What in the world should Southern Baptists call themselves in the 21st century?
KirklandWhat name is the most descriptive of a denomination whose origin is southern and its mission global?
Do the regional roots of the 166-year-old Southern Baptist Convention hinder the planting of churches throughout the United States and elsewhere?
Is there a more user-friendly name that can serve as a unifier as the SBC pushes forward in its calling to spread the gospel of Jesus and make disciples for Him everywhere?
Southern Baptist Convention president Bryant Wright wants to know the answers to these questions. This is why the Georgia pastor and alumnus of the University of South Carolina has picked out a task force to deal with what traditionally has been a thorny issue for Southern Baptists.
The task force includes the pastor of the most historic Baptist congregation in the South, Marshall Blalock of First Church in Charleston.
Wright announced the names of the task force and its assignment at the September meeting of the SBC Executive Committee in Nashville. He did not have to wait long for some committee members to have their say. Their quick responses are indicative of the discussion, and even debate, that Wright’s request to study the possibility and advisability of a name change will spark convention-wide.
Florida’s Darrell Orman conceded that “a name change could be a future necessity for our convention.” But the impetus for such a change, he pointed out, “should start from the bottom up, not the top down.”
Orman also questioned the timing of the study. He said the proposals of the 2010 Great Commission Resurgence that re-shape the SBC and re-allocate its money for missions already have led to a “tug of war” that has produced “a lot of conflicting feelings.”
His assessment of the current situation? “We don’t need another wedge issue at this time.”
The Florida Executive Committee member gained immediate support from a non-southerner, Charles Chambers of Ohio. “Outside of Georgia, Florida and Tennessee,” he said, “the GCR is still very, very divisive among Southern Baptists.”
“Don’t divide us again,” he pleaded.
Alabama committeeman Ron Madison declared, “I would counsel us to be very thoughtful and prayerful before we open a can of worms that the convention has not said on the front end they want to open. Messengers have said in past years that this is not something we want to do.”
Madison agreed that it might be time to reconsider a name change. If it is, however, he asked, “isn’t there wisdom in letting the messengers generate that request?”
He predicted that “spirited discussion” on the subject is “almost guaranteed.”
You think?
It has already begun.
Any name change for the venerable Southern Baptist Convention could not happen quickly. Any such proposal would require approval by messengers at two consecutive annual meetings of the SBC.
Wright’s wonderings about a name change are not without sound reasoning. It boils down to an essential question: Is our mission impeded by the name of the convention? If it is not, let’s get on with our work.
It is true that the name Southern Baptist Convention has “regional” written all over it. But in fact, it is worldwide in the scope of its ministry, and people know that.
Still, Wright has said that “continuing feedback” from some quarters outside the South suggests the convention’s name possibly is a barrier to church planting.
For many Southern Baptists, the convention’s name denotes more than its regional nature. To them, the name SBC is synonymous with conservative theology and church polity and a zeal for world evangelization.
Historian William Owen Carver, who taught at Southern Seminary, has written that the Southern Baptist Convention is “a direct product” of the early missionary interests of Baptists in the United States.
What they lacked was the corporate fellowship and focused sense of mission that an organized body of Baptists could bring to their intention to spread the gospel. Carver wrote that Baptists of that era could best be described as “rugged individualists.” That rugged individualism eventually, he said, “became aware of others.”
Wright’s presidential panel has its work cut out for it. They must look more to the future than to the past. Change is difficult for some and downright impossible for others.
It is to the everlasting credit of Southern Baptists that we embrace the world in our ministries. This is especially so through our ongoing, and even renewed, commitment to the command of Jesus that we make disciples for Him everywhere.
Though we as Southern Baptists embrace the world, does the world embrace us and our ministries? Does our name itself stand in the way of our acceptance by others, even other Christians?
The 21st century is well underway. Until our Lord returns or we are united with Him for eternity, there is work to do. For heaven’s sake, let’s not allow a name to trip us up in our mission.
We serve the One whose Name is above every name, and certainly ours.