SBC name change: it's good...it's bad...it's ugly (part I) by Peter Lumpkins

Movie critics attribute to Clint Eastwood the rebranding of the American West.  With a series of rugged westerns beginning with A Fist Full of Dollars in 1964, the long, bony cowboy from nowhere and everywhere with a lightning fast draw sealed the ideal image of the loner, macho man on horseback. Surely, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) must rank as one of the best westerns of all time  >>>

Taking my cue from Blondie’s title, there are good things, bad things, and ugly things about the name change effort advocated by a few high-profile Southern Baptists. First, let’s consider the good.

The Good

Al Mohler was right when this issue was first breached¹ last September by SBC president, Bryant Wright: “There are good arguments to be made on both sides of this question — so let’s make them. There are important questions to ask — so let’s ask them.” While we are not sure to whom the task force turned to ask the tough questions, presumably the questions were asked. And, now we have an answer: the answer the task force offers, though surely frustrating in many ways (as we’ll see below), nonetheless captures what theologian Malcolm Yarnell calls the “heart of a Baptist.” In fact, Yarnell argues in his book, The Formation of Christian Doctrine, that what glues Baptists together—indeed has historically held Baptists together--is their commitment to the Lordship of Christ which presumably can be best captured in the Great Commission our Lord expresses: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you…” (Mt. 28:19-20, italics added).

More recently, Dr. Yarnell has restated the “good” about focusing on the Great Commission our Lord gave. In his post-Executive Committee commentary on the proposed name change to “Great Commission Baptists,” Yarnell wrote:

On the positive side, traditionalists are elated the suggested public name is “Great Commission Baptists”! We embrace the priority of the Great Commission given by our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 28. We also believe our history is deeply rooted in the Great Commission… Our Risen Lord's Great Commission summarizes our commitment to encouraging personal reconciliation with God seen first in believers baptism then in life-long biblical discipleship!

The Bad

So, too, there is a downside to being "Great Commission Baptists." And, while Dr. Yarnell expressed the positive note that since the Great Commission captures what Southern Baptists, at heart, have been about since the very beginning of our existence, still he fairly warns us concerning the pitfalls of embracing a simplistic rebranding process to distance ourselves from our past. Hence, the Southwestern professor balances out his relative satisfaction with Great Commission Baptists:

Yes, we failed in the past with regard to slavery and racism, but we also succeeded by rejecting the theological liberalism that infected many other Baptists. We have confessed the former as sin, but we retain the latter as triumph. These make us unique and we cannot nor should hide them. However, we should also be aware of how the people we seek to reach are impacted by our reputation.

Adding to Yarnell’s concern is my own: though Great Commission Baptists certainly captures the functional essence of who Southern Baptists have been in their finest historical moments, as well as reflects the biblical ideal Jesus had in mind when He deposited responsibility for the Great Commission into our account, “Great Commission” nonetheless remains primarily a churchy term. In short, it’s the language of the initiated—the informed—among us, and says nothing to the culture concerning who Baptists are. In that sense, we might just as well call ourselves the "Regenerate Church Membership Baptists" or the "Separation of Church and State Baptists" or the "Baptist Faith and Message 2000 Baptists" since “Great Commission Baptists” has no more explanatory power to the culture about who we are and what we are than either of the above names possesses.

Hence, being a ‘Great Commission” Baptist means exactly what to the average man or woman on the street? We don’t know since we apparently didn’t do any reliable research on the name “Great Commission Baptists” (and, if I am wrong about this, I invite correction from any task force member). 

The truth remains, Great Commission Baptists could very well conjure up negative images of arrogance and “exclusivism” which implies that since GCBs think they’ve been sent by Jesus Himself to convert people to their message, they most probably think they are the only ones who are right. How do signals similar to that translate in terms of cultural likeability? Will culture likely be more favorable toward us when they understand our one, sole objective is to make them into something they are not? If likeability, cultural relevance, clarity, and doing away with baggage in our name was the goal in name change, whoever came up with "Great Commission Baptists" did not apparently share it.  If we do vote to adopt "Great Commission Baptists" as our "nickname, " at best, it seems to me, it remains a gratuitous notion that, apart from the least bit of empirical evidence, we expect culture to respond more positively toward the new moniker than the present one. Who can project that kind of confidence since we didn’t have any empirical information to study?

Again, Dr. Mohler made it plain in the beginning of this process that “There are so many Southern Baptists from which we need to hear — so let’s listen to them.” And, just how many did the task force hear?  What evidence was brought forth and from whom? If the Executive Committee received a report detailing the process and procedure the task force followed in the three months of “much hard work ahead” cited by Dr. Mohler in September of last year—i.e., three months, no money, and apparently only two meetings before the decision to call ourselves “Great Commission Baptists” surfaced—could this detailed report of the task force’s listening to “so many Southern Baptists” be uploaded to the net so all of us may consider what these many Southern Baptists had to say?      

The Ugly

I wish this part was not necessary. But it is. And, it is necessary first and mainly because of the pious-sounding lectures and sermonettes Southern Baptists routinely receive from name change advocates. While Mohler said in the beginning “There are good arguments to be made on both sides of this question — so let’s make them” (italics added), some name change advocates are apparently convinced that possible dissenters from the proposal to change our name deserve no respect nor will possess, if they have any say about it, a voice in the matter. Let me show you what I mean.

Vice-President of Lifeway Resources, Ed Stetzer, posted a piece both on his site and the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary blog, Between the Times ². Entitled, “The SBC: changing names is good; changing actions is better,” Dr. Stetzer cites three needs facing the Southern Baptist Convention that a new name (among other things) cannot fix. “First,” Stetzer says, “is a need to stop bickering and infighting… I can tell you it is an amazing thing to see just how much Baptists like to fight.” One can appreciate the call to “stop bickering and fighting” if one knew precisely what Stetzer means by this. In my sphere, there is little “bickering and fighting” going on about it if for no other reason that there are few who know enough about the whole name change issue to bicker and fight. Most discussions have been surface and therefore lacking the emotional energy Stetzer suggests.

On the other hand, while Stetzer doesn’t actually say what he has in mind about the “bickering and fighting,”  he does perhaps offer us a clue as to what he’s suggesting:

As I've recently shared, Baptists always seem to need a boogeyman and changing the name won't change that. This infighting, name-calling, and dishonest "watchblogging" must stop if the convention as a whole is to progress. Speak up SBC leaders (or GCB leaders) and call for unity, honesty, and cooperation among leaders and their blogging proxies. Tolerate nothing less.

Two things. First, Stetzer apparently directs the need to “stop bickering and infighting” to those whom he identifies as doing ‘dishonest "watchblogging."’ Just who the “dishonest” men and (presumably) women are who do the "watchblogging" which needs to stop, Stetzer does not say. Nor does he say exactly what “watchblogging” is³. Nor does he tell us the difference between honest (implied) “watchbloggers” and the “dishonest” ones he indicates need to stop.

Additionally, as Stetzer exhorts us to unity, honesty, and cooperation, he specifically mentions “leaders and their blogging proxies.” Is Stetzer implying there are SBC leaders who speak dissension through their private “blogging proxies”? Doesn't speaking via "proxies" imply, at least in some ways, a kind of  "conspiracy theory" we've been overly informed about? (and even been personally accused of doing ourselves!  See a sober response concerning the false allegation of "conspiracy theory" from New Mexico pastor, Howell Scott ).  SBC Leaders who privately utilize "blogging proxies" to publicize their dissent?  Is this what Stetzer means to communicate? It surely sounds like it, but he is just vague enough that it’s hard to determine what he means with a reasonable amount of confidence. What is not vague is Stetzer's condemnatory sermonette aimed at the unnamed "watchbloggers"--not to mention the unidentified SBC leaders whom Stetzer seems to allege privately speak through "blogging proxies": we must tolerate nothing less than unity, honesty, and cooperation from them.

Second, I find the link to his recent piece on Baptists’ supposed insatiable thirst to blame a “bogeyman” for all their woes to be filled with striking irony. While Stetzer blasts away at Southern Baptist men and/or women for “watchblogging,”  he apparently doesn’t notice he’s creating his own custom-tailored “bogeyman” himself. Blame the dissent, uncooperation, and disunity on those mean-spirited, dishonest “watchbloggers.”  "Watchblogging" is Stetzer's bogeyman!⁴

Of course, what cannot be a perfectly acceptable explanation that dissent exists over name change (or any other issue for that matter) is that reasonable men and women hold to sober reservations about a particular view, issue, action, or decision--in this case, name change. Instead, those of us who log dissent apparently do so because we are personally--and perhaps worse, dishonestly--"watchblogging." Or, as an even darker alternative in Stetzer's piece, we sell ourselves as some unnamed leader's hired gun who allows the leader to voice his or her dissent by proxy on our site. And, according to Dr. Stetzer, we must at all costs not be tolerated until we become honest, united, and cooperative. 

I plan to continue The Ugly in Part II

With that, I am…

Peter  

¹no implication intended that Southern Baptists had not considered a name change before President Wright proposed his personal task force to study it. As I discussed here, Southern Baptists have seriously dealt with changing its name numerous times

²the post on the seminary blog was more a series of selected sections to Stetzer’s personal blog post, including a link to main entry. Baptist Press has picked up Stetzer's piece since this article was published

³pastor, blogger, and author, Tim Challies, set off a fiery exchange between several bloggers on a 2009 post entitled "Evil as Entertainment" in which he questioned the usefulness of what he called "watchblogs." Perhaps Stetzer means to parallel those blogs Challies characterized as obsessed with exposing heresy in the church and those blogs in the SBC which criticize decisions and actions of denominational employees. The truth is, Stetzer gave so little detail in describing "watchblogging." it's hard to determine with any sense of accuracy toward what he referred. On another note, some would characterize blogging similar to Stetzer's piece as safe and squishy, and hence hard to criticize because there's little, if any, point being proposed to which the author is committed--in short, the proverbial paper tiger

⁴And, for the record, how “watchblogging” itself doesn’t qualify adequately as a “bogeyman” to blame in explaining dissent Stetzer himself will need to explain    

Comments

[Chris Layton]

Was told to check this site out by a relative of yours and Dr. Ergun Caner. Enjoyed reading your thoughts on this matter and agree 100%. I am looking forward to part 2

[Max]

Peter, you are not a wacadoodle, bogeyman or bogeyman hunter, conspiracy theorist, hired gun, someone's proxy, nor a dishonest watchblogger (whatever that is) ... and certainly not a yes man! You are a watchman on the wall, brother. You write with a burden about that which enters the camp. You speak clearly to what you see with a measure of discernment that I pray will spread through SBC ranks soon. Your writings reflect a heart which longs for unity, but will not let that which divides go unnoticed. Thank you for standing on the wall. Truth is unkillable.

[CASEY]

Leaders placing "guilt" and "silence" on Southern Baptist pew sitters(who pay their tithes and offerings for these abusive leaders salaries) is over. Southern Baptists will have their say in New Orleans this June...and the direction of the SBC is at stake.
You "pew sitters" who are tired of being ignored by the Lifeway leadership, rebuffed by Southern/Southeastern Seminary leadership, undermining the local church by NAMB and a general attitude of the 'elites know better'....make your travel plans now for JUNE 18-20 to NEW ORLEANS.