The Voyage of the SBC Galley

All the Baptists were bobbing along in rickety little rowboats, paddling toward Heaven. The folks in some of the rowboats looked around and said,

"We could get to Heaven more efficiently if we got together in a bigger, stronger boat."

So they built a galley ship and called it the Southern Baptist Convention. The leaders of the new group fitted out a first-class section where they held meetings and planned the course of their voyage. For a while, women and slaves sat in chains below and rowed, but then a Union ship overtook the SBC, fought a bloody battle with the crew, and set the slaves loose. The women kept rowing and the ship made good time, until it passed by the Isle of Secular Society during an election year and got caught in a swirling eddy. Round and round the SBC went in a great slow circle, and more and more of the women rowing the boat got fed up with sitting in bilge water and jumped ship.

Just when the crew of the SBC had gotten used to the eddy, the eddy got sick of them and spat them back into the open seas. So they looked out over the rails and watched the other boats, some big and some small, some sailing alone and some in fleets, some taking on water and some zipping ahead. "We'll make better time if we hoist our sails and catch the wind," the crew said, so they pulled out the rigging and untangled it. But they had tossed the Boy Scouts overboard, and no one who remained could tie a knot.

And the ship rowed slowly on.