You don't need to be paying close attention to the news to know that there is a renaming movement going on. Schools, roads, sports teams, military bases, buildings, bridges, and much more are being stripped of the names they had and given new names. The old names are no longer worthy. Times have changed. It's time to move on and honor new people, new movements, new causes. Along with this, monuments and statues have also been removed from public display and relegated to the trash heap of history.

This movement has also influenced some churches, who have renamed themselves by adopting a catchy and relatable name and removing their denominational label. So a church that was perhaps once named St Paul Lutheran Church in honor of the great apostle and marking the confessional identity of the church as Lutheran, may now be called The Edge, or some such name. It's not that the names St Paul or Lutheran are unworthy, we're told. Just that people no longer know what they mean.

So what to make of all this renaming? Maybe some of it is understandable and justifiable, perhaps good. But perhaps we are also being swept up in a movement that is trying to purify us from our past by cutting us free from it, and with the thinking that we are better now than they were then. So rather than learning from the past and the mistakes that were then made, we denigrate it, turn our backs to it, and (arrogantly?) assume that we are superior and free from taint with the names we now give. I wonder how we will be judged by those who live 100 years from now, if Jesus does not return by then!

Renaming is not a new thing. Women take the names of their husbands to mark this new beginning in their lives, the forming of a new family. And when we are baptized, we are given a new name, the name of Christian, as we are reborn into the family of God. But these, it seems to me, are renamings of a different sort - not to escape the past, but marking the beginning of something new. This is especially true with the name Christian, for rather than trying to purify ourselves from an unchristian past, this name proclaims that we are purified by Jesus the Christ and what He did for us. It is a name not indicating superiority, but that we are poor, miserable sinners in need of a Saviour - a Saviour we have in Jesus the Christ. So with this name we are not escaping the past but exactly the opposite - attaching ourselves to it! Attaching ourselves to the one who joined Himself to us in our death with His crucifixion, so we could join Him in His life by His resurrection.

The name Lutheran also attaches us to the past, to history, and maybe that history is not all good. But rather than cut ourselves off from that history by jettisoning the name, we can learn from it. The name Lutheran on a church indicates (or should!) the confession of faith that is proclaimed there. We do not worship the man named Luther, and some of what he said and did may not be praiseworthy. We freely admit that! Luther was a sinner just like the rest of us! But God also used him in a powerful way, and the proclamation of the Gospel that rang forth from the churches named Lutheran still rings forth today in our so-named churches. Because the truth doesn't change, the Scriptures don't change, the Gospel doesn't change. The name Lutheran indicates what you will hear in this church. What will you hear in a church named The Edge?

Interestingly, the name Lutheran was something Luther never wanted. He never wanted to rename the Church of Jesus - it should bear His name, Luther thought! Lutheran was a slur by Luther's opponents toward the churches that confessed the Gospel as Luther did. It wasn't meant to be a good name. So should we rename our church? Get rid of the name? Or should we live the name, in the truth we preach, the liturgy we use, and the life we live together? That seems to me the better way. What do you think?

His servant and yours,

          Pastor Douthwaite

Next issue: The name Saint Athanasius.