has been removed.]