Ilkley Baptist

Here's the full text of my Open Line in last week's Baptist Times.

Drop the Reverend

You are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher,
and you are all students.
And call no one your father on earth,
for you have one Father—the one in heaven. Mt 23:8-9

So should we stop referring to ministers as 'the Reverend so-and-so?' I think so. Jesus doesn't mention the word 'Reverend,' but I think it is covered by this bit of teaching. Having just mocked the scribes and Pharisees for their love of show and public recognition, he tells his disciples that they are to be different. No one is to be given authority and a special title. “You are all students,” he tells us: I really like this phrase, and it's true – I preach as a disciple, not Jesus' deputy!

There are theological reasons as well as biblical. The Baptist understanding of the church has a wonderful, radical equality about it. We are not under the rule or teaching authority of a bishop. Jesus Christ is the only authority, and each church has the liberty to interpret his teaching – this is what our Declaration of Principle says. When we come together in worship or church meeting, the Spirit guides us and we, together, exercise the gifts of interpretation and discernment. Any one of us may lead the others, and we all need each other to know God's will. If there is a minister, she will help the congregation in its task of discernment, but need not be the one who always points the way.

Nor do we have priests. In fact some of us are allergic to the word! We cherish the priesthood of all believers. Some churches never have an ordained minister. Those that do, have pastoral vacancies between ministers. And in these times spiritual life does not stop, communion is not invalid, and the presence of God is no less tangible in the gathered congregation. We are a holy nation, we say, a kingdom of priests, and God can use the lives and ministry of any and all of us.

Paul tells us that we are the Body of Christ, and no one is superior or inferior among us. We need each other. If there is any honour to be given, it should go to the more 'modest' members. This equality of honour is fundamental to the nature of the church. We are good news because we are neither male nor female, slave nor free, but one in Christ, and we cannot be one if some of us are more than one.

I'm very happy that we teach, prepare, recognise and ordain ministers, and I fully accept that ministers have a special role within a local church. Ministers will usually be the ones who preach and preside at communion, who lead prayers and chair church meetings. They will often lead the church, and may be prophetic, but they do not speak with the guaranteed voice of truth, nor are they the representative of God. It is the task of the whole church to seek to do this, and the minister's job to enable it as best he can. So why do we call ministers Reverend?

I think the main reason is to prove that we're no less worthy than our colleagues in other denominations. Our church may not have a spire, but the minister is a proper one! But if it's all about respect and keeping up with the church down the road, perhaps we should look a bit further, because it doesn't stop at Reverend. In other denominations you can find 'higher' grades of clergy with more exalted titles: the Right Reverend, the Very Reverend, the Most Reverend, could there even be a “More Reverend than Thou” somewhere?

This is a game about status and we should not play it. If we're really anxious about comparisons with other denominations and fear they will say we lack Apostolic Succession, a proper priesthood or true sacraments, our answer should be to point to the people of God, not the minister. The use of 'Reverend,' actually demotes the local church.

'Reverend' is divisive within the church, it detracts from the Baptist understanding of the church, and it's quaint, a bit of 17th Century piety that contemporary mission could well do without. Non-conformists have only been legally entitled to the term since 1876. Let's go back to some deeper roots.

Charles Wesley wrote 'Love, like death, hath all destroyed, rendered all distinctions void; names and sects and parties fall ..'

.. and we should drop the Reverend.