For decades, the Southern Baptist Convention has been able to gain millions of dollars to support its ministries and works in the world not through traditional church revenue streams like tithes and offerings, but through moneys collected in other ways, less reputable forms of revenue.
I hesitate to share this secret with you, as I will no doubt be bounced from membership for its telling.
Nevertheless, you, the public, have a right to know that whether you are a Southern Baptist or not, you may have inadvertently supported them and their ministries.
Dear readers, for years, it’s often been joked Southern Baptists seem to have a certain natural, inborn ability to navigate and manage a buffet line.
This stereotype rings eerily true: Southern Baptists are uncommonly good at buffets because, well, we helped invent and modernize them.
It was Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist who first pioneered the double-line buffet, as evidenced from these verses found in the Book of John the Baptist, a little-known lost gospel found printed in code in the first printing of the Baptist Bounty:
“And lo, John the Baptist said unto his followers, ‘My children, take the largest of our tables and join them together as they were one. Let us pile them with food, as much as will fit. And then, let the people of the village make two lines, one on each side, so that all may eat and enjoy in the bounty we provide.’”
From John’s brilliant line-splitting idea to the modern day, great Baptist thinkers have continued to make improvements to one of the denomination’s greatest contributions.
In the late 1950s, food scientists employed by the SBC for its hush-hush lab division made one of the biggest breakthroughs.
While buffets were beginning to make their mark in the newly burgeoning casual dining restaurant boom, no protections were offered to protect the giant pans of food from fellow diners and their spawn.
Each time the snot-nosed, death-hacking kid from the next table got up to get another plate, every eye in the place would follow Junior, waiting to see what dish he was near so it could be avoided like the plague.
Enter the Sneeze Guard, the patent that single handedly funded SBC missions throughout deepest, darkest Africa and parts of Ohio (staple of the “Gravy Belt”) throughout most of the 1970s and 1980s.
Cutting Jell-O into cubes and serving them in a chafing dish - not an SBC-approved idea. Must have been those godless heathens who founded Morrison’s.
Even today, Southern Baptist investments into buffet technology and advancements continue to bring joy to the world.
Heavy-handed lobbying and threats of boycotts gave way to the Las Vegas Buffet Bonanza that still exists today.
Endless Shrimp Cocktails for $5? Thanks, Southern Baptists.
Now, admittedly, some of the SBC’s political leanings are a bit ... too conservative for my taste, but for their diligent work in advancing the field of buffet science, I will give them no guff.
Don’t be surprised if Baptists are in line in front of you at Mandarin House or Golden Corral.
Buffets are in our blood, and have been for centuries.
We’ll leave you an egg roll, Methodists. We’ll even sprinkle some soy sauce on it for you. We hear you aren’t so much a fan of dunking.
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