Reform(ed)
Gracious Rebel
Shipmate
in Purgatory
I heard that the United Reformed Church (URC) magazine, which has always gone by the name 'Reform' is changing it's name to 'Reformed' so as not to be confused with a certain controversial up and coming political party.
Is this a good idea to be applauded? Sad but necessary? Or what?
What other examples can you think of where the name of a religious entity has changed in response to secular politics? Another one that springs to my mind is a Baptist Church in my town that used to be called 'Mount Zion Baptist Church' but is now simply known as xxxxx rd Baptist Church.
Is this a good idea to be applauded? Sad but necessary? Or what?
What other examples can you think of where the name of a religious entity has changed in response to secular politics? Another one that springs to my mind is a Baptist Church in my town that used to be called 'Mount Zion Baptist Church' but is now simply known as xxxxx rd Baptist Church.
Comments
Concerning my denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) we had a magazine entitled The Lutheran. Kind of static. It ceased publication a couple of years ago. However, another publication has started up. It is entitled Living Lutheran.
Dealing with the name of the denomination, there have been calls from time to time to drop the Evangelical part of the name mainly because of the connotations Evangelical has in American society. Evangelical implies fundamentalist, conservative literal in interpretation. However, there has been pushback to that idea. At the time of the Reformation, the people who subscribed to the Augsburg Confession preferred the name Evangelical. It is still the name of the Lutheran Church in Germany. Most Lutheran bodies do include the "Evangelical" title in their formal names.
I did participate in the renaming of our local synod (diocese). We had been known as the Eastern Washington-Idaho-Wyoming synod, but we had added a couple of congregations from Eastern Oregon, making the name obsolete. After several brainstorming sessions, the synod assembly settled on a new name, the Northwest Intermountain Synod which better reflects our geographical area.
There are some congregations who have removed the Lutheran name on their buildings. I have mixed feelings about this, though I am currently serving a congregation that changed its name to xxx Community Church. It merged a Lutheran congregation with a Presbyterian Congregation, so it was a reasonable move.
In my experience, they would not say that; indeed, they’d say that’s wrong. Rather, they’d say the denomination/tradition is always being reformed.* That’s different from always reforming.
* The phrase being ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbi Dei—“the church reformed, always being reformed according to the Word of God.”
I can see why the change is being made. I guess I’d file it under “sad but necessary.”
The church I grew up in has changed its name multiple times. I knew it as New Covenant Church as a child, but the leadership opted to change it as there was a larger church network (might be somewhere America, I don't recall the precise details) called the Church of the New Covenant that the pastor and elders didn't want to be associated with. So it was renamed to [name of road] Baptist Church, which is what it had been called many decades before.
Now it's Christ Church [name of town] though that renaming was done some time after I'd left.
To clarify, it's not the denomination that was called Reform but their magazine.
Churches which change their names may have valid reasons to do so, probably about the image they wish to communicate to those in the area, but it would be helpful if, in their small print and on their website, they make clear their denomination / affiliation for those who want to know what their background is.
Some similar churches in other nations will use "uniting" rather than "united" as a statement of intent to continue uniting with other churches, but even where "united" is used there's an acknowledgement that it's an ongoing process rather than a historical fact (since the URC formed it has united with at least two other church groups, and there have been conversations about whether to seek further unions - on the ground, many URC churches are already united with other denominations).
It's more conservative critics always used to refer to it as, 'Neither United nor Reformed ...'
For them Reformed meant Five-Point TULIP Calvinism.
I can understand why they would wish to change the title of their denominational magazine and agree with @Alan Cresswell that 'Reformed' would be a suitable name.
As, I hope, an intriguing aside, I've recently heard people say that the term 'Catholicism' carries the implication of 'working towards catholicity or universality.' Likewise, shock horror, I've even heard an Orthodox ecumenist say that the term 'Orthodoxy' carries the implication of 'working towards Orthodoxy, rather than it being something to which we have actually 'arrived.'
How that echoes, meshes or correlates with 'semper reformanda' is way above my pay-grade.
But as for the name of the magazine, sure, I think 'Reformed' would do the job and I can't think of anything else that wouldn't sound too vague. Something like Together or Inspire would sound as if it could come from anywhere.
Whatever we think of that, it does beg a few questions as to what continuing 'reform' looks like, how we recognise it and how we achieve some kind of consensus as to when it's happened, what reform 'looks like' and whether it's gone far enough, too far or ...
These are obviously questions not only for internal debate within the Reformed tradition itself, but more widely across the Christian spectrum.
Are the Reformed expecting other Christian traditions to follow suit?
Are non-Reformed traditions expecting the Reformed to conform and not to continue to 'reform'?
What do we do when some parts of Christendom are bent on continually 'reforming' everything and anything according to a consensus on an understanding of the 'word of God' which not everyone is going to share?
Are they expecting everyone else to play 'catch-up'?
Or are those who don't feel that things need to be 'reformed' expecting them to do a U-turn?
What checks and balances are there on how far or otherwise to go on 'reforming' things? Who decides? How do we recognise it when we get there - wherever 'there' is?
Does being Reformed inevitably lead to dozens of competing groups all claiming to be more Reformed than the others?
The reverse can happen in older Christian traditions of course. 'We are more Orthodox than that group ...' 'We are the real Catholics / Anglicans / Whatever else ...'
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not knocking the Reformed tradition, it's produced and no doubt will produce many outstanding theologians, scholars, missionaries and good eggs.
I'm just wondering what continual 'reform' looks like and how we recognise it when we see it.
And, like anyone else Reformed churches have their fair share of groups claiming to be true to the Reformed tradition (a tradition that can be a rejection of traditions ...) and splinter away claiming to be more Reformed. Which is why churches like the United Reformed Church can exist, if all those Reformed groups hadn't split there would be nothing to unite.
@Gamma Gamaliel, you’ve been told before that when you go on for paragraph after paragraph in a way that can be read as critical, and then follow it with something like, “don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking it,” then a reader’s takeaway well may be that you are knocking it. That takeaway is reinforced when you bring up things like TULIP every time that the Reformed tradition is mentioned, whether TULIP is relevant to the discussion or not (as in this thread). It starts to feel like those of us in the Reformed tradition are being constantly challenged to defend our tradition.
No question is being begged in this thread about what “reform” looks like. This thread is about the name of a magazine, and more broadly about religious bodies needing to change nomenclature or the like because of secular politics or society. My comments about “reformed” vs “reforming” vs “being reformed” were in response to a comment from shipmates outside the Reformed tradition about possible choices other than “Reformed” for name of the URC’s magazine, and why those choices might not resonate with someone within the Reformed tradition. They were not an attempt to turn this a thread about being reformed looks like, much less into a defense of the Reformed tradition.
I sometimes wonder what they have united 'around' - other than a perceived need to keep reforming things ad infinitum.
Which may be overly flippant. I hasten to add that my dealings with URC ministers and people have always been positive and cordial.
Quite apart from that, names which were once appropriate become inappropriate because either societal norms or lexical usages have changed. Hence The Spastics Society became Scope; and the Baptist designation "Strict and Particular" conveys a different meaning to that which was originally intended. Just don't get me started on the Peculiar People!
At least they, and the URC, still have a magazine; the Baptist Union (England and Wales) no longer has, nor does the Church of Scotland.
I have a rhetorical habit of stretching a point then reining it in to a more moderate position.
I think that's what I was doing here. I refer you to my closing paragraph in my reply to Alan Cresswell that my personal interactions with the URC have always been very positive.
The TULIP reference was in relation to ultra-conservative critics of the URC.
The context of my remark should indicate that I don't share that view still less that I was accusing the entire Reformed tradition of being hyper-Calvinist TULIP types.
Yes, it's true that I wonder what continual reformation looks like and where it leads. Perhaps that's a topic for another thread.
I'd agreed with Alan that 'Reformed' was an appropriate title for the URC magazine.
Perhaps Reformanda might be a more appropriate one. That immediately distances the title from the political party, not least because it's Latin and sounds clever.
FWIW if there remains any doubt as to my good will, when Mrs Gamaliel was nearing the end of her life she asked me to read some prayers beside the bed each evening. I read Anglican ones, Orthodox, various others and she particularly appreciated some URC prayers - so I read them fairly often.
If we had our time over again I would do the same.
Congregational Church of England and Wales
Presbyterian Church of England
Churches of Christ in the UK (sorry, wrong name, but why three are so many Christ Churches in the URC)
Congregational Church of Scotland
TULIP is a sub-brand of Reformed Theology, which is broad.
Added anecdote: Steve Tomkins is Editor of Reform/Reformed.
We could start a new thread on the names of Fresh Expressions style churches. The Zone. Things like that.
Is it a hipster coffee bar? A gym? No, it's The Zone.
And I’m afraid that continuing to continue to use this rhetorical habit after having it pointed out how it can come across can make those on the receiving end of your “stretching” feel as though they’re being put on the defensive.
is the phrase used on their website, à propos of the magazine.
More seriously, yes, I can tease and use hyperbole and do so in 'real life' - only there people can see the body language and recognise when I'm engaging in banter.
That doesn't translate very well onto a screen.