{"id":382,"date":"2008-01-18T10:06:28","date_gmt":"2008-01-18T10:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/not-a-parody.html"},"modified":"2008-01-18T10:06:28","modified_gmt":"2008-01-18T10:06:28","slug":"not-a-parody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/not-a-parody.html","title":{"rendered":"Not a parody"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, I guess they’re consistent. Sort of. <\/a><\/p>\n

It seems that some people are concerned about our new habit of wearing cowboy hats during academic ceremonies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The complaint is that wearing a cowboy hat is somehow undignified and inappropriate.
\nPlease realize that the mortarboard that most modern academics wear as a hat actually derives from the medieval Roman Catholic priesthood. You see, in the Middle Ages, every university student was also a cleric, in the lower orders of the Roman priesthood. The biretta\/mortarboard identified one as part of the lower Roman clergy, and the birettas became more colorful as one rose higher in ecclesiastical rank (for instance, purple for bishops, scarlet for cardinals).
\nPlease realize that the long colorful cowls that we wear over our robes are actually hats, too. Yes, the cowl and the robe with the long sleeves were originally part of a monk\u2019s habit. You see, in the Middle Ages, not only was every university student a cleric, but most were simultaneously under monastic vows. The cowl was used to cover one\u2019s head in the cold and damp weather in Europe, and the long sleeves were handy for carrying such things as writing paraphernalia and one\u2019s lunch.
\nNow, honestly, what is more relevant and dignified in a Texas free church setting: A cowboy\u2019s hat, reflecting our ministry to and identification with our people? Or, a priest\u2019s biretta, indicating we are ontologically superior to our people? Is it not part of our Baptist Reformation heritage to alter mere trappings as we see fit? We are neither in Roman orders nor under Roman custom. We are Southern Baptists, and as free churchmen, we are free to reform our customs and habits as we deem fit.
\nWe are Southern Baptists in Modern Texas, not Roman Catholics in Medieval Europe, and we will wear common cowboy hats rather than exalted sacerdotal birettas, in honor of our great free churches and in order to identify with our great people. (Via Bill MacKinnon at BHT<\/a>.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, no one says that goofy academic regalia is an inalterable aspect of reality. And this is consistent, as I say, with some historical rejections of things like Christmas among some Protestant traditions. But you know, I hear that “Gregorian” calendar was thought up by some papist. Hey! I think it was <\/em>a pope!
\nA Baptist pastor\/blogger critiques the decision and reasoning here. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, I guess they’re consistent. Sort of. It seems that some people are concerned about our new habit of wearing cowboy hats during academic ceremonies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The complaint is that wearing a cowboy hat is somehow undignified and inappropriate. Please realize that the mortarboard that most modern academics wear as a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nNot a parody - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/01\/not-a-parody.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Not a parody - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Well, I guess they’re consistent. Sort of. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}