Prominent churches and leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) are increasingly dropping the ‘Southern’ and referring to themselves as ‘Great Commission Baptists’, to reflect their global scope, and to build bridges for the gospel of Christ. But the timing leads the Washington Post to suggest that the name change has more to do with the BLM (Black Lives Matter) movement.
Convention president J.D. Greear says Jesus was “not a White Southerner, but a brown-skinned Middle-Eastern refugee” and “we worship a savior who died for the whole world, not one part of it. What we call ourselves should make that clear.”
Background Resource:
Prominent Southern Baptists Are Dropping Southern Name Amid Racial Unrest
[Houston Chronicle via Washington Post, September 15, 2020]
Bill Whittle Now with Scott Ott is a production of our Members. Join us now.
Listen to the Audio Version
Bill Whittle Network · Largest Baptist Group Dropping ‘Southern’: Caving to BLM or Building Gospel Bridges?
15 replies on “Largest Baptist Group Dropping ‘Southern’: Caving to BLM or Building Gospel Bridges?”
Any “Christian” church that wants to take crosses down to avoid offending those that do not believe the same as or attend that church, ought to call it a social center.
This is a secularization of Christian institutions and ought to be crushed where it stands.
Here, again, we see that all too many Conservatives are nothing if not weak kneed, couch hugging, people pleasers. We have failed to stand up. We will pay a dear price for that.
So should we change the name of the Roman Catholic faith to Pan Catholic?
Given recent events perhaps One World Catholicism or Global Catholic or One Commune Catholic is nearer the truth.
The term we faithful traditional Catholics like to use is “Neo-Catholic.” And our numbers are growing, while theirs are shrinking.
Ever since Trump won the Presidency and totally upset the Left’s apple cart, we have been seeing this pattern of taking over Right Wing institutions. The Progressives realized that religious groups in particular had helped elect Trump and vowed to neutralize their influence by one of three methods: supporting conservative positions in public but working to upend them covertly; openly becoming Libertarian or better yet out and out Leftist; or an amalgam of anti-socialism and muted stances on social issues.
This trend has been obvious in such groups as the NRA, the Heritage Foundation, Focus on the Family, the Chuck Colson Center, Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, and the Southern Baptist Convention. It is usually accomplished by a takeover of the Leadership position and often involves a scandal and weaponizing the Cancel Culture. J.D. Greear is mentioned in the first of the following articles.
For more information: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/et_tu_falwell_the_lefts_playbook_at_liberty_u.html
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2019/the-long-infiltration-of-the-catholic-church
A large organization is changing it’s name!
Yawn.
All informed, rational people already knew that the organization spans much more than just the southern U.S. None of them consider the term “Southern” in the name to say anything morally meaningful about it, any more than they imagine vicious, gunslinging bandits when they see a Southwest Airlines commercial (though adding some might make flying less tedious). Those who attribute some kind or degree of evil to the group (or good, for that matter) based on its name are idiots.
Personally, this changes nothing for me with respect to the Southern Baptists. For all it matters, they could call themselves Churchy McChurchface, or Bob. We disagree, no big deal. But, outside of occasional legislative lobbying efforts on their part, we don’t try to force anything on each other. There’s nothing else I want from any organization, or any individual.
Other than the timing of the announcement making it look somewhat fishy in light of the current, ongoing insanity, it should be a non-issue. I mean, despite another organization’s name change, there’s nothing different in my relation to Dunkin’ (formerly Dunkin Donuts), either – I didn’t buy their lousy donuts before and I still don’t.
If they are truly a world wide congregation, then maybe they should have gone with “Global Commission Baptists”, but perhaps not “Globalist Commission Baptists”, which currently as some bad odor around it.
The Holy Family’s flight into Egypt is not comparable to use of the word refugee in the modern sense. Yes, they were fleeing an actual threat to the life of their son by a political power (Herod as patron saint of Planned Parenthood), but several things prevent them from being the archetype of a modern refugee:
They can no longer pretend to be what they pretended to be so they will pretend to be something else. They thereby pretend to have changed so they can pretend to be what they are not and thus become more acceptable to more people. It looks like the same old same old to me. I am not buying what they are selling.
You do not change a thing by changing its name. You actually have to change. What change has actually occurred? How did you accomplish that change? How does that change warrant a change in name? Answers to those questions are not specified. If you come knocking at my door to proselytize me, be prepared to answer these questions to my satisfaction or just go away.
The change is that their membership expanded beyond the southern U.S. The new name reflects that they are no longer a regional organization. They explicitly said that.
As was once said, “a rose by another name still smells the same.” It is a change without really changing. They just got bigger. Their beliefs and actions are still Southern Baptist. Hence, they are pretending to be what they are not so as to snare more people into their version of religion. More people means more money. Follow the money!
The main difference with the Baptist church, is that each church makes its own rules. There is no head of the baptist church which any church is forced to follow. Each church is very different. Go to a few in any small to medium sized town and you would see a large difference. Some have female clergy and deacons, some do not, among the most visible signs. This discussion within Southern Baptist Convention has been going on for, literally, decades. Like any large organization it has taken them too long to make what should have been a simple change. And, like many right leaning organizations, they have little feel for marketing and branding and will likely screw it up.
As far as their thinking and practices go, yes, absolutely. I’m only saying that they did give a reason for the change. You had said they didn’t. Otherwise, we’re on the same page.
This is a branding issue that is a long time coming. There are “Southern” Baptist Convention churches in every state and around the world. The timing looks bad and they should use some of the ideas that Bill stated to make sure that it doesn’t look like kowtowing to the mob.
Well, with what was added to simply changing the “branding” to represent the church outside of the south, that is, the statement concerning essentially bending to the new “normal,” that ship has sailed. The horse is out of the barn, thanks to the virtue signaling by the church powers that be that felt it necessary to give a nod to the new Marxists. Just another errosion of our principles, to try and appease the forces arrayed against all our institutions. They will not be appeased, only encouraged and emboldened by a decided lack of courage and comittment to protect those cherished institutions.