What's in a name?

Barbara June Taylor Minton
Barbara = mother's best friend at the time of my birth
June = mother's older sister
Taylor = my daddy's family name
Minton = my husband's family name

So who am I?  
In the first and second grades there were three students named Barbara.  One became Barbara; the other, Barbara Jane; and I became June.  The only time in my life that I went by that name.  

At home I was Barbara... unless I was not responding, then I was Barbara June, spoken emphatically.  Now and then Mama Brown called me Barber-June, the names run together, spoken with affection, usually with the invitation to sit on her lap. I loved hearing my name on her lips.  

Those were my official family names... until my younger brother and sister came on the scene.  I was 10 when she was born and 12 when he arrived.  As I remember it, he was the one who began to call me Sit... and it stuck.  So Terry and Brenda began the tradition ...and I became Sit.  Now, I am Aunt Sit to another generation and to extended cousins... and I love it!  Because the name was given with love... a little brother's genuine attempt to call me his sister... and I adored him for it.  To this day I cherish the name.

Decades past and I was always Barbara.  Period.  That is, until I went to seminary as a middle-aged woman. On campus and in the church we attended in Wilmore, KY people kept wanting to call me Barb.  That took me by surprise!  Except for my brother, no one had ever tried to give me a nickname, but on the campus of Asbury Theological Seminary and at the United Methodist Church where we worshiped, people kept calling me Barb... and, as I remember it, I did not usually speak up to say, "My name is Barbara."  I just let them rename me and allowed the aggravation to settle in my heart without thinking a lot about it.

 A few years later, while studying at Lexington Theological Seminary, in Lexington, KY, I first heard of the feminist theology of naming and as I remember it, it made sense.  Naming gives you the power. Parents name their children.  In traditional marriage the man gives the woman his name. Adam named the animals and Adam named Eve!  God often gave new names to men and women when they reached a new stage of life.  Abram became Abraham and Sarai became Sarah.  ...all examples of the powerful or dominant one naming the less powerful submissive one.  Maybe that explained the occasional aggravation I felt on the other campus when they renamed me.
  
However, this new insight became one of those insignificant bits of trivia picked up in seminary--not really applicable to me since I willingly took my husband's name and by this time in our marriage we had developed an egalitarian partnership based on Ephesians 5:21, "Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ."  Mutual submission best defined our relationship so the theology of naming remained insignificant trivia until recently. 

One major aspect of bullying is to call someone a derogatory name!  That bit of insignificant trivia picked up in seminary began to worm its way back into my thoughts.  The powerful (or the one wanting to gain power) renamed the less powerful!  In bullying naming become a weapon! A tool to demean and to define, to slander and ridicule.  The power of naming took on a very different meaning to me, a very negative meaning.  In response to this insight I purposed to accept people by their self-definition.  I purposed to respect the name and description a person gave me of themselves.  I would refrain from labeling unless they labeled themselves.  That was the least I could do to show my respect for people.

 In the last few years (now that my sensitivity to naming has been activated) I see renaming at every turn.  Two examples:  We have the Affordable Care Act renamed Obamacare.  To me the term "Obamacare" was a word especially created to demonstrate disrespect for the President and for the law.  Perhaps because of the way I heard it spoken by the opponents of the Affordable Care Act, I refused to use the term in my conversations about the subject.

Even after the President embraced the term and said he heard it saying "Obama Cares," I still refused to use it because I detested the intent of its origin. With reflection, I reasoned through the President's embrace of the term.  To thwart the bully's power, embrace the derogatory language and redeem it, if you can.  Later surveys would show that the majority of the people disliked Obamacare, but the same people liked provisions of the Affordable Care Act and hoped it would pass into law!   So maybe Shakespeare was wrong!   An Act by any other name doesn't smell as sweet! There is something in a name!  People can be brainwashed!

The second example came more recently.  In a facebook conversation one of my conservative friends (self-definition) complained because CNN had started to refer to the New Jersey bridge closure, an attempt to throw a bad light on Governor Christy, as Bridgegate.  My friend heard the term as derogatory.  I immediately agreed.  Words especially created to demean someone are disrespectful and juvenile.  I went on to say that I had not liked it when I heard Obamacare used in a disparaging manner and I don't like it when I hear Bridgegate used in a similar way!  (In fact, I don't like the habit of adding 'gate' to any word to describe a scandal, but I digress.)   

So, what's in a name?  Lots.  And the more I think about it, the more I see this present trend of disrespect as another sign of our deteriorating society that is spinning out of control. Clever disrespect takes the upper-hand and we feel justified to redefine and demean people, labeling them so that we don't have to really get to know them.  We are put-off by what we assume they believe and are usually deaf to their story.  Clever disrespect takes the upper-hand, is modeled in the news broadcasts, and, too often, practiced in our conversations on facebook.  Seems we all fail to realize how destructive disrespect is to true community and civil society.  

Now, here I become Pastor Barbara and say to those of us who claim to follow Jesus, "Doesn't Jesus call us to demonstrate mutual respect?  Doesn't he ask us to nurture community?  Remember, in Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free; neither Democrat nor Republican, conservative nor liberal!  We are all one in Christ."   
Encourage one another to remember that reality.