Calling Bible Things by Bible Names

"Call Bible things by Bible names." Have you ever heard that maxim before?  I grew up hearing it, mostly in reference to naming things.  Nondenominational groups of all stripes have long been against calling a minister "pastor," a word that references elders in the New Testament.  Or calling a church by a person's name instead of using a biblical name like, "The Way."

Brave and Discerning

I am listening to an amazing biography right now- Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxes.  I'll admit to being nerdly.  Nazi-era theologian and all that.  However, it has given me plenty of food for thought. 

I knew very little about the connection between the Third Reich and Christianity. It wasn't a big part of my high school history course. I certainly didn't realize that eventually a schism divided the German Protestant Church into a government sponsored church of the "Reich Church" and the "Confessing Church."  The Nazi's first religious demand was not that the Jewish religion be eliminated from society. Rather they wanted baptized Jewish believers, beginning with the clergy, to be removed from the church.  This was long before anyone guessed at concentration camps and holocausts. The church's response was to mull over if modern Germans could still accept Jews in the pew or the pulpit of their local church.  They also wondered if giving in to the government's requirements might help evangelism.