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I have not come to bury the United Methodist Church (like most large denominational bureaucracies, it is perfectly capable of committing institutional suicide on its own), but to praise it for its prophetic, far-sighted attempt to reform professional sports.

Recently, the UMC decided it will NOT hold its 2012 General Conference (a nationwide meeting held every four years) in Richmond, Virginia. Why? Because the name of the city's minor league baseball team is "racially charged." The team's name is the Richmond Braves.

How insensitive of Richmond to allow its city to be associated with a privately owned team that denigrates Native Americans as noble, strong, and courageous.

The problem for the Methodists started in 2000, when they met in Cleveland, the home of, you guessed it, the Cleveland Indians. By the time the 2004 convention rolled, around Methodist delegates were beet red with political correctness and passed a resolution forbidding the denomination from holding meetings in any city that sponsors sports teams brandishing Native American names and symbols, which the resolution called "a blatant expression of racism."

(It didn't seem to faze anyone that this convention was being held in held in Pittsburgh, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a name that romanticizes raping, pillaging, robbery, and murder.)

Fortunately, the Methodists can put all those horrific and embarrassing incidents behind them. In 2008 they're meeting in Fort Worth, Texas.

Uh, never mind. I guess the Methodists haven't heard of the local arena football team, the Ft. Worth Cavalry, a team name that glorifies militarism and violence TOWARD NATIVE AMERICANS.

Then again, momentous social change doesn't happen in a quadrennium or two. Surely by 2012, they will have corrected the Methodist ship. Well, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. They've chosen innocuous Tampa Bay, Florida.

Ooops. Forgot about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Pirates (again!), who—at the risk of repeating myself—glorify rape, pillaging, thievery, and murder. Oh, and the 16th and 17th century's No. 1 drug abuse problem, alcoholism.

(What is it with Methodists and pirates?)

At any rate, as the chair of the committee who put a nix on Richmond said, "We are sad for the United Methodists in Virginia who were excited about hosting the General Conference, but are pleased to take a strong stand against sports teams with offensive names."

The reason the Methodists have taken this courageous stand is because they drop about $20 million every four years at these General Conferences. They don't want to contribute to the economy of a city that lets privately owned sports teams with offensive names operate in its boundaries.

Given that logic, I'm surprised that Methodists have continued to LIVE IN cities that have sports teams with offensive names. By paying taxes and shopping in these cities, they support cities with sports teams with offensive names, and probably spend more than $20 million over a few years collectively.

It doesn't take an endowed-chair theologian to extrapolate that this prophetic insight should apply to all Christians. Other cities to consider abandoning include:

New York and San Francisco (Giants demeans people who suffer from giantism, a condition due to a malfunctioning pituitary gland).

Oakland (Raiders—pirates again, though the Methodists might want to put this city on their short list for 2016).

Portland (Trailblazers were insensitive pioneers who trampled the rights and sovereignty of Native Americans as they trekked west across the Great Plains).

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March (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50