#Is the word ‘Southern’ the latest victim of cancel culture?

The Southern Baptist Convention was founded with a Confederate mission. Now, church leaders are looking to leave the past behind them.

The president of the nation’s largest denomination said this week that it will seek to change its name in an effort to distance from its pro-slavery roots, according to a recent interview with its leader in the Washington Post.

Convention president J.D. Greear said there had long been talk to rebrand as the “Great Commission Baptists,” which they claim is also more inclusive of their nationwide network, in the South and beyond.

“Our Lord Jesus was not a white Southerner, but a brown-skinned Middle Eastern refugee,” he said. “Every week we gather to worship a savior who died for the whole world, not one part of it. What we call ourselves should make that clear.”

The move has triggered protesters of “cancel culture,” a social media-based viral movement to remove problematic public figures or concepts from the mainstream, who asked if the cardinal direction is offensive, too.

“So much for ‘South’ Carolina and Dakota. ‘Southern’ California too … ,” said one critic on Twitter.

“So I guess compasses are racist now too? Maybe we have too much time on our hands-as believers we should be just following Jesus instead of looking around for ways we can look more ‘woke,’ ” wrote another.

In fact, the denomination adopted the alternative moniker in 2012, to refer to a passage in the New Testament when Jesus “commissioned” his disciples to seek new followers to baptize. Several churches have since come to employ the updated term. Others simply use “Baptist” without additional descriptors.

Nevertheless, some have seen this as a hostile departure from the SBC, which was founded in 1845 by Southern congregations who rejected Baptist abolitionists. Today, the SBC boasts 14.8 million members and 47,000 churches and is relatively diverse in terms of race and ethnicity compared with other mainline denominations, but that’s not saying much: 85% of its membership is white, and 80% of its churches are below the Mason-Dixon line.

While the SBC will continue to operate legally as such, citing the complex bureaucracy and costs to make a full shift, their website said in August, “We Are Great Commission Baptists.” There’s also been a movement to launch more congregations led by pastors of color, who represent 20% of their current faith leadership.

“We as Baptists want to be defined by 2025, not by 1845,” said Greear.