Five reasons why Protestants ministers should wear clerical collars

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Five reasons why Protestants ministers should wear clerical collars

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You can say what you want, but you won't around me. Black sheep among misfits.
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You can say what you want, but you won't around me. You can say what you want. You can say what you...
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Reformed, I'm just another Baptist. Baptized again. The bastard child of Anabaptist.
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Host to child of Reformation society. We don't need your education. Give me a
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Bible and a bookshelf of dead men. Cigars, bourbons, and beer cans. Bow ties, tattoos, and bearded men.
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Making Reformation great again. You can say what you want. You can say what you want, but you won't around me.
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You can say what you want. You can say what you want, but you won't around me.
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No, you won't around me. Ladies and gentlemen, we are live.
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Welcome to Open Air Theology. My name is Jeff. I'm one of the pastors of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church.
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We meet here in Tallahoma, Tennessee. If you're ever in the area, we would love to have you come and be a part of us.
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If you live in this area, please come and be a part of us. We would love nothing more than to fellowship with you, share life with you, experience life with you.
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I'm here. We've got a short conversation. I'm here with my good buddy,
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Brayden. Are you able to speak right now? Yeah. Thanks for having me tonight, Jeff. Pastor Brayden of Valley Baptist Church in Hagerman, Idaho.
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Just blessed to be out there. Blessed to worship God. Blessed to preach Christ crucified. Very thankful to be a part of this podcast,
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Open Air Theology. Looking forward to February for the conference. If you're ever, you need to be there or be square.
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Like I said before, I don't think you're really Reformed or you're not even really a Baptist if you don't come. I also have a
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YouTube channel called Reformed Ex -Mormon, which I'd love for people to go check out as well. Yeah. So let's talk about the conference for a second.
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So the conference, we changed the title. So it's not going to be on the book of Hebrews. It's going to be more of a conference style, topical.
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We're going to be digging into shadows of the Old Testament and what they point to in the
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New Testament. So it's going to be called From Shadows to Substance. And we got a bunch of great speakers.
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One very popular speaker, Dr. James White, and then a bunch of unknown people like myself and Brayden.
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And I tell people all the time, the majority of preachers that I listen to, no one knows really.
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Right. I don't listen to a lot of big name men. I listen to, you know,
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I listen to Brayden and I listen to John Crawford and I listen.
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You know, there's a Claude and Habs and all these other guys. I listen to them throughout the week.
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And and I've been telling my congregation, like, listen, these guys are going to come and they're going to preach me under the pulpit.
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Right. So. So the one thing I think of as Christian ministers is, you know, preaching is not a competition.
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Right. It's not a competition. I have a lot of things against me. I have a stutter problem, as you all know, and I'm dyslexic.
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I do what I can do. Right. And and I and I attempt to do so faithfully.
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But I am excited to have these wonderful brothers to come and get into a pulpit that I call home and to share that with them and for my congregation to experience them.
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And we're also going to be having a debate. James White is going to be debating Thomas Ross, who is a worthy opponent.
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And Thomas Ross, the debate is going to be basically the
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LSB Bible. So the LSB is what I've switched to the LSB versus the
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KJV. And they're going to be talking about which Bible is superior.
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So that'll be fun. And what do you think? Man, I'm so stoked.
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LSB versus King James Version. That's going to be, I would just come to listen to that.
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And so it's going to be awesome. So this Sunday, actually, at church, I have Haps, who's not here with us tonight because he's visiting family, but he's visiting family in Idaho.
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So he's going to come and preach for me on Sunday. And so I'm super excited to sit underneath his preaching this Sunday. Yeah. And I'm super stoked to sit under yourself and other people preaching in February.
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Like that truly is going to be a blessing for myself. And yeah, LSB versus King James Version shadows leading to the substance.
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And then Sunday, you're going to be teaching Sunday school on Mormonism. Dr. James White will be preaching the service.
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So we're going to have a lot of things going on that week, the week of February from the conference will be from the 16th to the 18th.
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But of course, that Lord's Day, anyone that comes is welcome to stay for that as well.
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So before I got on here, Brayden told me he was going to debate me tonight on clerical collars.
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He was supposed to be wearing his black robe. Yeah, yeah. I forgot it at home, though. So my my my position is if you're going to go partly that way, you need to go the full way and don't don't don't half step it.
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Yes. So to to start tonight's conversation discussion,
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I wrote down five reasons why Protestant ministers should wear the clerical collar.
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And I would be interested in if you have other reasons, other views, other reasons, please contact me and let me know.
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Help me add to this list. That would be great. Maybe we can do another video about it in the future.
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We can say, hey, we got 20 reasons why. Right. But off the top of your head,
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I mean, what's your thoughts on it? Brayden? Yeah. So just adds up my my am on my phone.
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I just got a little battery notification. So it's at 20 percent. So I'm also at work. So if I have to if I have to leave all of a sudden, it's because I'm up to up to stuff and whatnot.
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So, you know, so my opinion on it is that, you know, I think we're going to dive into it a little bit more in a little bit.
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I personally would be more than happy and willing to wear a clerical collar to the hospital or in my workplace, even doing doing things that are identifiably in that way, where in my congregation.
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I think it might be a little bit not not of a stumbling block by any means, because it's not causing someone to sin.
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But I mean, even the word catechism and saying that we're catechizing our children, some people take that just as Catholic right then and there.
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Right. Which they just don't know the definition and the meaning of that term. Right. And so it's a little bit of of here issue, a little bit of of their problem for assuming those things.
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And so my my thing is, is that I. I, I feel like the amount of times
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I would have to talk to somebody to explain why I wear a clerical collar isn't.
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It wouldn't it wouldn't be justifiable, in my opinion, to have that conversation every single
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Sunday, because I know I would have that conversation every single Sunday just because people would always be asking me about it.
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Because I don't know if everybody that's watching this can tell. But right now, Jeff is wearing one.
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But it's because you've got a beard on, so you're only 10 percent of the time where people are going to see it, Jeff. Yeah, I would be seeing it all the time.
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But here's the thing. If I was standing up and this camera was a little higher, see the camera's kind of pointing in such a way where it doesn't show it good.
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If we were standing up in casual conversation, you would see it plainly because I'm having to kind of like look down so that the camera is kind of it's kind of right here at my chin and I'm having to look down at you.
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So it's keeping it. I mean, if I was looking straight in front of me, I got you. So that's straight in front of me.
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And I won't lie. I think that they they look like there's there's a look to them that I really, really like.
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And that's where I'm saying I wouldn't be opposed to like in my work, wearing it in in in that position, wearing it, even going and visiting somebody in the hospital.
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I wouldn't have an issue with myself doing that. I just feel like the amount of times like like let me give you an example.
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Right. So I love and this might be because just I was raised. I love white collared shirts.
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Love them. I think that a guy looks good wearing that in a suit. However, I probably won't wear that around people that either are very heavily influenced by LDS or are part of the
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LDS just because I I already have a hard enough issue right now where people think
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I'm LDS just because I look LDS. That's why I grow the mustache. That's why
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I grow the mustache. And so part of it's just to avoid confusion. Part of it's to avoid just the continual questioning on that.
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And so I do wear a white collar and I wear it often, but I probably wouldn't go and wear it to the temple.
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So are you saying you can take someone out of the LDS, but you can't take the look of the
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LDS out of the person? That's fact. That's a fact. And I'm trying my dang hardest right now and it doesn't work.
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All right. So I have five reasons. Again, five reasons why a
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Protestant minister should wear the clerical collar. Reason number one, it's not
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Roman Catholic. Now, each one of my reasons are going to have to do with identity.
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That would be the connecting factor to each one of my reasons. And the identity here is, is that we have, you know, the uneducated us have identified it with Catholicism, but it wasn't always so.
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Now, depending on who you read on this, they're going to say different things.
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But from what I understand is that the clerical collars were first worn by Presbyterians, Anglicans, also
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Catholics, but Lutherans and even Baptists in early church history.
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Okay. So it's not just Catholic. Now, the reason why a lot of people believe that it's, it's
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Catholic priest is because a lot of movies have been done where the
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Catholic church and priests and they wear the collars. And so they assume that this is where it started, but that was not always so.
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So there's a great tradition out there. If you study, that it's not just a
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Roman Catholic. A Presbyterian minister started, and from my study, now
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I've read other things too, but from what I can tell, a Presbyterian, a
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Lutheran minister, you would even say a Presbyterian started it. Lutherans wear it,
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Anglicans wear it, Methodists wear it, even some Baptists back in the days wore them.
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So it's not just Roman Catholic. We need to, to lose that identity.
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We need to stop connecting these to Rome and connect these to church history.
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Reason number two. Do you have anything you want to add to that? I was just going to say, I think you just made an argument for why a
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Baptist should wear ties because Presbyterians are just sprinkling a little bit on the neck. The Baptist is doing the full submerging of the tie that's draped down.
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I'm just kidding. All right. Reason number two.
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By doing so, by wearing the collar, we identify ourselves with Christian ministers throughout church history.
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Now I'm really saying this to Baptists right now. In Baptist culture.
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Now, right now I'm speaking to the independent fundamental. You see what
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I'm saying? Me and Jesus got our own thing going. Me and Jesus got it all worked out.
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They try so hard to separate themselves from church history. Reform Baptists don't.
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Reform Baptists want to identify ourselves with church history. If you read through our
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Confession of Faith, the 1689, which was written in 1677, published in 1689.
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There's a whole lot of the other confessions, the Savoy, the Westminster, and others that we look to to bring about our
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Confession of Faith. We want it to agree and align with what we could that was already out there.
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Then where we disagree, we definitely made mention when it comes to the confession.
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We would word things different. We would say things more biblical.
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But where we could identify ourselves with other denominations and brothers, we did.
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I think that's how it should be now. I don't want to remove myself as a Reform Baptist from my
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Presbyterian brothers, from the Anglicans who hoed to the 53rd article, from Christian history, church history.
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By Protestant ministers wearing the clerical collar, we are identifying ourselves with ministers throughout church history.
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Anything you want to say about that one? No, I've got some thoughts on it that I'll bring up towards the end and whatnot.
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Keep on going. All right.
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Point number three. By wearing a clerical collar, you are identified as the minister of the church.
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Right? So again, I'm going to pick on Baptists. They believe that the preacher should wear a tucked in shirt, tie, and a suit jacket.
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Well, what if every man in that church wore a tucked in shirt, tie, and a suit jacket?
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Right? Everyone is dressed the same. There's nothing distinguishing about the minister.
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This was not so in church history. Right? I mean, if you go back to Catholics, they would wear those brown robes.
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John Calvin, I mean, if you look at the Reformation wall, right, all these guys got these gowns.
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I can't remember exactly the word they used for that gown. It starts with a
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C. A Geneva robe? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, it's something like that. But they wanted it to be different from the
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Catholics. So their robes were black. All right. And whenever you walked into a church and you saw someone wearing a black robe, you knew that this was the minister.
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Right? All the clerical collar is, it's that same idea.
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Right? When you see someone in the church wearing the clerical collar, you knew that this was the minister or a minister.
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Because a church can have more than one minister. But it was a way to identify the ministers of that church.
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I'm reading that to you right now. I just made that point too. He made that point.
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And I pointed out that I'm looking at the camera right here.
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It's right here. And so in order to see the video,
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I'm having to tilt my head down. If I look straight ahead, so this is me looking. I'm straight ahead.
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You can see it if I look straight ahead. I cut my beard. Well, I didn't cut my beard for this purpose, but it was getting on my nerves.
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But if I'm just standing straight up talking to people, you can see it. Now, if you're taller than me and you're looking down on me, you know, if I turn my head, you'll see it.
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But the beard is not going any shorter. Okay. All right.
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So to add on to point number three,
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Brayden, you are a fireman, right? Do you wear a uniform that identifies you as a fireman?
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Yep. Well, why would you do that? To show the public that we are people of trustworthiness.
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Trustworthiness. Okay. Okay. Do cops wear uniforms? And I hate looking like them.
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Yeah. Now, imagine if I was to make you pull over and I didn't have a cop car and I'm walking in regular clothes, you'd be a little skeptical, right?
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Yep. I'm telling you, get out your car, put your hands up. All right. Because, you know, one, there's no lights on my car.
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Two, I'm not dressed like a police officer. Right. What about doctors?
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Do doctors dress in a way that identifies themselves when they're working? Right. So, you know, if someone's in need, like if someone is in need and they need a cop, and if a cop's not wearing a uniform, they don't know they're a cop.
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Right. So uniforms are important. Again, in church history, the minister wore a uniform to identify himself as a minister, to distinguish himself, not to raise himself above, like the minister isn't condescending.
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Right. He wasn't raising himself above. But it was a way for people to know who the minister was.
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Everyone has a uniform. When I was a roofer, I had a uniform. All right.
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Point number four, to be identified on the streets as a minister.
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So I do a lot of street preaching, and I've been preaching in the same spot for over two years.
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And there's some times where I go and I'll pull over to that spot, and as I'm getting everything set up, people will already stop and ask me for prayer.
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Right. Because they recognize me from being on that street week after week preaching.
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Right. All right. They don't too much recognize me when
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I'm not on that corner. Like every once in a while, I'll go into a restaurant out here, I'll see somebody whisper and they'll point at me, or I'll get my oil changed and someone will say, hey, are you that guy?
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And I'm able to talk to them. Right. But I'm recognized as a street minister in my area.
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All right. If you wore a clerical collar, and you were, let's say, after church or something, you went to a store, maybe to get some groceries, and there was someone there that needed prayer.
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With the same idea, if they were in trouble and they needed a cop, if they're spiritually in trouble, they can see the clerical collar and know that they could trust you with spiritual matters.
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Yes, what Justin said, that was another point. Yeah, it's also, it's a part of point number four of identity, that it shows that we are slaves of Christ.
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Right. As a part of the identity on the streets around when you are among the people.
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But of course, people of our generation, they don't know that.
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They don't know that this was a sign that you are a slave to Christ. But I believe if ministers were to start wearing them and having more conversations like you don't want to have,
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Brayden, I'm picking on you for a minute. Yeah, go ahead. That we could point that out, that this was a way to identify ourselves as a slave for Christ.
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Also, I do a lot of door to door evangelism. And you don't know how many times someone will mistake me as a
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Jehovah's Witness. But if I was knocking and I had a clerical collar on,
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I wouldn't be mistaken as a Jehovah's Witness. They might mistake me as a Catholic out of ignorance, but they wouldn't mistake me for a
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Jehovah's Witness. They definitely don't mistake me for a
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Mormon because I look nothing like you, Brayden. All right.
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My fifth reason, and if y 'all want to talk about them afterward, I'm up for that.
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If you have any questions, people have any questions that are watching, you want to pose a question, we can roll with it.
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My fifth reason, again, this one has to do with identity as well.
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Father, Reverend, it's for accountability. Right?
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So people come into the church, they see the clerical collar, they know I'm a minister. I'm going to the store, people see me, they say, oh, that's the guy that's on the streets preaching.
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He's a minister. It kind of works in the same way of the uses of the law, right?
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It keeps a minister from being as evil as he could be. Right? Because if everyone knows who you are by what you wear, right, it keeps you accountable.
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You have to be accountable before the people that you interact with, right? If someone says something, you can't just fly off the handle, right?
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Because they're going to recognize that you're the minister.
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You're a minister. I mean, we don't have any of these in my area, but I know that I grew up in Nashville, and they would have like,
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I guess it would be some kind of like lounges or whatever, where men could go in there and purchase pornography.
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Right? If everyone knows who you are, it's going to keep you from doing something stupid.
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It's going to keep you from falling into sin. It's going to keep you from walking into strip clubs. Right? It's accountability.
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If everyone knows who you are because of what you wear, it works in the way of the uses of the law as a curb to keep you from being as evil as you could be.
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Right? And I think we all need that kind of accountability. Right?
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Even if you don't struggle with stuff like that, whatever that struggle may be, you might be high tempered, right?
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You might, you know, someone can say something or you might be a guy that has, you know, someone can cut you off in traffic and you want to flip them off.
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Right? If people know you as a minister, you'd be trying to throw that bird and all of a sudden you have to catch it.
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You have to catch the bird, right? Catch the bird and wave. But the point is, is that it keeps us accountable.
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Right? And not to just our church family, not to just our immediate family, but to your community.
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And so those are my five reasons. Again, reason number one, it's not
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Catholic. Reason number two, it identifies us with Christian ministers throughout church history.
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Reason number three, we're identified as a minister. Reason number four, so not only in our church, but on the streets, we're identified as a minister.
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And reason number five, it's for accountability. If you have other reasons that you would like to add, please, you need to make that C in Catholic small,
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Haps. But if you have other reasons that you can think of, please, you know, leave them in a comment.
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If you have any questions. Brady, do you have anything you want to add? Well, there's a couple of things
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I was just, and this is, again, I could see myself preaching from behind a pulpit with one of them on, right?
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I'm not saying I am against them. I'm not saying that at all. But this is just some things that I had that came to my mind as I'm processing this topic.
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Just four or five different things. So with the clergical collar being historical, and this is just a legitimate question, so don't take it as like me wanting to debate this topic in any way, but why not wear something that's even more historical, like a
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Geneva robe, or even go back to looking, okay, well, I'm not trying to make this sound super legalistic or weird in any way.
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This is how we figure things out. Yeah, but like even thinking like, okay, what were the people in Paul's day wearing?
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Why not go back to that day? If the argument is that it's historical and it ties us to a confession, why not go back to historical
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Bible times and wear stuff there? Someone put, why not camel hair?
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I'm in for this. They just, tomorrow. Well, I would say that, for one, if I'm just grabbing low hanging fruit, if I was to wear camel hair, the people of our time would not recognize that as a minister.
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Right. But that was also one of your arguments, though, about why we should be wearing it is that people don't recognize it as Protestant Christian ministers.
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But they recognize it as ministers. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. So it's both and.
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But couldn't the same argument be made, though, like if every preacher today wore what, and I'm talking about solid
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Christian brothers, if they wore today Paul robes, I don't know what you want to call them,
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Paul robes. That's a new brand, everybody. Go get your Paul robes off of Amazon.
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If everybody was wearing Paul robes, one of that start identifying everybody as servants of Christ following after the imitator
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Paul. Like where I'm going with that is, is, is, is there a piece of it that's a little bit cultural, cultural ties to it?
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Well, yeah, I mean, like I was trying to express, and I think Justin has, has, has, has, has pointed out to that the clerical colors are already established as a sign of a minister.
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Right. So we don't have to start a new fad and get people, you know, along with the idea.
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Right, right, right. And as far as the robe, I have nothing against a robe. If someone wears a robe in the pulpit,
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I think it'd be hard to walk around in a robe. It'd be so hot. It'd be so hot, dude.
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It'd be terrible. But so, so another, so another thing that was, was talked about was distinguishing ministers.
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And, and I, I understand some of the purposes and the pros to identifying a minister as, as identifiably you walk into a church, that's the pastor, that's the preacher.
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This is leadership. This is a, these are, these are the elders and the deacons or whatever, however you want to identify them.
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I understand that, that principle, but is there, is there anything in, in the, and, and this is not me again, not, not trying to make a rude statement by any means, but is there anything from a biblical perspective that would say ministers are supposed to be identifiably set apart?
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And not more than just being set apart to be able to preach and teach, but are actually meant to appear differently than the sheep.
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Well, I think that, you know, I mean, if you just take Jesus, right.
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As Jesus was walking around, do you picture him not wearing the tassels of a rabbi?
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I always pictured as, as, as the hippie Jesus knocking on the door. Listen, you're making this really hard.
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I know I am. I know I am. Yeah, I mean, all right.
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I had another thought. You had to bring up the hippie Jesus. I did.
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I mean, I've seen that meme where he's all smiling and his thumbs are up, thumbs up, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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He's got like the heart that's on fire and all that. I mean, like, you know, like I'm preaching through the gospel of John right now.
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I'm at the woman at the well. I mean, my second message there, that woman knew that he was a
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Jew. Right. So there was something distinguished about his garment because it couldn't have been his skin color.
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So something distinguished him about his garments that he was wearing that showed that he was a
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Jew. Would you agree or disagree with that? Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't go to the far point as that.
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He appeared to be a Pharisee. Like, no, no. And I know that's not what you're saying. But yeah, yeah. There's different clothing for Pharisees versus rabbis, too.
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Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, the woman touched the hem of the garment, right?
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Like this could have been his tallit at the time of a prayer shawl. Like it could have been something like that.
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There's a lot of things that the Jews wore that we don't wear today.
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Right. Yeah. I had something that I wanted to point out and I can't remember. I was just going to talk about the what was the first question that you pointed out?
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About if clergy calls or if the argument goes that we should wear collars because it's historical.
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Why not look at something that's even more historical? Why not go even further back? Yeah. OK. Yeah. I thought that was the one before that, though.
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I was going to talk about the alternative, but now I can't remember what what I had in mind. Man, when you said the hippie
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Jesus, it just I know how to debate, Jeff. I just got you off your railroad track.
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No, no, no, no. I mean, like like like Justin pointed out, it's already established as a minister.
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And again, yeah, we don't have to tell, you know, try to get people to to to to go along with with the new fab.
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We're just taking what's already established. So and I'm not saying that people, you know,
36:24
I don't you know, I'm not saying, hey, you better. But I'm just saying that it's a good way.
36:30
And at heart, which I know you are, too. I'm an evangelist. Yeah. And I want to take every opportunity that I get to be able to witness to someone, to minister to them.
36:44
And if and if we're in a clerical collar would help me in that way, it would help. It would help them know that I'm not a
36:51
Jehovah witness, which I am a witness for Jehovah. Just not a part of the
36:56
Jehovah's Witnesses. Everybody quote that. Just I mean,
37:02
Paul Washer said that, say, oh, yeah, come on in. I'm a witness for Jehovah. Problem is, is they don't know
37:09
Jehovah. So, yeah, that is a fact. Yeah, they don't know Yahweh.
37:16
So another another another question for you. So and I appreciate you bringing this up because this is something
37:21
I didn't even think about until you brought it up. So me, me being a fireman. So there's there's there's an internal fight that actually takes place between this subject right here.
37:34
The fire department as a whole and across the United States has shifted its uniform to be more an appearance with cops.
37:42
And I can't stand that. There's actually been firemen that have gotten killed because they look like a cop.
37:48
I look like a cop besides a gun. That is literally and I hate it. I don't like it.
37:54
I think I should be identifiably different than the cop because people don't. Some people like cops, but typically everybody likes firefighters.
38:02
Right. I don't want to be associated with it because there's a cultural tie to it.
38:09
Not to say that they first were the ones out the uniforms, but there's a cultural tie to them having that uniform.
38:15
And you don't know how many times during a day when I work as a fireman, when I go into a grocery stop and the kid says, hey, mom, it's a cop.
38:24
Or the person says, oh, I didn't know cops drove big red fire engines like things like that all the time.
38:33
And so there's always seemingly like a barrier that I have to even to span even at work.
38:40
And that's where I'm saying with with culturally. Yes, I'm not saying clergical callers started with the
38:47
Catholic Church. I would agree with you. I think it did start with the Presbyterians. But culturally, if there's been a shift to view that as a
38:54
Catholic, like, to be honest with you, that's what I think everybody when they hear Catholic thinks of is is either the pope or the the the clergical callers.
39:04
I mean, we can start just like the pope. But I don't know how. Let's take it back from him.
39:10
Let's just take it back. Let's just take it back. But where does it where does it that line get drawn?
39:16
Because I at work will not. I do not. I'm a vocal and advocate that I should be a firefighter because of how
39:22
I behave, not because of how I dressed. People should trust me when I put on medical gloves and I'm coming in to do
39:28
CPR on their little one. Would you trust me if I was pulling you over without a cop car and had a gun drawn without a bag?
39:38
No, no, no, no, no, no. But there's a and that's where that's where it's difficult, right?
39:45
Because even even getting off the fire engine, I think wearing a T -shirt should be identifiably enough to the fire department, a fire department
39:53
T -shirt. Like, I don't want to wear a badge. I don't want to wear dark clothing. I don't want to look anything like the police officer.
40:00
And so where I'm going with that is that. I would be. That's where I'm just saying, like,
40:06
I think that you can end up running into the issue that you are putting up more barriers to sometimes even get to the gospel conversation because you're battling what the perception already is.
40:19
Again, let me ask you this. If you saw me, listen, if you saw me, you didn't know me.
40:27
I'm trying to make it really obvious. Like, if you saw me and then you saw a caller, would you think that I was a
40:35
Catholic priest? Yes. Yes. No, I would. I absolutely would.
40:41
I know I would. I would think that. Let me get my neck. Or I would think that you were some sort of I would think you're either
40:50
Catholic or that you were some sort of Orthodox Eastern Orthodox church that wears robes that I know of that.
40:57
That's literally where we go. Maybe I think you're a
41:05
Lutheran or something like that. I remember at my church with the other elder's wife.
41:12
She said, Jeff, have you always wore necklaces? Because I cut my beard and you couldn't see my necklaces from my beard.
41:21
I said, yeah. Yeah, I always wear necklaces. I always wear necklaces. I mean,
41:26
I cut over 12 inches off my beard. Yeah, it's just an interesting topic.
41:33
It's one that, like I said, I want it. So in my workplace, I get viewed as a chaplain.
41:40
There's still some stuff that goes on with that. But if that position in my department was legitimately made,
41:49
I would be one that would want to have collar brass or a collar of some kind to show that I am distinguished in that role.
41:58
Not distinguished in a prideful way, but distinguished as we go on scene.
42:04
I'm going to go and pray with the family that's crying. I'm going to go do that. And there's almost a certain level of acceptability in that time.
42:12
But I think going and getting groceries culturally, they're going to view me as a
42:22
Catholic. Just like I said, if I wear my white collar shirt that I like a lot, I'm going to get called
42:28
LDS every single time. Every single time. I think Justin, again, is pointing something out that I was trying to get across.
42:38
I mean, they stowed something. Oh, yeah. All we're doing is taking it back.
42:43
And I think if we could get enough Protestant brothers on board, like five years from now, this wouldn't even be an issue.
42:54
You see what I'm saying? The problem is, I think people are just afraid. Listen, I'm an ex -gangbanger, right?
43:06
You want to go to war? I'll take you to war, okay? I'm not the one, right?
43:15
So, I mean, I think we're not literally kicking doors, right?
43:22
We kick in doors and take back what's ours. And when
43:28
I say ours, again, I'm pointing back into church history, right? You're taking the
43:33
Presbyterian stuff back. That's what I'm saying. Well, Presbyterians did start it. But, again,
43:39
Reformed Baptists have always tried to align ourselves with Presbyterians, with Anglicans, anyone where they were biblical.
43:50
We wanted to be biblical, right? And, of course, we have this Reformed circle, this joke, which one's biblical?
43:59
The Presbyterian will say he is. Baptist will say he is. But we ain't kidding. Yeah, but we ain't kidding,
44:05
Presby. We are the redheaded stepchild, I guess, of the
44:11
Reformation. Or you could say, like my son, the black sheep of the Reformation. But, you know, whether you accept
44:20
Reformed Baptists into the Reformation or not, listen, we're jumping the fence.
44:26
Like, we're cutting the hoe in the fence, and we're climbing under, and we're saying, we with you.
44:32
We down, homie. And, you know, whether you want to accept us or not, we align ourselves with the
44:40
Reformation, right, in church history. And I think it would be great if Protestant ministers would rise up, right?
44:54
I'm not trying to lead the parade here, but if we would rise up and say, you know what?
45:02
I'm wearing the collar, and I'm taking back what's mine. I'm going to do my part here in this little town that I'm in.
45:14
Send me a collar. I'll wear it next podcast. I wish
45:23
I was technically savvy to where I can send a picture that Hap sent to me.
45:31
He put a white napkin in his, and he had like a plaited shirt.
45:37
It looked good. I was like, hey, I dig it. Any other pushback?
45:50
Someone put, Jeff Durbin is not going to like this. Well, if he listened to our one on Theotomy, he definitely wouldn't like that one.
45:59
Nope. I love Durbin, but I think, you know, I think he's wrong on a lot of issues.
46:06
Of course, I love him. He's my brother. Yep. Well, if there's nothing else, we can, if there's no questions, let me see if there's any questions.
46:23
Again, someone else said with his beard. Again, the camera is the way that it is.
46:29
If I just send straight, you can see it. The beard ain't getting shorter. Sorry, homie.
46:37
The deal is with the beard is that I don't have a chin. Right. Like, I was really good at boxing because I didn't have a chin.
46:49
There wasn't nothing to hit. Aim for the chin. There's no chin. I'm just lips and neck.
47:01
That's good. Yeah. Let me see if there's anything else.
47:33
Do you see anything? Yeah, I'm currently start.
47:53
Yeah, I'm going to start currently putting up a drive to raise money to buy myself a
47:58
Popemobile. Hey, do your deed. I'm going to do it. I'm going to take back the
48:04
Pope crown. But in church history, only the
48:10
Pope has driven the Pope. Well, they took the clergical caller from us. I'm going to take what they like from them.
48:17
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Don't come pick me up in it. No, it's not.
48:24
We're going to go cruising, dude. We're going to go cruising. You're going to be up on top in the bulletproof glass. I'll be your chauffeur.
48:30
It'll be cool. And I'll just be doing the wave. Yep. Yep. Yep. Get used to not ever opening up the
48:39
Bible. I'm not growing back the beard, brother.
48:44
Even if I don't wear this, I'm not growing back the beard. It was too much maintenance. Too much maintenance.
48:51
I mean, I cut 12 inches off. Like when it was wet and I would iron, if I would iron it, like it was super long.
49:01
He donated to a wig shop. You can go pick it up in Tullahoma, Tennessee, shopping mall. Yeah. I mean, it was definitely a horse's tail.
49:17
Yeah. So I would say, I'm going to post these five reasons, brother, in the comment or something like that.
49:26
Just in the case people want to run with them again, if, if, if, if you have reasons that you would add to this, let me know.
49:38
I'm open for pushback, but again, I just, man, the main thing for me is, is the identity.
49:47
It has nothing to do with, with pride. I don't care anything about that. But it's, it's so that people, when they see me, they can identify me for who
49:59
I am and in spiritual crisis, they can come to me.
50:05
Right. If someone robs you, you find a cop. If a house was on fire, you'd find a fireman.
50:13
If you're spiritually broken, you need a minister. Right. And if we're out, we live in a world where we're surrounded by people who are spiritually broken.
50:24
And sometimes they don't know that until they see someone that can help. And so I want to be there to help.
50:33
And, and, and, and for, you know, when someone comes to my, oh yeah. So here's the alternative.
50:39
Here's what I was thinking. The alternative when it comes to being identified in the church, the alternative is, is what we see is big personalities, right?
50:52
So you have the, the minister has to be this charismatic person with a big personality and everyone knows who he is that way.
51:00
Brother, I don't have a big personality. Like, like I'm more of a introvert than I am an extrovert.
51:08
The only time that I'm I am to where I can have conversation is if it's on subjects that I know, right.
51:17
I can talk about roofing. I can talk about hacky sacks, you know, UFC fights and theology.
51:25
Yeah. I don't know anything else. Right. I don't have this big personality and I don't want to try to create a big personality.
51:36
But if, if, if, if you were, if there was something about your, your, uh, the clothing you wore when someone walked in and saw you, they wouldn't have to be attracted to a big personality.
51:49
They can just look and say, oh, Hey, that's the minister. And so it, it, it, it speaks in a way that I don't have to,
52:00
I don't have to be creative in ways to meet people. Oh yeah.
52:09
I can definitely talk about Bibles. Like I can have that conversation, premium
52:15
Bibles, leather. I mean, I'm not afraid to walk up into any conversation and, and say,
52:22
I got the best Bible in the room. Right. Not in February you won't. Yeah.
52:28
February would be people that has my Bibles. But for the most part, you know,
52:35
I can, you know, All right. If there's nothing else to add,
52:44
I guess we'll close out. Maybe all Christians, maybe all Christian. Well, I don't think all Christians should wear them because they're identified as for ministers, particularly now in one sense, all
52:56
Christians are to minister, right? All Christians are to, to be a witness for Jesus.
53:09
But when it comes to in church history, all Christians didn't wear it.
53:15
And so if you go back and you listen to the very beginning, my main point was to identify ourselves that it's not
53:24
Catholic and we want to identify ourselves in church history. And so if, if there was no distinguishing identify and identification of the ministry, church history,
53:38
I wouldn't even be riding this, this horse. Right. And I'm definitely not trying to beat a dead horse.
53:46
It wouldn't be so much important to me, but because we do have it in church history and I, and I think that we're allowing someone to, to take you without paying back.
54:00
Right. We're we're allowing people to steal. And I, I, I think it's a good way for ministers to take it back, to steal it back and to be identified in church history.
54:16
Do they, do they deserve the judicial penal law of death that they, if they stole, stole it?
54:23
Well, this is depends on who you ask. I'm not even trying to get four foes back.
54:31
Right. I don't, I don't need four callers for one. Yeah. Someone stowed my identity.
54:38
Do I, do they need to pay me back four times the identity that they've stolen? Yeah. I got,
54:45
I got four last names. They owed it to me.
54:51
So this guy stowed my identity and it turns out he stowed four other people's identity.
54:56
So I took mine back and those other four, that's what it is.
55:05
Do you get a vote that many times too? Yeah. Moses, baby. Yeah.
55:12
That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. But if you don't have anything to add, if no one has any other questions
55:18
I've looked through here, I didn't see any questions, a few comments. I, I, I do like the, the, the symbolism behind things.
55:26
Like I, I, I'm, I'm all about doing thing with intention and things that are meaningful to yourself in, in a, in a
55:33
God glorifying way. So like a bow tie, like Bill Nye, the science guy, right?
55:39
He wears a bow tie and his story of why he wears a bow tie makes me hate bow ties.
55:45
But I wear a bow tie because I show that that, that in my mind, when I tie it, there's no possible way that I, this could just happen without me tying it.
55:54
Right. So it, it, it magnifies the creator, the, the, the, the sustainer, that I couldn't be here unless there was a
56:02
God that had created me and created all these things around us. Right. And so there there's significance behind why
56:09
I'd wear a bow tie. So I'm in, I'm totally on board with, with doing that.
56:15
And like I said, I wouldn't be opposed to wearing one on a Sunday. I just, I do think that the question in my mind is, is when does that, when is that cultural line crossed?
56:28
Like we wouldn't go back to robes because nobody today would know why you're wearing a robe. But today has that line gone cross that nobody would ever think that you're a
56:38
Protestant. If you were wearing that, you know what I mean? Like that's where, that's where I'm at is, is where does that cultural line?
56:45
Well, I think it would really just depend on where you are. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? Because again, not even today, right?
56:56
We're talking today. We're not talking 500 years ago. Presbyterians wear them today.
57:01
Not all Presbyterians, some Presbyterians. I got some Presbyterian brothers that wear them.
57:07
I know Anglican brothers that wear them. I know Lutheran brothers that wear them.
57:12
So there's already Protestant churches where the ministers are wearing them.
57:18
Right. I'm just calling for more Protestant ministers to do the same. And especially
57:24
Reformed Baptists. Do you think there would ever be an occasion where it could hinder the sharing of the gospel?
57:35
Like I can see the case. And the reason I bring that like that just recently, the conversation that I had ministering to somebody,
57:45
I think that conversation would have been totally different if I had had a clergical caller on because they would have seen me as identifiably.
57:53
They would have the perception that I'm trying to be more holy when I, absolutely, that's not my intention.
58:00
But that would have been their perception. But the main reason for the clergical caller was to show that you are a slave.
58:06
Totally. And that's why I'm saying, I think when the Catholics stole it, it's turned into now a badge of something else.
58:15
I mean, they could think the same thing. I mean, whenever you walked up to have this conversation, did you have that post -Tenebrous
58:22
Looks Bible in your hand? I did. Well, actually, do you want to hear a funny story about that?
58:28
You're holy. Do you want me to tell you a funny story about that? Actually, I threw it in my back waist.
58:33
Like if you were concealed carrying a gun. So he didn't see it. And then I brought it in later in the conversation.
58:39
And then it was nothing but gospel after that. And I was told the reason why was that the conversation wouldn't have gone good if there was anything like that in the conversation.
58:52
I don't know. I think that it takes a little bit of wisdom on how everybody would handle those kind of individual conversations.
59:02
You're going to have to let me know how evangelism goes. I want to know how many times somebody calls you a Catholic. You better be keeping track.
59:09
But it will allow me to enlighten them on history.
59:15
That is a pro of it. That is absolutely a pro. That is a pro. And that right there just in itself is a door open to the gospel because they're going to bring up something in church history.
59:29
I'll answer in church history. Take it from church history into the spiritual.
59:36
Right? Are you hearing me? Matthew asked a question.
59:42
I didn't mean to call you Matthew. I don't know. That's just rude. I prefer Matt. Forgive me.
59:49
I'll take some confessions later. I was going to say
59:55
Catholic priests can't confess. Jeff, stop it. He asked a question.
01:00:01
So I don't know if this is more geared towards me or toward you. He said he missed the answer earlier, but the question was asked, is there any negative?
01:00:15
I guess. Is there any negative for, are you saying, are you asking, is there any negative for wearing them or not wearing them?
01:00:25
I don't see anything negative for wearing them personally. And I guess it could depend on the area that you're in, but I don't personally see anything negative.
01:00:39
Do you see, I mean, I guess your answer was that you would always have to inform people.
01:00:49
Yeah. I think there could, well, it depends on what you consider negative. Is it a negative?
01:00:55
I mean, no matter what we do, like this is, oh,
01:01:00
I don't know. I'm trying to think of an example. There's so many different opinions on what a negative could be. Right? Like me having to have that conversation about why
01:01:08
I'm not a Catholic to me could be a negative, but to you, Jeff, could be a positive because then you get a burning in history. Right.
01:01:13
And you're going to flip it to a gospel conversation. Whereas I think in the way that I had conversations,
01:01:18
I think it would be more of a challenge to get over that. Right. And so in that way, I think it could be a negative because I think that in my opinion, like I said, fire department, hospitals, even, even one day maybe behind the pulpit,
01:01:33
I wouldn't have an issue with myself wearing one at all. Like I'm not, I'm not against this idea, but I think that there is a possibility of a negative because it has culturally now been accepted in the
01:01:45
Catholics and it's seen as this holier than now. And it's seen as this staple of, of, of,
01:01:50
I just almost said LDS a staple of Catholicism. I think that there's going to be some difficulty in, in, is it, is it a, is it a pearl that's so mangled in the, in, in the pig poop that it's not worth picking up or is it worth picking up and cleaning off?
01:02:07
I don't know. I think it is. I think the biggest problem that I'll have is, is with my, uh, the people in my church getting used to it.
01:02:19
Yeah. Right. But I don't have a, I don't have a huge church and they all love me.
01:02:27
Right. We have, we, we have great relationship. I think if they'll give me an earshot to explain why.
01:02:33
Just wait until you walk in all Catholic on them and they're lowercase Catholic, low
01:02:38
Presbyterian on them and Lutheran and tell the
01:02:43
Baptist to step it up. But I think that would be, it's probably going to be the only, again,
01:02:52
I think, um, you know, Justin, again, pointed out something really good. Uh, and if y 'all haven't got an opportunity to just to, to get to know
01:03:01
Justin, he's a real good brother. I appreciate his ministry. Um, he says, uh, ministers are to have a good reputation in the community that they dwell.
01:03:12
A caller. My phone is, is dying right now. I'm going to say bye right now. So you please finish the, my phone is like, it's 1 % die.
01:03:19
I'll say, hi man. I'll talk to you in here in a little bit. Hey, God bless. See you. God bless. Yeah. Yeah.
01:03:26
So Justin says the caller helps to identify the minister when he is out and about, this will develop, moved on me.
01:03:34
This will develop his reckon, his recognition and build his reputation as he will not be able to merely, um, blend into the crowd.
01:03:46
Yeah. Yeah. That's, I think that was, you know, point number point number four of mine, you know, uh, was to be identified on the streets as a minister.
01:03:58
Right. So personally, I think it's a good thing. I would encourage, uh,
01:04:04
Protestant ministers, uh, especially in the reform circle, whether you're
01:04:11
Presbyterian, uh, Anglican 53rd article, uh, reformed
01:04:17
Baptist, I would encourage you to start wearing the collar as, as a way of, of, of, again, for my, uh, my, the reasons that I've laid out,
01:04:31
I'll go over them once again, real quick before I get off here. Reason number one, it's, it's not
01:04:37
Roman Catholic, right? Reason number two, by doing so we identify ourselves with Christian ministers throughout church history.
01:04:47
Uh, reason number three, by wearing the clerical collar, you are identified as the minister of your church, right?
01:04:56
So if, if, if you have, um, like, like our church, there's more than one minister.
01:05:02
And so, um, but it would identify, it would, you would be identified as a minister or if you're, uh, if, if you're the only minister, people will know who to come to, to be ministered to.
01:05:13
They will, you don't have to have a big personality. Um, um, you know, it's, it's, it's basically just the same way as a fireman has a uniform and a cop has a uniform.
01:05:27
Uh, so does the, the minister. Point number four to be identified on the street as a minister.
01:05:34
And point number five was for accountability, that as you're building this reputation up that, that Justin was talking about, um, it, uh, everyone knows who you are.
01:05:45
They know you're a minister. And that it also works as, uh, the, you know, the, the, the uses of the law, right?
01:05:53
You had the second and the third use. It's kind of like a guard. It'll, it'll keep you from being as evil as you could be, right?
01:06:04
We want to put up guards any way that we can to keep us from falling into this to the trap of Satan.
01:06:13
And I believe if everyone around you knows you're a minister, right?
01:06:19
You can't get away with anything and it will, uh, uh, develop good behavior when you're out in public.
01:06:29
So those are my five reasons. Again, if you have, uh, any more reasons that you would like to add to it,
01:06:35
I love to hear. Yes.
01:06:42
Again, thank you, Justin pointed out something good again. It's something I've been trying to say, and maybe
01:06:48
I haven't worded it as good. Please forgive me. Justin says, uh, if tomorrow all faithful Protestant ministers begin wearing the clergical collar could easily change the perception of the collar.
01:07:01
I pointed out that if tomorrow, I don't, I don't know if I said tomorrow, but I said, if, if, if all
01:07:08
Protestant ministers were to begin to wear the collar in five years from now, people wouldn't look at it and think
01:07:16
Catholic priest, right? But five years from now, they're going to if Protestant ministers continue blending in with the crowd out on the outside and blended in with a crowd inside the church.
01:07:32
Anyways, I love every one of y 'all. Thanks for, uh, checking us out on open air theology. Um, Justin, I think it would be a joy to have you on here, brother, to have a conversation.
01:07:43
So if you're up for coming on open air theology and having a conversation,
01:07:48
I'd love to have you, man. I love everybody. Again, remember if you're ever in Tallahoma, Tennessee, please come to covenant reform
01:07:55
Baptist church. I'd love to have you there. We have a meal after every service. And also remember, we got a conference coming up in February the 16th through the 18th.
01:08:05
And also if you're able to stay for the, the Lord's day, uh, James White will be, uh, uh, teaching what will, uh, so Brayden who you just heard
01:08:14
Brayden was a Mormon for 19 years. He's going to be teaching on Mormonism during the Sunday school hour.
01:08:19
And James White will be preaching the service. Uh, so, uh, the conference is going to be based on shadows and substance.
01:08:27
And also there's going to be a debate, uh, the LSB Bible versus the
01:08:34
KJV Bible, which one is superior. All right.
01:08:39
Uh, Justin, let's, let's do that brother. Um, I'd like to thank everyone for commenting, commenting, excuse me.
01:08:46
Uh, I need to get some water and, um, I love every one of y 'all.