Religious Titles (Clergy?)
I am researching a gentleman who has (so far) 3 different cleric? titles? During 3 different time periods. I found this information in a marriage index which listed him with the different titles.
The dates and titles were as follows:
- 1890 - Reverend
- 1894 - Elder
- 1896 - Minister of the Gospel
This was in Christian County, MO
- I’m wondering if these titles are specific to a certain religion/denomination?
- what was required of a person to obtain each title
- what does each one signify... like is “X” allowed to do something that “Y” and “Z” aren’t allowed to do?
- what kind of historical may be available for this person based on this information? And where might I be able to search for these records online or otherwise? (Suggestions from the community here are most welcome😊)
- would any of these titles be required to travel a lot? (To Preach the Gospel and save souls etc)
- were they allowed to be married/divorced/have children etc?
thank you all for your time and attention 😊
Best Answers
Answers
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I would do an online search of the name + county, and the word church and see if you can find any historical documents. The titles all sound to me like ones used in Protestant churches and a search shows there were quite a few Baptist and Methodist churches in the county in the late 1800s. It would be a guess, but, I doubt that the minister would have travelled much and they would have families.
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I could be wrong
but to me various of these terms are very generic - and not isolated to one denomination.
"Minister of the gospel" I believe is the term used on various legal forms and could mean just about anything.
so for example among LDS themselves - "minister of the gospel" is not really used so much
but a "Mormon Bishop" or Elder - could very easily end up on some legal form - that uses the 'canned" wording of "Minister of the Gospel".
I would be very careful trying to nail this down to a specific sect - when in my opinion that was rarely the case for using such a term.
i.e. when the term is used by the members of a sect - amongst themselves thats one thing
but when the term is used - like on some marriage form, or generic listing of marriages I would NOT put hardly any weight on the significance of the term at all - or you may be jumping to wildly wrong conclusions.
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I would search for an obituary of the person in question. This may tell you specifically their religion.
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I’m not really concerned with his religion I was just hoping the answer would lead me to research ideas... it seems I’ve found everything possible for him online; was hoping for a lightbulb moment to maybe use search terms I hadn’t thought of yet 😊
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no there is not (from the perspective of a title that is used on some generic canned "marriage record")
definiteley not.
Im sure you can find LDS bishops with all sorts of titles on some marriage record
but such titles are not titles we would normally use within and amongst ourselves.
"minister" on a marriage record - is just some very generic title.
and the truth is Just about anyone in the world can marry a person and their title could be just about anything and no one is going to ask them for "what right they have to such title"
but all so often when marriage records are created - the title is all just part of the form - and not the title that the Minister "earned" at some University, nor even, necessarily the title they call him within his specific church - - all so often it is merely a generic term already on the form.
so in short - for marriage records - the term is often almost useless.
Now if you found some obituary, or some writing where the person used a term that would have been used within that congregation - and not just some generic term on a form- then maybe that is different)
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I would start with Baptist churches. If you share his name, I'll be happy to help. In gen-web records of Christian Co, there are lots of pastors with m g abbreviations for minister of the gospel.
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Ty @Dennis J Yancey his obit uses the words “Elder” and “Minister” his dc lists “minister” as occupation. Here is an excerpt from the obit:
Elder Samuel T. Bingman was born February 7, 1855 in Laclede county, Missouri. He was
converted at the age of 20 years and later united in marriage with the Missionary Baptist church of which he was a faithful member until the day of his death. Having been called of the Lord to carry the gospel message to the world, he was, on the 10th day of March, 1888, ordained to the work of the ministry.
Most of his preaching and pastoral
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cool - that clarifies that he was Baptist.
so what outstanding questions do you still have?
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I wonder if this is Your Sam Bingham.
https://house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills081/hlrbillspdf/5178C.01.pdf
"Whereas, New Hope Baptist Church was guided early in its history by preachers George Long, G.P. Jack, "Doc" Long, Tom Melton, Sam Jones, Sam Bingham, and others whose names have been lost to history; and"
There is this on the New Hope Baptist Church:
https://www.newhopebc.net/about-us
It might be a path worth pursuing.
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🤔 I’ll have to investigate that a little more ... he lived in Missouri for a time ... I think most or all of his children were born there .... thank you!!!
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That’s interesting... I found some old newspaper articles from when he lived in Oklahoma and it appeared that there was some sort of issue between him and another minister/pastor about the church... I didn’t read all the articles because it wasn’t really what I was interested in at the time ... so I def gonna dig a little deeper into that now 😊 ty so much @Melissa S Himes !!! This is some great info!
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This might be interesting too as it related to the new Constitution of Missouri and a Loyalty-Test Oath that ministers had to take, although it led to a US Supreme Court decision. You might find Samuel in one of the 424 pages of the Oaths. https://www.nps.gov/jeff/blogs/oath-of-loyalty-book-1868-1871-artifact-of-the-month-for-september-2011.htm
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