What Is The Southern Baptist Convention?

           Joel Osteen's father John was once a member of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention is a cooperative ministry agency which serves Baptist churches all over the world. It is based in the United States of America.

           The phrase Southern Baptist Convention refers to a denomination of Protestants as            well as to a meeting of messengers which is held annually. The messengers are elected by a congregation. They attend the annual meeting (or convention) in the capacity of representatives of each local Baptist church. Messengers, however, cannot cast their votes, either in favour of or against a stance on any issue.

           It is the largest denomination of Protestants in the United States of America. It is also the largest non-Catholic denomination of Christians in the country. It has more than 16.3 million members.

The Southern Baptist Convention is the meeting where members of one sect of Baptists called "Southern Baptists" make decisions that guide all Southern Baptists of the world:  They hate and condemn gays, ignore the child sexual abusers within their churches, condemn women who get abortions, and believe that everyone goes to Hell if they don't believe as they do about God, condemned the Catholic church until the matter of anti-abortion and anti-homosexuals became a political issue, and other radical beliefs.