(Alan Cross blogs at Downshore Drift)
Juliet:
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
Romeo:
[Aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
Juliet:
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
Romeo:
I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
Shakespeare here mentions both baptism and name changes, so I thought it was appropriate. From a positive perspective, Juliet is telling Romeo that it doesn’t matter what his name is, he is still the same person. A rose by any other name is still a rose, it still has the same identity. When we hear the word “rose,” we think of bright colors, a sweet smell, and beauty. But, when we hear “slug,” we think of something slimy, gray, and slow – something decidedly not beautiful. The name means something because of what it represents, not because of the name itself.
The same is true for Southern Baptists. I am all for the name change. I think that it marks a graduation of sorts from the original vision of the founders of the SBC. Even though the Convention started in the South, missions was a top priority (ignore the slavery issue for just a moment). If missions and church planting were to be effective, then eventually, the SBC would not just be in the South anymore. That makes sense. So, changing the name can actually be seen as an affirmation of what we are supposed to be about. From that angle, I think it is a good thing.
But, on the other hand, if we are changing the name because we think that it has negative connotations, then maybe we need to look a bit deeper. Whatever negativity might be associated with the Southern Baptist Convention will just carry over to whatever name we choose for the future because we are still who we are. A rose by any other name . . . is still fundamentally a rose. If we appear to be a regional denomination, it is not because we have “Southern” in our name. It is because we still are a regional denomination. 80% of SBC churches are in the South. I am glad for the 20% that are elsewhere, but we are still mostly Southern. Changing our name won’t change that.
I pastor a church in the Deep South, but we are not the typical Southern Baptist Church. I say that because there is a “typical” SBC church still. When people visit and see “Baptist” in our name, they think that they are getting a certain thing stylistically. That still holds true in much of the country. We are different, so it is a surprise to people. But, that is not because of the word, “Southern,” which is nowhere to be found in our name. It is because of the word “Baptist,” which likely isn’t going anywhere. People think that they know what “Baptist” churches are all about based on past experiences, whether they are Southern or Independent or any other variety.
I’m all for the name change. I will pray for the committee as they consider this issue from all angles. But, we all need to go ahead and recognize that it won’t change much of anything by itself. Most know this, I am sure – I’m just stating the obvious. There aren’t many churches that have “Southern” in their name anyway. And, that is really what this is all about – the churches, right? If it is about making a better appearance for the Convention, that’s fine, but let’s make sure that we are all people that will give whatever name we hold a good reputation, instead of expecting the name to wash away a negative impression that has built up over time. If we act provincial and Southern and are focused on ourselves, then whatever name we choose will just represent those characteristics eventually.
Change the name. But, more importantly, change the heart.
Shakespeare comes to SBC Voices. Wow.
On a more serious note, we are in a similar place on this. I support the idea of a name change, but I recognize that changing the name of a thing does not change the nature of a thing.
We’ve been big on that in the SBC. When things are happening, we get a new name or a new slogan and think we will get new momentum.
Those of us who support the name change need to realize that what we support is only a small part of what the SBC needs.
Thanks for the post. A heart change is radically more important. I’ve been struggling to lead my church (and myself) towards a heart change this past year…and it is difficult and demanding. If we think that a name change will be easy we are only fooling ourselves.
I’ve been going through some of the same struggles in my church.
At the same time, I believe within many(there are always those few) there has been a heart change. Does there need to be more? Of course, we should always changing. I believe that to be a sign of the Holy Spirit within us. The name change would also reflect those changes. It’s a good start along with the reasons Alan mentioned which I agree are a major part of why the name change is important.
Paul changed his name from Saul of Tarsus after his conversion. Some of the reason was to show the radical change in his life from Saul to Paul.
Dave: only a small part of what the SBC needs.
bapticus hereticus: Then, why spend the enormous energy and finances such a move would entail, which will only attenuate the ability to do the things that are more important to what the SBC needs?
If this, however, is seen as a ‘catalyst,’ then such could plausibly be argued, but given nothing is really different from the recent past in which the issue has died an official death, what would lead anyone to think it would enjoy wide support and motivate a people to function as a people?
In the absence of a compelling vision, leadership will tinker around the edges of importance. But, goodness, when an edge has such high opportunity and real costs that will not likely be associated with significant and substantive change, the perceived competence of leaders is questioned by many that they seek to influence.
I have no stake in the Calvinist or non-Calvinist claims of some on this issue, for whether it is Calvinist or non-Calvinist, in my mind it is all fundamentalism if it is SBC. But, even with my disagreements with SBC, I grant that it is still a significant religious group that has an ability to transform lifes. It saddens me, however, to witness such attention to a rather meaningless issue that does nothing to facilitate such, especially in a time of tremendous uncertainty and complexity.
wow, I think I actually agree with Bapticus Hereticus on something….are people ice skating in the lower realm of darkness?
David
🙂
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
where’s the “like” button on this thing?
David
🙂
In the sacred Scriptures, a ‘name’ had a meaning.
And a name-change had a reason.
What change of heart is sought ?
I always find it interesting that one person’s heart change is another’s horrible error.
not if the ‘heart change’ is the process of Christian formation
In Galatians 2:20,
St. Paul has described Christian formation:
“I have been crucified with Christ
and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave Himself for me.
”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aHneNl38fM&feature=related
I agree with what is said here; and , other changes are happening as we speak like Fred Luter on his way up in the SBC with supporting structure. I’d be willing to bet a dollar to a donut that there are some people that are sending horrible remarks to the SBC because of these proposed changes – but the SBC must be standing tough as the evidence shows they are maintaining course. With each and every move, I see hope for the SBC to re-write their slate as necessary and salvage a mess.
Alan,
Well said.
I don’t quite see what the problem is with “Southern” culture.
First, the missional people tell us we should embrace the culture; isn’t that exactly what “Southern” churches, that are being criticized, are doing? On the other hand, shouldn’t Northern, Western, Midwestern, Northeastern churches reflect their culture as well? What is wrong about one, and right about the others?
On the other hand, I don’t know of any Southern churches that open with “Dixie” and salute the Confederate flag. Southern culture mainly just happens by accident and maybe through a Southern accent, not so much on purpose.
Second, churches in the deep South are perfectly free to be Southern, Northern, Yankee, Traditional, Contemporary, Ultra-Contemporary, Cowboy, or whatever suits their fancy (and they pretty well do this). As long as they stay within some rather broad theological perimeters.
Third, I don’t see horrible things in Southern Baptist churches today. Why do we so love to run down ourselves? I am proud of the SBC and don’t see how it needs to be radically changed. Of course, we can all do better in loving Jesus more and loving the lost more; will a name change help that?
Fourth, I’ve never once had someone say they would join our church if we would only change the name of our denomination / convention.
Fifth, most churches don’t trumpet “Southern Baptist Convention” anyway. A church is perfectly free to make as much or as little of the name of our denomination as they want. I doubt they will promote the name of our denomination more just because we change it to a super cool new name. Instead, many will be wondering what the super cool new name means – and we can all tell them, “You know, it’s what used to be called the Southern Baptist Convention.”
David R. Brumbelow
David, if you lived and worked for 20 years in Iowa, your perspective on some of this might be very different.
And according to Bart, some places in the South.
Dave,
My brother pastored an SBC church for years in a Northern state. It was one of the largest, fastest growing in the state. He never once complained about how SBC held them back.
I think one of the biggest hinderances has been some churches in the North that are made up of people from the South. When a native comes in, they immediately wonder about the accents, etc. But I see very little problem with an indigenous Northern church being SBC unless the pastor makes it an issue. I would gladly join the “Northern” Baptist Convention if it was conservative and the SBC was liberal. I would not care if the convention offices were in Nashville or Valley Forge (as long as they are spread around). Nashville has always bee North to me.
David R. Brumbelow
That’s “been.”
DRB
David B.,
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said “unless the Pastor makes it an issue.” Therein may be the biggest reason this is such a big deal in some churches in areas north of the Mason Dixon line and west of the MS.
I also agree that I wouldnt care two cents what we are called, as long as we’re sound in doctrine…stay true to the Bible…and keep preaching the Gospel.
So, I really dont seee the need for spending thousands of CP dollars to change signs and stationary, legal fees, etc.
David
Post well named, Alan, and questions well framed. A poem in reflection of your questions:
Renames change not who we’ve been,
though they may aim toward who we’ll be.
But should attempts to hide our past
lead to name anomalies,
then rightly should our publics scoff
at our gross failed duplicities.
Better first, resolve our past
than name a false new history.
~ Brad Sargent
That is sweet Brad!
Good job Alan…
Pastoring in Delaware as I have for 7 years, I’ve had more than ample to time learn a few things…
1. As I said 2 years when the GCR was being debated, the SBC is a regional denomination with continental aspirations. Bryant Wright was wrong when he said “Southern doesn’t describe us any more.” It most certainly does. What they want to do is rebrand themselves into what they want to be. Until there is a series of persons from outside the South in major convention leadership, it will always be a Southern convention. The convention thinks like a Southern, Christianized-culture convention, and until the number of trustees from the non-southern states is equal to the trustees of southern states, that will not change.
2. It will take a generation for the name change to not be associated with the SBC. We changed our church name 6 years ago because of the reputation of our church-actually the pastor/planter more than the church. We are still known in the community by our old name.
3. I never tell people I pastor a SBC church. The reputation the SBC has outside the 16 major Southern states is not good. Why? Disney Boycott, alcohol, fights, and our tendency to have foot-in-mouth disease. The number of people who have told me during our membership courses that they would have never stepped foot in our church if they knew we were SBC almost equals the number of new members we’ve had in the past 7 years. We don’t tell them until the membership class or we get pressed.
4. If your church’s identity begins with the denomination, you’re telling the wrong story. I tell that church planters I assess all the time. See #3.
5. The issue isn’t the name that’s the problem; it’s those who are bearing the name that is the problem.
Thank you Alan for that article. I am in full agreement that a name change is worthless without a heart change. Or, to put it differently, a change of name should reflect what has already changed in the heart. I have been of two minds on this issue. For years I believed we should keep the name “Southern Baptist” not because I am proud of it, but because I believed it would disallow us to forget the horrid beginnings to our convention. It would be a reminder that Christians anywhere can be steeped in sin (slavery based on racism). I feared that by changing the name, it would allow us to say that it was “them” and not “us” that had that past. But now, I also see it in a different way. First, I believe the SBC has made some of the strongest moves towards reconciliation and forgiveness of those past sins starting with the 1995 resolution formally renouncing our past racism. Evidence of this being more than just words can be seen in the fact that some estimates have the Southern Baptist consisting of almost twenty percent African Americans. That’s something to be proud of (in the sense of seeing we’ve done it right, not the “look at me” concept of pride). We have established an office at the national level to drive ethnic leadership in key positions of the national convention. In some places like California, ethnic church plants are making great gains, focusing on the missionary world right here in our own country. So no longer do I fear that we will “sweep our history under the rug.” I believe we have truly faced up to it and can move on. Two, since a name is an identity, I have had it pointed out to me by non-Southern Baptists that they see us as identifying with the South as a denomination. That is good for those churches that are in the south to be culturally incarnated. But what about the churches in the West or North or East? Some may say, “That’s not really a big deal. How often do you trumpet the name ‘Southern Baptist’ anyway?” That is a good point, right up until the pastor explains what the Lottie Moon Mission Offering is for, or the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, or the co-operative program, or clause in our by-laws that state all our property… Read more »
Heart change or no heart change, name change is important.
oops. The third to last paragraph should read, “In conclusion if . . . inside the United States; why do we . . . ?”
Proofreading is not my friend. Sorry!
My poem in an earlier comment was intended to be impressionistic and “postmodern-friendly.” But it didn’t say all I was thinking. So … blog clog warning: detailed and technical counterpart piece ahead. I have been involved with SBC churches for 20 years. This includes helping with 8 SBC church plants, working in-depth with several SBC churches (plants, merger, transitions, missional community) and ministry organizations, evaluating about 30 church planting candidates, mentoring 20/30/40-somethings, and participating actively in local churches. A book I co-authored was published by Broadman & Holman in the 1990s. All of that to say, the SBC has been home base for a long time, even though I’ve never gone to an annual convention or held any roles in an association. I am a student of futurology (strategic foresight), culturology, and organizational systems design. The more I think about the SBC in light of these disciplines, the more I see a name change as one huge post-Christendom Gordonian Knot – not due to the name so much as due to the interwoven ropes of relevant core issues. These ropes cannot simply be chopped through; the deeper-level conditions need to be resolved. That doesn’t mean I’m a total naysayer. I know how to conduct “appreciative inquiry” and identify SBC’s assets and the value of the common ground it provides for convention churches. And the plus-points are significant. Certainly a case could be made for how judicious use of cooperative funds can benefit all parties … with the proviso that the programs generated are contextualized for more than the South or for more than conventional church paradigm/methods/models. However, balanced discernment requires looking in the opposite direction. On that note, if Gregory House, MD, were to visit God’s house of the SBC, I fear his “differential diagnosis” would reveal some rather severe source problems that could literally kill this corporal patient. For instance, it seems to me that *at least two* substantially different paradigm systems and their inherent theologies competing to inhabit the same organizational body. And whether this is a positive state of symbiosis is highly questionable … this body manifests at least two minds, and that is a very bad indicator for organizational sustainability beyond the modern-to-postmodern paradigm shift and into whatever is next. And then, the carryover of Southern regional origins for the SBC really do create serious problems in some places outside the South. I live in California… Read more »
Excellent analysis, Brad, as usual. We are of multiple minds when it comes to many things, I think, and the center cannot hold. I think that we are trying to keep one big thing together when it is becoming painfully obvious that the SBC, or those who make up the SBC, is no longer one big thing. It is a bunch of things that are moving in different directions. Either, you allow the movement and discern identity based on a centered-set projection, or you see the whole thing break up into multiple, and possibly competing parts. The Bounded Set no longer works.
Thanks Alan, and that’s a very helpful statement you’ve shared about the different dynamics in bound-set versus centered-set systems. Judging JUST the issues of *organizational sustainability* for the SBC makes the future look dicey, in my perspective. I doubt there is enough paradigm overlap that “binds” all the factions together in a whole anymore, and that’s not even about the dramatic theological differences involved. A paradigm includes deep-level distinct ways of processing information, values that drive all activities, worldview-theological views that shade the values and activities, operating systems that include strategies and infrastructures, and surface-level behaviors that govern our cultures and collaborations. It seems to me that the SBC lacks coherence at the most core level because of competing paradigms. I’ve seen paradigm-based, new wine/old wineskin conflicts play out at seminaries and church planting assessments, at church transitions and ministry transitions. And paradigms are not easily or quickly changed. It doesn’t happen with a theological tweak here or there, or substituting a new ministry method or model, or updating language. A name change could help, but only if there is new-found clarity and consistency in whatever deepest-level body politic emerges. Anyway, some questions based on the radical differences between bound- and centered-sets: I’d argue that there are actually several distinct denominations trying to occupy the same space and resources. Are they so different in their underlying systems that they are actually holding each other back from pursuing fully how the Holy Spirit is leading them? Could it be that the more holistic paradigm people will find their way into something new, if the body at large desires to stay in a conventional analytic paradigm? [And this is not strictly a Buster versus Boomer difference.] Could this perhaps be a time when the fractions no longer represent a cohesive whole, and it would be healthier for the entire organization to divide into segments that give each freedom to function in the cultural contexts they providentially find themselves? There actually could be newfangled ways to reorganize the layers of people with very different paradigms, and yet still perhaps all tie in with some centered-set national-level resourcing. Anyway, such questions of paradigm shift and new forms of intercultural partnering are what I’ve been studying for 20 years, based on immersion in multiple experiences of multicultural conflict in organizations – so I know something whereof I speak. Hope there are some helpful insights in… Read more »
A profoundly different ‘worldview’ and paradigm of church exists among the younger generations. Denominational allegience among younger people is virtually absent. They feel drawn to religious experiences that are very emotive. Their choice of music is contemporary. So is their choice of worship, overall. There is a whole new style of worship and song that I don’t entirely understand. Instead of singing hymns of the Christian experience and of attributes of God, they prefer singing about the experience of worship itself, and the feelings associated with it. They raise their hands in the air, they often shut their eyes, and they sometimes move rythmically. Very different. As I said, I don’t totally udnerstand it because I’ve always felt drawn to classical hymnody, to reading the hymns from the hymnal and seeing the notation in case I can’t recall the melody. But they seem to knwo the new melodies very well and become totally absorbed in the music. It’s like they’re feeling the music more than singing it. I’m just not really sure. But it’s definately different. A product of an entirely new context that’s emerged probably within the last twenty years.