November 23, 2005
Plus
One of the more ludicrous things about us churchers is the way we tack titles on ourselves. Among the silliest is “reverend.” Our lack of schooling about our own language, especially its grammar, hardly shows any more obviously than in this misplaced word.
For one thing, it’s an adjective, not a noun or a title. That means it’s a modifier designed to tell you something about a noun or maybe another adjective. What on earth we find more reverend about one of God’s children than about the next altogether escapes me.
Then, as if just one is not enough, we’ve got to have levels. Right, Very, Most for openers, and don’t forget Venerable. For some reason none of them stand alone, and all require a “the,” as if a simple “a” suggesting not the only, but merely one among many is not more than enough.
And for heaven’s sake, don’t forget the pluses and where they go. In front for bishops, in the rear for priests, naught for deacons, and then one of the more outlandish practices rearing itself of late is the ++ for archbishops. For some, read “doubleplus,” for others, “doublecross,” depending on how one reads the Windsor Report.
One final insult, of course, is the phrase “Holy Orders,” for the clergy as if the holy order of Baptism for us all is not sufficient. And don’t even get me going on “born again” after one’s already been baptised, an affront to God if there ever was one.
Perhaps H L Mencken put it best of all when he defined an archbishop as a Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Jesus.
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