That living on the edge of the culture, on the edge of the mainstream life of the more socially and religiously acceptable churches, places pressure on the Reformed to try to re-brand, or re-image ourselves, as the consultants say, so as to give potential consumers the idea that we’re what they want.

I was driving through town and I noticed the logo on a Ford truck and I was impressed by how well the artwork has held up since the 1920s. That made me think of companies that have tried to change their “brand” or image over the years, sometimes with regrettable consequences. Other companies, however, have stayed with their traditional artwork, even if it was not fashionable at a given moment. That artwork has become the fixed image of the company.

Reformed Christianity has a classic brand that has only occasionally been hip. There were a couple of moments in the 16th and 17th centuries when it might have been fashionable, in certain circles, to identify with the Reformed confession otherwise we’ve generally been on the margins.

That living on the edge of the culture, on the edge of the mainstream life of the more socially and religiously acceptable churches, places pressure on the Reformed to try to re-brand, or re-image ourselves, as the consultants say, so as to give potential consumers the idea that we’re what they want.

In the 80s there was a significant movement to re-brand Reformed and Presbyterian churches as “community” churches. Today the fad is to take on an emergent/-ing sounding name. There are several of those in my part of the world. The point of such “re-branding” is to make that which is odd seem a little less odd, to make it conform to the surrounding religious or secular culture.

There is nothing wrong with being appropriately sensitive to the surrounding culture. It is highly insensitive and even foolish for a missionary to preach in English to natives who don’t speak English. When I was a pastor in Kansas City we changed the name of our congregation from Hope Reformed to Walnut Creek Presbyterian. I don’t think that we “sold out.” People in our neighborhood were unfamiliar with the Reformed tradition. Our unscientific research told us that people were confused about what were were. In other words, our name wasn’t communicating what we were so it seemed as if Presbyterian might say something that was true that more folk could understand.

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R. Scott Clark is Professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary in California.