INDIANAPOLIS—The irony of the Southern Baptist Convention holding its annual meeting in the heart of the Midwest was not lost on some of the messengers. Delegates arrived from all over the U.S. to represent the more than 16 million members of a denomination that has spread far from its roots in the South.

A proposal to change the convention's name was among the record 29 motions presented on the opening day of the annual meeting, according to Baptist Press. But after an open and lively debate, the motion to study a name change was denied, 55 percent to 45 percent.

Messengers to the 2004 meeting also voted down a motion to issue a declaration against public school education. In speaking for his amendment, T.C. Pinckney of Alexandria, Va., who circulated the resolution, told messengers there is an abundance of evidence "government schools are becoming more and more anti-Christian," though he acknowledged "many differences from one public school to another."

Calvin Wittman, Resolutions Committee chairman and pastor of Applewood Baptist Church in Wheat Ridge, Colo., opposed the motion because he said the convention had already addressed it by passing 11 resolutions in the last 19 years, in support of public, private and home schooling.

The committee believes "this is a responsibility that God has given to the parents of each individual child, and we encourage parents to exercise that God-given responsibility over their children," Wittman said. "We must be careful as a denomination not to usurp the authority that God has placed firmly in the home."

The eight resolutions the convention approved were voted in unanimously or by a wide margin. Each called for increased Christian influence on American culture, Baptist Press reported.

The convention called for their members to "engage the culture by speaking the truth in love." They encouraged their members to vote according to scriptural values.

The convention also approved a motion in support of a U.S. Constitutional marriage amendment.