I hold the title of Reverend because of my studies with a seminary. I use this title in my work as the community minister of Many Paths Spiritual Center in Goodlettsville, TN. It is a title that has some legacy for me.
My father was a minister. And my grandfather, and my uncle, and three of my first cousins. Although there is some variety in the denominations represented in my family, for those I just listed, the title Reverend means that they are ordained to be a Christian pastor in a Protestant Christian denomination.
I am not a Christian. My deconstruction began in my 20s and has continued now for four decades. That process included, as it does for most people, deconstructing the language of religious heritage. I had to rethink heaven, hell, god, sin, salvation, baptism, and pretty much every word contained in the Christian Bible. One of those words is “reverend.”
If we go back to the font of all knowledge, the dictionary, we read that “reverend” is a title given to a member of the clergy, and if we look up clergy, we see that this refers to someone ordained to perform pastoral duties in a Christian church. So why do I, a non-Christian, who ministers to an interfaith community with a diverse array of spiritual paths, use this word?
Well, first, I earned it. I graduated from the ministerial program at All Faiths Seminary, and my successful completion came with the earned honorific of “reverend.”
Second, I perform the duties of ministry. I speak every Sunday at 11:00 a.m. to a group of amazing souls with whom I am privileged to share the journey. I listen to congregants’ personal stories and offer what words of comfort or encouragement I have to give. I will pray with them or for them. I carry their hearts in mine and do my best to always be a source of compassion, acceptance, and love.
Third, other words don’t seem to work. I am not a priest or a rabbi or an imam or a lama or a guru or a shaman. I haven’t earned those titles. Also, I’m sensitive to the potential for cultural appropriation which might unnecessarily offend. I might like being a rabbi or a guru, but I was raised culturally Christian, and those words belong to other traditions more naturally. If I traded in “reverend” for anything, I suppose it would be “teacher.”
Fourth, sometimes a Reverend is just what a congregant needs. I love the people with whom I am in spiritual community. I consider them friends. But I always want them to know that they can come to me and say, “Deb, right now I need my minister.”
I had to reframe and reclaim a whole lot from my religious upbringing. I had to decide what could stay and what HAD to go. Jesus stayed. Christianity, or what it has become over time, that went. Love stayed. Judgment went. Inclusivity stayed. Exclusivity went.
I thought the family business of ministry would be a casualty of my deconstruction as well. And then the path I followed led me back to something that felt familiar and also brand new. I don’t preach. I don’t convert. I don’t insist anyone follow a specific path. But I do minister, and I feel the responsibility of that calling as a beautiful and joyous burden to carry through this life.
Reverend Moore was my father, and Reverend Moore is me. Or as my congregants call me — Rev Deb. The man my father was would be appalled at the Reverend I am today, but I believe the version of him that now exists only on a spiritual plane might just be smiling.
Deb Moore 