SummerMadness

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Prominent Southern Baptists are dropping ‘Southern’ name amid racial unrest
Leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention are increasingly dropping the “Southern” part of their Baptist name, calling it a potentially painful reminder of the convention’s historic role in support of slavery.


The 50,000 Baptist churches in the convention are autonomous and can still choose to refer to themselves as “Southern Baptist” or “SBC.” But in his first interview on the topic, convention president J.D. Greear said momentum has been building to adopt the name “Great Commission Baptists,” both because of the racial reckoning underway in the United States and because many have long seen the “Southern Baptist” name as too regional for a global group of believers.

“Our Lord Jesus was not a White Southerner but a brown-skinned Middle Eastern refugee,” said Greear, who this summer used the phrase “Black lives matter” in a presidential address and announced that he would retire a historic gavel named for an enslaver. “Every week we gather to worship a savior who died for the whole world, not one part of it. What we call ourselves should make that clear.”
 

public hermit

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I've been impressed with J.D. Greear's leadership. It makes good practical and spiritual sense to acknowledge the past, make appropriate changes, and move forward. I'm not Baptist, but I find this to be very encouraging.
 
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iluvatar5150

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Sadly, Greear is woke.

Why is this sad? The entire genesis of the "southern" moniker for the baptist organization was their support for slavery.
 
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Albion

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“Every week we gather to worship a savior who died for the whole world, not one part of it. What we call ourselves should make that clear.”

If that was meant sincerely, the first thing Greear would dump would be the term "Black Lives Matter."
 
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Hammster

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It's unfortunate when someone sees a move to increase Christian fellowship as "sad."
It’s sad when someone who is supposed to be leading caves to cultural Marxism.
 
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Hammster

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Why is this sad? The entire genesis of the "southern" moniker for the baptist organization was their support for slavery.
We don’t support slavery anymore. We haven’t for a few years now.
 
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Arcangl86

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“Every week we gather to worship a savior who died for the whole world, not one part of it. What we call ourselves should make that clear.”

If that was meant sincerely, the first thing Greear would dump would be the term "Black Lives Matter."
I wasn't aware they were called the Black Lives Matter Baptist Convention.
 
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Albion

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I don’t see any problem with this and I commend those who are willing to make this change for the sake of unity. :oldthumbsup:
The truth is that the SBC is willing to do this in order to try to maintain status.

This is not a new idea and the recent riots are not the cause of discussions within the Southern Baptist Convention looking to change the name. Nor is the idea of "fellowship," etc.

For years, this has been under consideration; and the reason was that, in a time when churches, the SBC included, are losing members, it might help to make the name seem less regional. The hope has been that a new name will make a potential joiner think of this denomination as more important and nationwide in scope, especially to people who live somewhere other than in the American South.
 
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iluvatar5150

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We don’t support slavery anymore. We haven’t for a few years now.

It's been too few years since a good chunk of the SBC membership explicitly favored segregation. When the SBTS hosted MLK in 1961, many churches protested and withdrew their support.
https://sbts-wordpress-uploads.s3.a...acism-and-the-Legacy-of-Slavery-Report-v4.pdf

In 1964, they took a vote on whether or not to affirm that year's civil rights act and the measure narrowly failed.

The truth is that the SBC is willing to do this in order to try to maintain status.

This is not a new idea and the recent riots are not the cause of discussions within the Southern Baptist Convention looking to change the name. Nor is the idea of "fellowship," etc.

For years, this has been under consideration; and the reason was that, in a time when churches, the SBC included, are losing members, it might help to make the name seem less regional. The hope has been that a new name will make a potential joiner think of this denomination as more important and nationwide in scope, especially to people who live somewhere other than in the American South.

There's also a lot of cultural baggage associated with the name. For the last 15 years or so, I've been attending churches in east coast urban centers that are affiliated with the SBC, but don't advertise it loudly partly because the typical culture of the SBC (i.e. formal dress, paternalistic, legalistic, culturally isolationist, fire & brimstone preaching, overtly conservative politics) is not the sort of culture one would find in those churches.
 
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Albion

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There's also a lot of cultural baggage associated with the name. For the last 15 years or so, I've been attending churches in east coast urban centers that are affiliated with the SBC, but don't advertise it loudly partly because the typical culture of the SBC (i.e. formal dress, paternalistic, legalistic, culturally isolationist, fire & brimstone preaching, overtly conservative politics) is not the sort of culture one would find in those churches.
That's part of what I was thinking of when writing my earlier post. The idea of changing the name began years ago, not just recently, and the first step was not to make a formal name change but to allow congregations to just stop identifying as SBC, even if they were. Now apparently, some think that the time is right to actually change the convention's name.
 
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cow451

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“Every week we gather to worship a savior who died for the whole world, not one part of it. What we call ourselves should make that clear.”

If that was meant sincerely, the first thing Greear would dump would be the term "Black Lives Matter."
IOW, “So we Southern Baptists are going to stop being racist and to prove it we’re gonna keep doing the same old crap.”
 
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We don’t support slavery anymore. We haven’t for a few years now.
A little Johnny Reb come lately? The last place racial barriers will break down are in evangelical churches in the South IMHO.
 
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