The Clerical Collar: Conversation with Doug Wilson and Toby Sumpter

3 Comments

1. Blake Schwendimann says:

   March 14, 2011 at 11:34 am

   Great little video. I think one point that was missed, is what a collar does for the person who wears it. After wearing a collar for 2 years, the impact is the strongest on myself. Sure, it does help when I am at a coffee shop, or out in a public - in fact, the collar is a better evangelical tool than a ‘tract.’ When I leave the house with my collar on, I am more aware of my vocation as a minister of Christ. I pay more attention to my behavior. I show respect to my congregation and to those in other ministries or professions. Instead of wondering what I am going to wear to the hospital, to a community meeting or to a ‘networking’ event, I dont have try and be hip or fit in, I just go in my uniform. I think especially in educated or metropolitan areas, people see you as a Minister first, and perhaps a “Catholic” or “Lutheran” second. We are representing Christianity in a public way. It doesn’t matter if I feel like wearing one or not.

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2. Caleb Roberts says:

   March 15, 2011 at 7:06 am

   I’m so happy that there is finally a discussion on this matter in the Reformed world. However, I find Rev. Wilson’s reasons for not wearing a collar a little odd given some of his other beliefs. In this video, he’s decided that, as of today, there is something too identifiably Lutheran/Anglican/Catholic about the collar and, with the Presbyterian world in the shapeless shape its in, it’s good to refrain from potentially further blurring an identity that is presently fragile. That sounds reasonable and I can respect that, but one could just as easily say that the Church Year is something identifiably Lutheran/Anglican/Catholic and, on the same token, it is good for Presbyterians currently not to worship according to it. But, Rev. Wilson uses the Church Year and, despite any “un-Presbyterian” connotations that may arise from it (and there certainly are), I think he would rightly advocate it on the grounds that it is something “trans-denominational” in that no one communion has a total corner on it. Yet, he appears to arbitrarily limit this understanding when it comes to the clerical collar saying essentially that “Now’s not the time to be looking like an Anglican.”

   Of course, I’m not saying that if you accept the Church Year, you have to start wearing a collar, but I find it a little odd for a pastor whose church is currently in Lenten fasting to be worried about practices that may connote an identity other than a Presbyterian one.

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