{"id":3133,"date":"2012-02-28T04:00:40","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T11:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=3133"},"modified":"2012-02-28T00:09:05","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T07:09:05","slug":"sbc-nickname-confusion-clarity-more-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=3133","title":{"rendered":"SBC Nickname: Confusion, Clarity & More Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week after the great “Nickname”<\/em>\u00a0proposal was unveiled to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, more illuminating information continues to trickle out. With each new nugget, more questions seemed to be raised. For many name change<\/del> completely optional nickname proponents,\u00a0the EC’s approval of\u00a0the recommendation of an unofficial\u00a0blue ribbon panel assembled by the sitting President of the Southern Baptist Convention, thus sending it to\u00a0the messengers to vote whether to approve the aforementioned\u00a0completely optional nickname (or is it now a tagline or informal descriptor) — Great Commission Baptists — settles the matter. Without speaking to the bad precedent that has been set (I’ll save that for another post), the Executive Committee (save a reported five brave souls whose vote against the nickname proposal\u00a0not only cut down on their own mental clutter<\/a>, but also made a courageous statement that process matters) sent what is sure to be a divisive recommendation to this June’s Annual Meeting in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

Only those who speak against this entirely reasonable and\u00a0clear\u00a0proposal to establish a dual identity for the nation’s largest Protestant religious body will be seen as trying to divide the Convention. It reminds me of President Obama (it seems that many of the tactics of\u00a0some SBC establishment leaders in the last few years remind me of Mr. Obama, but I digress) who, in the wake of the Tucson shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, pleaded for civility in a speech given in the aftermath\u00a0of that tragedy. The only problem with Obama’s call for civil discourse was his silent agreement with the lunatic left’s vilification of\u00a0Sarah Palin in particular and conservatives in general\u00a0for being solely\u00a0responsible for creating the\u00a0climate\u00a0which led to the shooting in the first place. Not much of an effort to unite, if you really\u00a0digested what the President said — and didn’t say — that day in Tucson.<\/p>\n

When one begins to digest the Task Force’s reasons for concluding why an official name change would not be feasible, more questions — at least for me — come to mind. In an article posted at SBC Voices entitled, “Anatomy of a Name Change,” <\/a>Micah Fries, a member of the Task Force, provides a good synopisis of the thinking among the Task Force members as they deliberated whether the name of the Southern Baptist Convention should be changed. Shouldn’t the Task Force have decided that question and that question only? If the Task Force concluded that the current name, “Southern Baptist Convention,”<\/em> was a hindrance to the Gospel and to fulfilling the Great Commission, then, as Peter Lumpkins points out<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“if our name genuinely and morally offends; and we are concerned it definitively hinders both our effectual evangelism and healthy relationship with African-Americans as well as other minorities; and that we are morally compelled to put substantial distance between our sinful roots and today’s mature ethical position on slavery; then we have no right to retain our name regardless of the cost to change it. If it is morally right to change our name, then we dare not cite legal, fiscal, or other hardship costs prohibiting us from doing what’s right and moral and good. In short, if Wright and Draper are correct that our name morally inhibits our service to God, including the effectual preaching of His Son’s gospel, then it seems that anything less than a full name change<\/em> remains personal preference at best and moral hypocrisy at worst.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, apparently\u00a0issues dealing with slavery, racism and\u00a0the SBC’s\u00a0founding were at the\u00a0heart of some of\u00a0the discussions of the\u00a0Task Force. That is not surprising given that the Convention’s racist founding was brought up early and often, including by at least one prominent member of the Task Force, Dr. Albert Mohler<\/a>, President of\u00a0The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Jimmy Draper, Chairman of the Task Force, give us a glimpse of the Task Force’s discussions regarding the SBC’s pro-slavery beginnings:<\/p>\n

“It’s (the optional nickname\/descriptor\/moniker) not requiring anything,” Draper said. “If the name catches on, it’ll be because it came from the grass roots. The Southern Baptist Convention was born in the midst of the slavery controversy, and we were on the wrong side of that. We abhor the slavery issue and regret the circumstances of our birth. But that’s in the past, and we need to recognize we’re sensitive to people’s needs.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I appreciate Dr. Draper’s candidness about some of the motivations of the Task Force. But, from his words comes several questions that need to be asked and answered.\u00a0Given the clearly negative and odious\u00a0connotation that the word “Southern”<\/em> continues to have among many within the SBC, the following questions surely would have been asked by Task Force members\u00a0before\u00a0embarking on an optional nickname proposal that was not (at least publicly) part of their original assignment:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. If entities and institutions of the SBC, including elected leaders in positions of authority, begin using the\u00a0informal descriptor\u00a0in their publications, communications, materials, etc. (which the recommendation\u00a0encourages),\u00a0can we say this really \u201ccame from the grassroots?\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. Understanding that the SBC was born out of slavery \u2014 even if it is in the past \u2014 are we more sensitive to people\u2019s needs by using the new nickname?<\/li>\n
  3. Conversely, are we insensitive if we continue to use \u201cSouthern Baptist Convention,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 a moniker\u00a0that\u00a0our leaders\u00a0constantly remind us will forever be associated with slavery and racism and be a great hindrance to the Gospel?<\/li>\n
  4. Is there at least the possibility that the new nickname will be used (perhaps unintentionally) to shame those who still prefer the official name, but who will be seen as clinging to a name whose use is insensitive on its face and whose continued use — especially in light of the great descriptor, Great Commission Baptists — will be automatically seen as callous to people’s needs?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    As more information and interviews with Task Force members continues to be available to grassroots Southern Baptists, the more questions will arise between now and New Orleans. The above\u00a0four\u00a0are but a few that\u00a0will help folks to make sense of\u00a0what appears, on its face, to be a confusing recommendation, but which, with the passage of time, looks to be as clear as\u00a0the blue skies in the Land of Enchantment!<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

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     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A week after the great “Nickname”\u00a0proposal was unveiled to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, more illuminating information continues to trickle out. With each new nugget, more questions seemed to be raised. For many name change completely optional nickname proponents,\u00a0the EC’s approval of\u00a0the recommendation of an unofficial\u00a0blue ribbon panel assembled by the sitting President of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,35,1371,37],"tags":[1579,1642,1144,1643,1606,775,818,868,872,3401,1609,1610,1241,906,3393],"class_list":["post-3133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-religion","category-sbc-name-change","category-southern-baptist-convention","tag-dr-albert-mohler","tag-dr-jimmy-draper","tag-micah-fries","tag-monikers","tag-nicknames","tag-peter-lumpkins","tag-racism","tag-sbc","tag-sbc-executive-committee","tag-sbc-name-change","tag-sbc-name-change-task-force","tag-sbc-nickname","tag-sbc-voices","tag-slavery","tag-southern-baptist-convention"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-Ox","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3133"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3148,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3133\/revisions\/3148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}