I’m of two minds when it comes to the names that organizations choose for themselves. On one side, I do love being specific. Take our congregation, the MacGregor Evangelical Mennonite Church (MEMC). That is near as specific as you can get for a Christian congregation without crossing over into ridiculous levels of adjective usage. From that name, without ever entering our doors you know that: a) we are in MacGregor, b) we believe that a large part of what we are called to as Christians is to be evangelical in our outlook (that is share the good news of the gospel and live out Christ’s teachings as widely outside our walls as we can), c) we are Mennonite in our beliefs (we believe the Christ teaches us to be non-violent, community-focused, to practice adult baptism, etc.), and d) we are a church. There is a lot of value in having a name as descriptive as that. It helps other Christians know what you believe quickly and as such aids in cross congregational work. It allows non-churched people who may be interested to get a decent handle on what the church holds to with just a handful of google searches. I truly believe there is inherent value in an organization having a good and descriptive name.

However, while I do love to be specific, there is another side to my thoughts as well. A side that recognizes that words shift in popular meaning over time and as such using them in the old way can come to be an issue. Words are slippery things, that come to take on different meanings than the ones they originally had. This happens for numerous reasons, but that it happens I don’t think anyone would contest. Just take the word “gay” as an example. In the early years of my life even, it wouldn’t have been odd for that word to still be used to mean “joyous” or “happy.” It was likely decades before that since that understanding was its main definition, though.

A number of years back, throughout much of the EMC conference, a heated debate arose over exactly this tension, between the standard definition of a word and its popular understanding. I was not at MEMC at that time, but I am told the discussion took place here as well. The word that was proving to be of issue then was “Mennonite”. in EMC usage, the word has always straddled the line between its theological meaning which I mentioned above and its use as a name for a people group; like Russian or Irish. To simplify a long argument, the case for replacing the word in the name of the conference went that many people outside the church think of the word “Mennonite” only in terms of a people group, and as such, it served to actively prevent non-Mennonites from joining any church that used it as part of their name. It encumbered the evangelical mission of the church to use the word because non-Mennonites would assume a church with that word in its name was a church only for people of that people group, and as such, it was not a place for them. As a result of this discussion, a number of churches did change their name. Talking to several of the pastors who were part of these discussions in their own congregations, the deciding factor to make the change was largely how the word was used by the people in the communities they served. In a number of the areas where the usage of Mennonite was going to be a problem, the church name changed. In others where it was not as much of an issue, the name stayed the same.

I suspect across the church in Canada and the US, a new version of this same debate is going to rear its head soon. Truth be told, in a number of churches that I know even, this discussion is already long underway. This time, however, the issue is with a different letter that can be found in our name; the “E”; “evangelical.” This word to many across the continent is already near a curse. The reason for this disdain is not largely because of the actual meaning of the word as we understand it theologically (see above), but instead, because of the popular definition that it has come to take on. Where once it was a word that was namely about definition of beliefs, “evangelical” has in recent years come to refer instead to a type of people. People who are loud, preachy and political. People who are likely to use their beliefs as a weapon to beat those they disagree with over the head. People who are quick to speak up when they feel they are being stepped on, even if they are not by any reasonable definition of the word. A people who are superstitious, opposed to all things scientific and who claim on one side to care for others but who then do all that they can to put themselves above everyone else, all the same.

Are these understandings of the word “evangelical” fair and accurate? I personally don’t think so. By my reckoning saying “Evangelicals are all like this…” and then listing off all those descriptors is pretty much the definition of stereotyping that we are taught to avoid already in elementary school. I will not deny there have been some bad examples tarnishing the word over the last while, but to say all Evangelicals are like this because a few loud voices are, is simplistic at best because it doesn’t bother to understand the full scope of the size of the church that would describe itself in this way. Nevertheless, is this unfortunate list of negative descriptions the popular definition of Evangelical that exists in much of North America today? I would have to say by my experience, it is. Also, is this negative popular understanding of what Evangelicals are keeping new people from turning to the church? Lately, I have strongly come to suspect the answer to this question is “yes” as well.

So where to from here? Should all churches with Evangelical in their name drop it in a bid to not scare away new converts? Should MacGregor EMC switch to becoming MacGregor MC, or possibly just MacGregor C? To that question, despite my understanding of how the word Evangelical has come to be popularly understood across the continent, I would still air on the side of no. As I said at the beginning of this post, I think there is value in a name that is an accurate description of an institution. A name that when you read it, you know what that organization believes and what its mission is. The name "MacGregor EMC” I think still serves that purpose well. I think this because my feeling of our town is that the word “evangelical” has not taken on a lot of its negative popular meanings here, as of yet. This is because our town is small, non-churchgoing people bump elbows with members from both our and other area evangelical congregations all the time and as such can see that we are far from the negative popular understanding that many others have come to associate with that word. In other parts of the continent where there are people who may not bump into evangelicals all the time, their understanding of the term is likely to be much different than the one I am pretty sure still exists here.

However, it is possible that the day will come when this discussion of dropping the “E” needs to happen here as well. And when it does, the thing to keep in mind is that the word “Evangelical,” is supposed to be a description of who we are, not the thing that is sacred in its own right. We are not called to spread the good news of Evangelicalism, but instead, we are called to spread the good news of who Jesus Christ is and what he has done. When the day comes that we find our mission to do just that hampered by the popular understanding of a word, a definition that we don’t even intend when we use the word in regard to ourselves, then I ask you, why hold on to it? Why make the gospel more offensive than it needs to be?

However, maybe you disagree with me. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.