Titles and Honorifics
Okay. I am going to go ahead and say it. I was up this evening at 2:30 am upset about the events of last night. Right now, I am just writing to sort out my thoughts and try to make sense out of this situation.
I went to prayer meeting last night in Second Life. Among the persistent prayer requests was the pastor of a church whose congregants visit us weekly to pray. What was once thought to be stage 3 renal failure was in fact the result of a bad reaction to certain medications. So, we were all very happy to hear this person had recovered. This is a lady who took over the ministry of the church her husband previously served at before he passed. I will call her Carlotta.
She and many of the people in this church have titles attached to their names, which one can read above their heads. Senior Pastor Carlotta. The folks who come to visit also have titles along with their names, too. Senior Deaconess Desiree. Assistant Pastor Lindsay. Whatever. I generally ignore the titles and just use their first names. Which is fine. Or so I thought.
Before Carlotta came down with her illness and had to be hospitalized several months ago, she confronted me in prayer meeting about why I did not use the titles before the names. I said the answer is quite simple. You are not my pastor. I thought the matter was settled. When Carlotta returned last night, within two minutes, she started asking me in front of the group if I call my doctors “Doctor,” when I go to visit them. I could see where this was going really fast. She was trying to pin me with accusations of why I did not address her and others with these pretentious titles. I said, “No, this is wrong. How rude!” I then logged out before I could say things I could not take back.
I never expected to be chased out of my own church’s prayer meeting. I gave a little cheer “yay!” when I first arrived and saw Carlotta was attending prayer again, after being gone for over two months. One might think that her initial response might be “Thank you for your prayers and steadfastness on my behalf while I was ill.” Nope. It was to sling crap at me. I am truly hurt because I counted these folks as my friends. People who have visited our prayer meeting weekly for nearly a year now. People I had prayed for, and who had prayed for me.
There are a couple of things going on here, and some things I think may be going on behind the scenes. First, this particular group has been asked to leave more than one ministry in Second Life when they visited, for various reasons. Most often it was because they were being overbearing. They have a reputation.
Second, and I strongly object to this, Carlotta was insisting on putting words into my mouth (hers and her followers titles) in order for them to feel good about themselves. She was injecting her church's practices upon us in doing so. This is the precisely what the alphabet crowd does with pronouns. “You didn’t call me ‘they’ which is a microaggression.” It is the exact same thing, and like Jordan Peterson, I absolutely will not stand for anyone putting words into my mouth that I did not choose. I don’t care who they are.
Third, Carlotta did this in front of everyone there. This is not biblical correction. The first time one confronts another Christian, they are to speak one on one with the person they have a grief with. (Which was not done the first time, either.) The second time a Christian confronts another, they are to bring an elder with them for corroboration. This was not done last night, as well. It was a public attempt at correction and coercion, and it was wrong. Even as a teacher, I know to praise in public and correct in private. For a “pastor,” Carlotta does not seem to be following scripture in this regard. I use this word in quotations since a pastor, biblically, should be the husband of one wife.
This got me thinking. Since this accusation of “not using titles” came out at the very beginning of prayer meeting last night, I wonder if the group from this other church had a meeting ahead of time and discussed what they were going to do. In other words, I wonder if the others were in on it to set me up. If, so, this would sadden me greatly. Because it means their titles and honorifics are more important than friendship, than fellowship, than being humble, or treating others respectfully. Which is interesting in that that is what they are accusing me of being- disrespectful.
If this is true, if Carlotta decided with others to go ahead with this planned confrontation, it means that she is in sin, not just for insulting me at my own church’s prayer meeting, but also for leading others in participation of this deed.
This whole situation is absurd. I should not be writing this. I guess they cannot leave it alone. I can’t help but consider that perhaps Carlotta has been wounded in some way that keeps her from giving up her precious titles, for her and for others. It’s hers, her one, her own, her only, her precious... title. In case you are wondering, I do not respond well to being asked to compromise my internal thoughts and values. In this case, being asked to suck up to a prideful and grandiose heirarchy.
To sum it up, I think it is wrong for a church... who is visiting another church's service on that church's land, to demand that they observe the peculiarities of the visiting church's doctrine, and to question and belittle one of the host church's members.
So, this means that I should pray for Carlotta. I will. This also means that I need to examine myself, and my thoughts and actions. I need to beware lest I go down a similar road. What is my own title, my own honorific, that I cannot do without? My only answer to giving this up should be “Yes, Lord.” My prayer is that I yield myself to You in all thoughts, all things and in all ways.
