BBC&S becomes Summit University of Pennsylvania

Don’t understand why they’re dropping the Baptist name. This is a common complaint, and I know folks may disagree with me. If they’re a Baptist institution, and they intend to retain that identity and mission, and they’re not ashamed of their heritage, then why drop the “Baptist” name?

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

Because the word Baptist to a very large segment within our country is associated with the worst of Fundamentalism (Fred Phelps).

  • LABC –> The Masters College. Robust, going concern
  • Denver (DBBC) –-> folded & merged with Faith (Ankeny)
  • Spurgeon (was some place in Central Florida) –> folded and merged into Piedmont
  • Grand Rapids: dropped “Baptist”. Robust, going concern
  • Cedarville: Never had “Baptist” in its title. Robust, going concern
  • Faith Baptist in Ankeny: Robust, going concern

Others:

  • Pillsbury Baptist: folded / The Clearwater - Cedarholm personality battle brought about the formation of Maranatha Baptist which is a robust school
  • Northland Baptist Bible College. Recent history that is well known

Is having the name “Baptist” a Baptist distinctive? If a church holds to the Baptist distinctives and elects to not include Baptist in their name, are they still a Baptist church?

In addition, if a church has Baptist in their name and doesn’t hold to all the distinctives, are they Baptist?

Who decides?

"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan

what does “going concern” mean? I have no clue.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately because we are in the infant stage of a church here. MOST (I almost say all) people who were not raised “baptist” have a negative reaction to the word. That is anecdotal to my area. It is amazing and shocking and disappointing. So, do you stick to your guns and constantly explain what it means to new people you meet (knowing that many go on by without even giving you a chance…but there is the leading of the Lord of course), or do you pick a name that has less negative connection. Of course, the opposite is true. Many “old timers” who love the name baptist are put off by the name not being in the title!

[Mark_Smith]

I have been thinking about this a lot lately because we are in the infant stage of a church here. MOST (I almost say all) people who were not raised “baptist” have a negative reaction to the word. That is anecdotal to my area. It is amazing and shocking and disappointing. So, do you stick to your guns and constantly explain what it means to new people you meet (knowing that many go on by without even giving you a chance…but there is the leading of the Lord of course), or do you pick a name that has less negative connection. Of course, the opposite is true. Many “old timers” who love the name baptist are put off by the name not being in the title!

I find that an individual’s response to this conundrum is correlative to whether they are looking forward or backwards. I offer this perspective as a “Baptist” “Fundamentalist” who no longer uses either word to identify himself.

Defined: “A term for a company that has the resources needed in order to continue to operate indefinitely. If a company is not a going concern, it means the company has gone bankrupt”

In contrast to Pillsbury or Northland … it those cases they were on the edge financially and it was generally obvious they would not be around for long.

My take on the “Baptist” name:

  • Still has meaning despite being sullied by Hyles / Schaap, Westboro, et al.
  • I can see the value of a school branching out (by name change) to try to attract students from a broader audience (I’ve changed about this in the past few years)
  • For some, the name “Baptist” has some very negative, visceral connotations
  • I’m a member, by choice, of a church with Baptist in its name

[TylerR]

Don’t understand why they’re dropping the Baptist name. This is a common complaint, and I know folks may disagree with me. If they’re a Baptist institution, and they intend to retain that identity and mission, and they’re not ashamed of their heritage, then why drop the “Baptist” name?

Because names change over time. The disciples were first called “Christians” in Acts, not Baptists. So why don’t we just call our churches “Christian” churches? I’m sure most would have some explanation that would say the name has been hijacked by non-Christian groups, the term can be misused (e.g “Christendom”), or other similar reasons. I can imagine the arguments used by those considering a name change away from a Christian church to a Baptist church. “What, you are ashamed of Christ, but would rather talk about doctrinal distinctives?!?!” Exactly the same applies to “Baptist” in our day. Within a 25-mile radius of our area you will find Baptist churches that range from Hyles-ish to reformed and Calvinistic, and from extreme KJVO churches to extremely liberal churches that will marry same-sex partners. So if you are faced with this, along with what has already been expressed by others on this thread (i.e. those who don’t have long association with the name “Baptist” generally see it negatively), a better question might be “Why be against changing the name from Baptist?” or in other cases “Why choose the name Baptist to start with?”

As an anecdote, my wife came to this country from Germany to attend high school and college. When she was looking for a Christian college, BJU was actually high on her list because it *didn’t* have the word “Baptist” in its name — from what she had heard, such colleges were more “cultic.” You can write that off as a lack of understanding from those outside our culture, but that same lack of understanding of the term colors the perception of any outsiders.

As another anecdote, I was raised in a fundamental Methodist church (independent, of course, not associated with the United Methodists). Further, the church had the term “Evangelical” in the name as well, which by the 1980’s was already seen as a suspect term, even though it’s not far removed from “Evangelistic” which was the original intent. So you can imagine the reaction I received from your typical independent Baptist when I told them my church was Evangelical Methodist Church. Even without knowing our church, the perception was immediately something my home church was not. For this reason, I would also not consider naming a church Methodist today, even if I were in 100% agreement with everything John Wesley stood for.

Since our society is increasingly post-Christian, I’m glad we are rethinking some of our traditions, because we can no longer assume that the average person has any idea about them, even if he has ever read one word in a Bible, which is also increasingly rare.

Dave Barnhart

The “bad connotation and association” argument is a common one, but I think it’s ultimately meaningless:

  • In our post-Christian culture, perhaps we should drop the name “Church” altogether? Should somebody just name their church “The Hangout” instead? Would this be easier to swallow?
  • Perhaps Christian universities should drop all reference to God in their documents, and substitute “Higher Power” for it, so as not to offend?

We can go round and round about this, and we probably will. I’m not saying this is a “compromise” or a sign of coming apostasy, or anything ridiculous like that. I just don’t see the logic in dropping the Baptist label, if that is who you are. They’ll read your documents and see you’re Baptist anyway - so why not just claim it?

I’m sure BBS will do well with their name change, and I bear them no ill-will. I just don’t get why it’s necessary to drop Baptist - although “Summit Baptist University” doesn’t quite roll off your tongue …

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

[TylerR]

The “bad connotation and association” argument is a common one, but I think it’s ultimately meaningless:

  • In our post-Christian culture, perhaps we should drop the name “Church” altogether? Should somebody just name their church “The Hangout” instead? Would this be easier to swallow?
  • Perhaps Christian universities should drop all reference to God in their documents, and substitute “Higher Power” for it, so as not to offend?

We can go round and round about this, and we probably will. I’m not saying this is a “compromise” or a sign of coming apostasy, or anything ridiculous like that. I just don’t see the logic in dropping the Baptist label, if that is who you are. They’ll read your documents and see you’re Baptist anyway - so why not just claim it?

I’m sure BBS will do well with their name change, and I bear them no ill-will. I just don’t get why it’s necessary to drop Baptist - although “Summit Baptist University” doesn’t quite roll off your tongue …

I think I would question some of what you have written here.

First, even without going all emergent or relevant here, there are plenty of churches (even fundamental ones) that use other names than church (e.g. fellowship, assembly, even temple).

Second, dropping God is obviously in a completely different category — again, “Baptist” was not something recorded in scripture as being used by early Christians. Clearly, at least if we want to remain orthodox, we are not going to drop any part of scripture because it might be offensive. However, I would prefer any offense I give to be because of what is in scripture, not because of something extra-scriptural I might be doing. I’ll never do that perfectly, but I’m open to change where compromising of God’s word is not an issue.

Third, although older Christians or those familiar with all the doctrines and distinctives might be able to easily tell that a church is baptistic in doctrine (and they are the same people that would likely have a traditional attachment to the term Baptist), I would bet that most new Christians today wouldn’t recognize that until they have had quite a bit of teaching. And again, we are not talking about giving up doctrine we believe, just an ambiguous term. If we used “Christian” it still might be ambiguous, but at least it would be biblical. No term is perfect, even “Bible church,” and it might not be *necessary* for Summit to drop “Baptist,” but they might have found it very helpful. Dropping that term is not, by itself, an indication of a slip in doctrine or practice.

Dave Barnhart

[Jim]
  • ​Spurgeon (was some place in Central Florida) –> folded and merged into Piedmont

Mulberry, FL, south of Lakeland.

p.s. would have expected a school named after Spurgeon to be Calvinistic!

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