Surnames and Sectarianism

[Ernie]

Such “generic names” are indeed indicative of denominational choices, though. It seems better to simply be upfront about what you are.

All of us consider ourselves Anabaptist. But putting that in the name of our church is undesirable for a variety of reasons.
1. "Anabaptist" has no meaning and even a confused meaning to anyone not familiar with it.
2. Very few of us have been rebaptized.
3. A few have no connection to Anabaptists or aren't happy to be identified with the wings of Anabaptism today that do not represent what was commonly understood by Anabaptists in the 16th century.

[Josh]

Such “generic names” are indeed indicative of denominational choices, though. It seems better to simply be upfront about what you are.

All of us consider ourselves Anabaptist. But putting that in the name of our church is undesirable for a variety of reasons.
1. "Anabaptist" has no meaning and even a confused meaning to anyone not familiar with it.
2. Very few of us have been rebaptized.
3. A few have no connection to Anabaptists or aren't happy to be identified with the wings of Anabaptism today that do not represent what was commonly understood by Anabaptists in the 16th century.

A good place to start with is what other people think you are. Chances are most of them think you are Mennonites or Amish.

[Ernie]

Such “generic names” are indeed indicative of denominational choices, though. It seems better to simply be upfront about what you are.

All of us consider ourselves Anabaptist. But putting that in the name of our church is undesirable for a variety of reasons.
1. "Anabaptist" has no meaning and even a confused meaning to anyone not familiar with it.
2. Very few of us have been rebaptized.
3. A few have no connection to Anabaptists or aren't happy to be identified with the wings of Anabaptism today that do not represent what was commonly understood by Anabaptists in the 16th century.

A good place to start with is what other people think you are. Chances are most of them think you are Mennonites or Amish.

But not all of us were Mennonites or Amish, as I said earlier. Why should we adopt a name that does not describe us as a group?

[HondurasKeiser]

All of us consider ourselves Anabaptist. But putting that in the name of our church is undesirable for a variety of reasons.
1. "Anabaptist" has no meaning and even a confused meaning to anyone not familiar with it.
2. Very few of us have been rebaptized.
3. A few have no connection to Anabaptists or aren't happy to be identified with the wings of Anabaptism today that do not represent what was commonly understood by Anabaptists in the 16th century.

A good place to start with is what other people think you are. Chances are most of them think you are Mennonites or Amish.

But not all of us were Mennonites or Amish, as I said earlier. Why should we adopt a name that does not describe us as a group?

Because a group is more than the sum of its disparate parts. The name of the group implies a cohesive vision and belief structure and it doesn’t nor should it take into account every idiosyncratic and esoteric background of its various members. People join groups to leave old identities behind. That was my experience growing up. Our group was 50 percent ethnic Mennonite and some BIC and the other 50 percent ran the gamut from former Catholic to former Wiccan. The non-ethnic Mennos in our group joined because they were drawn to Mennonite beliefs and had no desire to see their particular theological backgrounds represented in something like the name of the church.

Curiously, it was always the ethnic Mennos that pushed for a potential dropping of the Mennonite name on our sign out front and a dropping of certain Mennonite traditions; whilst it was usually the non-ethnic members that wanted to hold the line.

I honestly tire of this constant refrain in so many Mennonite and Brethren circles of the need to drop the Menno/Brethren name, identity, distinctive. It strikes me as cloying, sad and market-driven. Be who you are - lean into it. How can you expect anyone to care about, much less join, your particular tradition/group/theology if it’s clear you have an identity crisis and are actively sawing yourself off from your roots?

[Ken]

A good place to start with is what other people think you are. Chances are most of them think you are Mennonites or Amish.

But not all of us were Mennonites or Amish, as I said earlier. Why should we adopt a name that does not describe us as a group?

Because a group is more than the sum of its disparate parts. The name of the group implies a cohesive vision and belief structure and it doesn’t nor should it take into account every idiosyncratic and esoteric background of its various members. People join groups to leave old identities behind. That was my experience growing up. Our group was 50 percent ethnic Mennonite and some BIC and the other 50 percent ran the gamut from former Catholic to former Wiccan. The non-ethnic Mennos in our group joined because they were drawn to Mennonite beliefs and had no desire to see their particular theological backgrounds represented in something like the name of the church.

Curiously, it was always the ethnic Mennos that pushed for a potential dropping of the Mennonite name on our sign out front and a dropping of certain Mennonite traditions; whilst it was usually the non-ethnic members that wanted to hold the line.

I honestly tire of this constant refrain in so many Mennonite and Brethren circles of the need to drop the Menno/Brethren name, identity, distinctive. It strikes me as cloying, sad and market-driven. Be who you are - lean into it. How can you expect anyone to care about, much less join, your particular tradition/group/theology if it’s clear you have an identity crisis and are actively sawing yourself off from your roots?

It is no different in the rest of the Protestant realm.

Baptist churches right and left are dropping the Baptist or Southern Baptist name.

For example, Rick Warren's Saddleback church in CA used to be the Saddleback Baptist Church

And Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston used to be Lakewood Baptist Church.

Around here the biggest local Baptist churches have mostly dropped the name, at least in the suburbs. The older rural churches still keep it.

[ohio jones]

In that case. Why does your church need a name at all?

We were incognito for a while. The sign was removed during a construction project and nobody bothered to put it back up for a few years (there's a new one now). It bugged me, but apparently not everyone. We all knew what the building was, most of the locals could direct you to the Mennonite Church, and it's labeled on Google Maps for those trying to find us.

What we didn't do was change the name to a generic "stealth" name that roped people in and then they found out, perhaps months later, that hey, this is actually a Mennonite church. There would have been clues for those alert to the taxonomy of churches, but not everyone is.

[RZehr]

There does seem to be a long standing tradition in the conservative Beachy circles of leaving the name Mennonite off the sign, while also acknowledging themselves alto be Mennonite to those who ask.
I think they have been doing it for enough decades and have demonstrated enough stability, to be considered separate from the typical church identity re-branding efforts. These groups seem to embrace the rest of the Mennonite identity and are not casting about for a new one.

The way I’ve come to terms with being called after a man’s name, is to think of it only as an ethnic identity, in the same manner as Sacramento Glory Korean Church.

[Ernie]

There does seem to be a long standing tradition in the conservative Beachy circles of leaving the name Mennonite off the sign, while also acknowledging themselves alto be Mennonite to those who ask.
I think they have been doing it for enough decades and have demonstrated enough stability, to be considered separate from the typical church identity re-branding efforts. These groups seem to embrace the rest of the Mennonite identity and are not casting about for a new one.

I agree. There are many Beachy churches who will continue to be Mennonite (despite not having the word as part of their church name) for many decades into the future.

But I also agree with Josh that many Beachy churches are drifting/transitioning in the direction of not wanting to identify as Mennonite as some point in the future.

With the invention of the internet, it is very easy to identify as Anabaptist or Mennonite or Brethren and what that means to the church, without including it in the name of the church. Those who really care about the identity will read the website. Those unfamiliar with Christianity won't really care what name, and they will care more about the people at the church and how the people at the church treat them.

[barnhart]

...Those unfamiliar with Christianity won't really care what name, and they will care more about the people at the church and how the people at the church treat them.

This is true.

[Soloist]

When we went looking for a conservative church to help us with our new convictions we ended up looking at Quakers, then Apostolic and Mennonite.
Eventually we ended with conservative Mennonite but it was hard finding one that was conservative.
Finding a group with historical Mennonite convictions or at least closer is much easier if the name includes that historical legacy.
We never would have gone to Payette church. Payette Mennonite church on the other hand, we would have tried.

Basically, there are two steps to finding a church as a seeker. Doctrine, then conservative liberal split. Its easy to find tons of liberal Mennonites, its hard finding conservative Mennonites. Remove the name... and I doubt we would have found it. We would have ended up looking elsewhere.

On the flip side, my wife hates identifying as a Mennonite or being mistaken for Amish. I just personally feel it cuts down on the 20 questions that come out when we claim to just be "Christians" leaving a frustrating experience for the questioner. Yeah, they just want to be able to place you in a box, but are we going to be difficult just to stand on a small principle? We could do the same by saying "yeah we are Christians and attend a conservative Mennonite church" Or "my belief is Christian, my practice is Conservative Mennonite, and my heritage is American"

Contrast this with the "One Faith, One Body" group, "denominations are bad, we are Christians" Its downright hypocritical to condemn denominations and extrabiblical rules while maintaining extrabiblical rules you insist are Biblical.
I do appreciate people there, but the heavy anti-Mennonite/Amish is too much for me.