Southern Baptist Discussing a Name Change

From USAToday by Jonathan Merritt:

A week ago, Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright told his organization’s executive committee in Nashville that he had appointed a task force to study a possible name change. Abandoning the 166-year-old identifier, he argued, would help the group thrive both in America and internationally.

“First, the convention’s name is so regional,” Wright said. “With our focus on church planting, it is challenging in many parts of the country to lead churches to want to be part of a convention with such a regional name. Second, a name change could position us to maximize our effectiveness in reaching North America for Jesus Christ in the 21st century.”

Wright is, well, right. The label is no longer accurate. Until the mid-20th century, the denomination was concentrated almost exclusively in the American South and Southwest. That is no longer the case. While most congregations still exist below the Mason-Dixon line, SBC churches — all 40,000 of them, as well as 16 million members — have spread to all 50 states, and the SBC’s missionary effort has planted thousands more globally. The denomination also comprises more than a quarter of all American evangelicals….

“The SBC is not driven by a Southern agenda nor a Southern vision,” said Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville….

Southern Baptists are, in many ways, facing a struggle that has played out in the broader American culture. Changing their name would be akin to Southern schools dropping “rebel” mascots and Southern states scrubbing Confederate imagery from their flags. While the SBC has made strides in repudiating its shameful past, including a 1995 resolution apologizing to African Americans, this bold move would be another important step.

As Jon Akin, a Southern Baptist pastor in Tennessee says, “We’ve obviously made statements and resolutions saying that we do not affirm what happened in our past … but it’s something we’ve got to continue to answer in terms of our heritage — that we aren’t going to be a mostly Southern, mostly middle-class, mostly white denomination, that we want to reach all nations.”