Once a Bishop. Always a Bishop.

[Rivers]

I had this argument with somebody the other day.  In the church we often refer to a former bishop with the title "Bishop."   So a Bishop Smith is still referred to as and called Bishop Smith after being released.  I argued this was cultural and not something we really are supposed to do.  But I'm not sure.  Can somebody help me out on this one.

[The Nehor]

Bishop is an office and not just a calling so yes, once you are a bishop you are always a bishop and if you are assigned to be a bishop in a new ward you are not reordained. Patriarch is the same way. So calling them bishop is correct.

That being said while I have referred to my previous bishops on occasion on bishop doing it long after they are released seems weird and I have not seen this practice here in Texas. My father served as a bishop about 30 years ago. No one calls him Bishop now.

[Rivers]

11 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Bishop is an office and not just a calling so yes, once you are a bishop you are always a bishop and if you are assigned to be a bishop in a new ward you are not reordained. Patriarch is the same way. So calling them bishop is correct.

That being said while I have referred to my previous bishops on occasion on bishop doing it long after they are released seems weird and I have not seen this practice here in Texas. My father served as a bishop about 30 years ago. No one calls him Bishop now.

Thanks.  Is it the same thing with a stake president?

[Hamba Tuhan]

54 minutes ago, Rivers said:

In the church we often refer to a former bishop with the title "Bishop."   So a Bishop Smith is still referred to as and called Bishop Smith after being released.

I have never experienced this anywhere I've lived, so maybe your 'In the Church we' is a bit too broad?

Edited December 22, 2018 by Hamba Tuhan

[Hamba Tuhan]

35 minutes ago, Rivers said:

Is it the same thing with a stake president?

Stake president is a calling, not a priesthood office.

By the way, I'm an ordained high priest, but no one refers to me with that title ...

[mfbukowski]

24 minutes ago, Rivers said:

Thanks.  Is it the same thing with a stake president?

You often hear that being done but really it is different.  I think people think that if Bishops are sometimes called that forever, so should SP's.  And good for them- no problem- its a tough job!

But the difference is that Bishop is priesthood office- not just a calling.

You are ORDAINED to the office of Bishop and then set apart for a limited time in a particular ward and stake etc.

Remember the old 70's deal?   A few of us ordained 70's are still around.   So pretend if you are a 70 we had a title for that!?   Theoretically if I were to be called to be a GA (hilarious idea!!) I would just be set apart for the particular calling/stewardship to which I was called but would not have to be ordained a 70.   Once ordained to be a 70 or a Bishop you are one forever.

Frankly it bugs me a bit when people call me "bishop" because it has been 8 years or so since my release and I think that they think they have to keep calling me that.   I think that they think it would kind of be an insult or something if they just called be "Brother"- which ironically is what everyone calls everyone in the temple.

Regardless of the honorific tradition I would like it better if it was a custom instead to call everyone "Brother" or Sister unless they were presently called to a position requiring the title.

I have often heard sisters who are presidents of organizations being called "president" and then the title is dropped when they are not, and for me personally, I would prefer that for myself.  But of course if you are ordained to it you ARE a bishop forever just as being a 70 forever.

We should just then by that logic call people "Seventy Jones" etc. but I don't see that happening 

 

[mfbukowski]

5 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I have never experienced this anywhere I've lived, so maybe your 'In the Church we' is a bit too broad?

Not in the US as far as I have seen- I have always seen it done in the western US at least - surprised they do not do it where you are too- but that would be ok by me

Your ward sounds so perfect I wanna move!!

 

[Hamba Tuhan]

3 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Your ward sounds so perfect I wanna move!!

You'd last one week before you concluded that you'd been duped. But seriously, we don't call former bishops 'Bishop'.

[Scott Lloyd]

19 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I have never experienced this anywhere I've lived, so maybe your 'In the Church we' is a bit too broad?

I’ve seen it done all my life. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

12 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I’ve seen it done all my life. 

Interesting. Sounds like one more cultural adhesion that needs to go away. How does a visitor to your ward know who the actual bishop is?

Edited December 22, 2018 by Hamba Tuhan

[mfbukowski]

11 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Interesting. Sounds like one more cultural adhesion that needs to go away. How does a visitor to your ward know who the actual bishop is?

The dude on the stand in the middle of two other dudes? 

Asking someone?

When I travel it is usually pretty obvious especially when whoever is officiating introduces himself as they should. 

Usually they will come and meet you as a visitor right after sacrament meeting anyway.  I don't think that is a problem

[Hamba Tuhan]

10 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I don't think that is a problem

And what if one goes to priesthood meeting first, before sacrament meeting, and half the men in the elders quorum are Bishop So-and-So? Seriously, this is silly. I think I'm going to start calling all our deacons 'Deacon'. It is, after all, their priesthood office.

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

I have often heard sisters who are presidents of organizations being called "president" ...

This is another thing that I will never get. Our current stake president lived overseas for about 15 years and picked up this habit. It's weird.

Our current EQ president asked us to only refer to each other as 'Brother Surname' for several weeks after he was called. The veto of universal non-compliance has stopped that nonsense!

Edited December 22, 2018 by Hamba Tuhan

[sunstoned]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I’ve seen it done all my life. 

Likewise.  This has been the practice in every ward that I have been in.

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Interesting. Sounds like one more cultural adhesion that needs to go away. How does a visitor to your ward know who the actual bishop is?

Hamba, I hold your opinion in high regard. But I do believe you are making way too much of this. 

Edited December 22, 2018 by Scott Lloyd

[Thinking]

My Dad was a bishop for eight years in So. Cal. in the 70's. Members always called him Bishop after he was released. I was told that the title never leaves even if the responsibility does.

[rchorse]

I think we should just let people call each other what they want as long as it's not insulting or offensive. It was a culture shock for me to move from Sandy, Utah to Germany and hear people addressing the stake president by his first name. Now that I'm used to it, though, I much prefer it.

Besides, if we're all really brothers and sisters, we should use whatever is agreeable to the one being addressed. I don't call my actual brothers "Brother rchorse". I call them Jim or Bob or whatever they have asked me to call them.

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I do believe you are making way too much of this. 

That’s fine. Familiar weirdness seldom appears weird. Meanwhile, I’m going to start calling all the boys and men in our ward after their current priesthood office. If it’s good enough for full-time missionaries and ordained bishops, it should be good for all. 

[Stargazer]

6 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

And what if one goes to priesthood meeting first, before sacrament meeting, and half the men in the elders quorum are Bishop So-and-So? Seriously, this is silly. I think I'm going to start calling all our deacons 'Deacon'. It is, after all, their priesthood office.

It's not a problem.

In the ward in which I was a member for 30+ years, by the end of the time I lived there, only one man who had been bishop during that time was not still in the ward, meaning we had five or six former bishops still with us. None of them were being called "Bishop", with the exception of the one who had most recently been released, and that was only because people had gotten used to calling him "Bishop Smith" and hadn't yet shaken the habit.  But a few months later, most people had stopped doing it.  The same thing was true for former stake presidency members, especially if they were a member of one's own ward.

There was one exception, oddly enough.  We still had our stake's very first stake president among us -- in his 80's or 90's and still going strong.  Many of the older members still called him "President" -- he was one super individual, actually, so it seemed a reasonable distinction. The Grand Old Man.

[Stargazer]

3 hours ago, rchorse said:

I think we should just let people call each other what they want as long as it's not insulting or offensive. It was a culture shock for me to move from Sandy, Utah to Germany and hear people addressing the stake president by his first name. Now that I'm used to it, though, I much prefer it.

Besides, if we're all really brothers and sisters, we should use whatever is agreeable to the one being addressed. I don't call my actual brothers "Brother rchorse". I call them Jim or Bob or whatever they have asked me to call them.

That's odd, when I was serving my mission in Germany (1972-74) virtually nobody called anyone else by their first name, let alone the bishops or stake president.  You must live in a very liberal area of Germany -- or things have changed greatly.

In a country where someone who has two doctorates and a professorship is careful to put these on his mailbox, one of the problems can be proliferation of titles.  Herr Professor Doktor Doktor Schmidt.

[rchorse]

23 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

That's odd, when I was serving my mission in Germany (1972-74) virtually nobody called anyone else by their first name, let alone the bishops or stake president.  You must live in a very liberal area of Germany -- or things have changed greatly.

In a country where someone who has two doctorates and a professorship is careful to put these on his mailbox, one of the problems can be proliferation of titles.  Herr Professor Doktor Doktor Schmidt.

From what I was told, it's because of that German tendency to take titles too far that the saints where I am were instructed by some general authority or other to not get hung up on the titles. All I know is that in my stake no one uses the titles, and they're definitely not liberal in other ways.

[Hamba Tuhan]

49 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

None of them were being called "Bishop", with the exception of the one who had most recently been released, and that was only because people had gotten used to calling him "Bishop Smith" and hadn't yet shaken the habit.  But a few months later, most people had stopped doing it.

Glad to hear!

[sheilauk]

I've never heard anyone other than the current Bishop referred to as Bishop in my ward or stake (other than when they are 1st released because it's become habit and then people generally quickly correct themselves! )  I've also never heard former presidents called President either.

[Bob Crockett]

As it is not covered in any priesthood manual it is just a cultural thing.  

There's a guy in our ward who was a bishop three times when he lived in the Philippines.  He moved to our ward and is a humble guy.  Both he and his wife are CPAs.   Nobody refers to him as "bishop."  We should resist the impulse.  I always try and correct members when they call me by my prior church office except, perhaps, the wife of a much higher-ranking church authority.

[rockpond]

I currently live in a ward with three of my former bishops (the earliest serving bishop was released over 15 years ago).  I still greet them all as bishop.  I see it as a sign of respect for the great service they provided and the positive impact they had on my life.  Nobody has ever given me the impression that it’s an unusual practice.

However, there are certainly times when I am speaking to others about those bishops and I’ll drop the title recognizing that he wasn’t ever a bishop to them and they might be confused as to who I am talking about.