I’m opening this thread in IMHO rather than GD because I don’t want to get into another “Atheism roolz, Xtianity droolz” discussion. Okay?
For a freelance assignment I’ve been working on recently, I’ve had occasion to interview a number of local pastors of pentecostal, evangelical, and fundamentalist churches. No less than five of them–all black men pastoring fairly small (i.e.,fewer than 100 members) and non-denominational churches, use Apostle as their official title. Two of the five were the founding pastors of their churches.
I’m pretty much an atheist nowadays (though I’ll confess to a reverence for Athena). But I was raised Christian, specifically in the Pentecostal tradition, and to me this styling seems odd, and perhaps presumpuous. I’ve always thought of Apostle as being a very specific and limited term–referring only to the eleven members of Jesus’s inner circle who were alive and faithful after his resurrection, plus Matthias. Moreover, one might add persons at St. Patrick, called the Apostle of Ireland because of his legendary evangelism on the Emerald Isle. For a modern minister to arrogate such a title unto himself seems, well, hubristic to me. I can’t imagine such a thing happening when I was young.
Hmmm. Atheist here, but was raised a Southern Baptist (plenty fundamentalist, IOW). Yeah, that usage would offend me, but it’s a difference between capital-A “Apostle” or just plain ol’ “apostle”. The lower-case version is just a vocabulary word to me, merely synonymous with “disciple” or “follower”. Big-A “Apostle”, on the other hand, is a title which is assigned, not one which is taken upon oneself.
Isn’t Paul considered an Apostle? I think he is. Sometimes, at least. But he was personally called in a blaze of glory by Jesus himself so I can’t complain either way.
A pastor calling himself an “Apostle” doesn’t really offend me but it makes me roll my eyes. The original meaning of the word is something like “one who is sent out” and I suppose you could argue that you’ve been sent out by God to preach the Word but it still sounds presumptuous to me.
So, no… not offended but a little off-putting, I guess.
For the demographics, I’m a Catholic (although not a very observant one).
I don’t mind your answering, O Eater of Men. Probably I should have written “Persons raised Xtian, whether currently believing or not, so long as you are not reflexively inclined to think Xtians are sexist egotistical lying hypocritical bigots,” but thread titles can only be so long.
In the spirit oftghe above, probably I should have written “offend, vex, or pre-emptively discredit.”
Paul called himself an apostle, but was very defensive about it, and it’s clear from his writing that the title, during that time, was only used to refer to the original, direct disciples of Jesus. Paul justified giving himself the title because he believed he had had direct interactions with Christ, but the tenor of his writing shows that this was not something a lot of early Christians readily accepted and (reading between the lines), that it was not a self-promotion that the original disciples were in love with themselves.
Whether it’s offensive to Christians for modern pastors to do it, I don’t know. Biblically speaking, it denotes a person who has had direct communication – direct orders – from Jesus (preferably in physical person). I suppose the connotation could be stretched to imply a feeling of personal calling or mission, even revelation, but it tends to water down the original implications, which carried a special, literally divine, authority of mission and message which it would seem a little presumptuous to bestow on one’s self. The fact that people thought it was even presumptuous for Paul shows how special the title originally was.
As a lifelong United Methodist, offend is not the right word.
Pre-emptively discredit? Yeah, I could go for that one, though I feel bad for saying so, because really just because some church doesn’t do things the way the church I grew up in doesn’t make it wrong. The church I grew up in was a Lutheran-Influenced Methodist Church.
When you add in the description from the OP
Let’s face it-- I have a distinct bias towards churches which are not that small, not non-denominational, and not run by the founding pastors. The church I attend now is the only Methodist one I’ve attended regularly where the founding pastor is not long deceased.
I recognize that there can be systemic flaws in a church with as much hierarchy and structure as the United Methodist Church has. But it’s still my comfort zone.
Yeah, traditionally, apostles were the direct followers of Jesus - the twelve disciples and Paul (who had a post-resurrection encounter with Jesus). But the broader meaning encompasses messengers/disciples of Jesus in general. So I find it a little grandiose but not offensive.
As others have mentioned, catholic traditions (including the Eastern churches, Rome, Anglicanism, etc) have bishops who are considered successors to the apostles through the laying on of hands over the generations.
It doesn’t offend me, but it marks the users as someone with a huge ego and not to be trusted. The Apostles with a capital A are the eleven and Paul. I do not know this Matthias of whom you speak, I will shortly google. All Christians are apostles, and some posts are traditionally considered part of the Apostolic succession, most famously, the Pope is the successor of Saint Peter and holds his Apostolic office. All believers are also saints, with a small s. Protestants do not venerate any saints, small s or big s, but out of sloppiness will call the biggies Saint Peter, etc. Saint is not a Protestant title in most Protestant traditions.
“Many Charismatic churches consider apostleship to be a gift of the Holy Spirit still given today (based on 1 Cor. 12:28 and Ephesians 4:11).”
“Since the 1990’s there has also been a move among mainstream Pentecostal churches to accept and understand that there are apostles in today’s Church. Sometimes this is referred to as The Restoration of Apostles.”
So clearly there are those who do not see apostleship as limited to the narrow historical concept. Within this framework, I don’t see it as necessarily presumptuous for one to consider himself an Apostle. It may be based on a sincere belief in the nature of his calling, and consistent with the beliefs of his faith community.
ETA: In the movie “The Apostle,” Robert Duvall plays a preacher who considered himself an Apostle, pretty much in the sense referenced above.
I would not be offended, but it implies to me a type of fundamentalist Bible-banger that I know I would probably have very little in common with. If in fact it were a custom associated with black churches, I might be more likely to ascribe it to cultural differences and to be, even in my head, more respectful of it on that basis (ie., as a cultural difference that I, as a clueless which person, just don’t understand). But I still would have the same basic takeaway, which is that they and I are probably not on the same page, speaking in terms of worship. As a Christian, I know we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, but I’ve also been in the family long enough to know you have more in common with some siblings than with others.
ETA: I feel the same way about, say, the question “Are you washed in the Blood or just in the water?” implying as it does a difference in baptism between the born-again and mainstream Christianity. It doesn’t offend me but it indicates a belief or worshp practice that is not consistent to those I personally ascribe to, and therefore comes across as more “separating” than “uniting” of me to them, within the framework of Christianity. If that makes any sense.
