The Rev. John M. Borders III approached the pulpit at Morning Star Baptist Church on a recent Sunday wearing his usual suit and tie.He adjusted his glasses, as he often does, and proceeded to deliver to the packed sanctuary a thunderstorm of a sermon on a theme from Revelation: “No more delays!’’
In the pews, some sobbed. Some shouted, “Yes, Lord!’’
Some just breathed, until Borders concluded with a hushed prayer.
The only outward sign that something was different was the new ring on the pastor’s finger, a thick gold ring with a purple stone. It symbolized his recent elevation, in a ceremony in Memphis two weeks before, to the position of bishop.
The title of bishop, accompanied by such emblems of authority, was uncommon among hierarchy-spurning Baptists until recently, but it is being adopted by a growing number of Baptist pastors, most of them African-American.
Borders and other new bishops have acquired some of the ceremonial garb — croziers (pastoral staffs), zucchettos (skullcaps) and chasubles (robes) — that their spiritual forefathers left behind when they broke from the Church of England in the 17th century.
Some, including Borders, have even embraced the doctrine of apostolic succession — the belief in an unbroken line from Jesus’ apostles to today’s bishops.
Borders, a sober man who regards his flock with obvious affection, spoke lightly of his role as shepherd during his sermon.
“When I watch you,’’ he said with a smile, “I see a congregation of miracles.’’
But he also believes the new title has been a spiritual catalyst, deepening his faith and clarifying his role as mentor to more than two dozen men and women who have become ministers or pastors under his tutelage over the course of nearly three decades.
“I’m changing; I feel myself getting closer to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I think I understand my mission more,’’ he said. “The notion of being a successor to the apostles, even in a spiritual point of view, kind of grounds you differently.’’
The naming of Baptist bishops, which remains controversial among some traditionalists, is a departure for a church descended from the Puritans.
Baptist denominations do not have strict hierarchies; congregations are independent churches whose pastors are hired and fired by vote of the congregation.
“As late as the 19th century, a Baptist would have thought a preacher who wore a robe was being like a Catholic, and therefore terrible,’’ said Paul Harvey, a historian at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Historically, he said, Baptist bishops were “unheard of.’’
But in recent years, that has begun to change. Scholars cite a number of reasons: Baptists, like other Christian denominations, are facing heavy competition from independent churches, particularly those run by charismatic pastors who use the title of bishop to establish authority and build their personal brand.
The title is increasingly being used more formally in African-American Baptist churches, where the practice of calling senior pastors bishops has been unusual.
African-American Baptist ministers have historically been powerful figures in their communities and pillars of their congregations; some see the title as a recognition of that role.
“I think we see this emergence in spiritual leadership from a people who have known oppression,’’ Borders said. “It’s a self-identification that we’re gaining; it’s a valuing of our own leadership.’’
And in some cases now symbolic garb and elaborate rituals are accompanying the title.
That’s now possible because the 400-year-old fear of an all-powerful hierarchy has faded into a distant memory, and it now feels “safer to borrow and reappropriate historic practices that once were considered to be theologically problematic,’’ said James Farwell, professor of religious studies at Bethany College in West Virginia.
Baptists who endorse naming bishops point to passages in St. Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus that speak approvingly of the office; some see the trend as harkening back to Christianity’s early roots.
“Some have even moved toward identifying with certain North African churches, like Coptic churches, in a sort of fellowship as part of asserting an African heritage in Christianity,’’ said Bill J. Leonard, a Baptist minister who is dean of the School of Divinity and professor of church history at Wake Forest University.
The Rev. Miniard Culpepper, pastor of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Dorchester, said the emergence of Baptist bishops may cause some “growing pains’’ among traditionalists. But for a pastor like Borders, who has mentored so many, he said the title is appropriate.
“As the church grows and develops, it forces and gives birth to new titles,’’ Culpepper said. “It’s time for John to be promoted.’’
It was Borders’s openness to unlikely ideas that brought him into the ministry. He grew up in Boston; from age 10 to 21, he sang and played guitar in an R&B group called the Energetics.
He was reading the Bible in a hotel room after a show in Geneva when he felt called by God to become a pastor; though his bandmates scoffed, he went home to Boston to read the scripture some more.
In 1981, he was a fledgling minister when Morning Star, a congregation in Mattapan that had recently survived a split and had just 75 members, called him to be pastor.
A turning point in his career came in 1992, when Borders was presiding over a funeral of a murder victim at Morning Star. A group of young men chased down a mourner in the church and stabbed him repeatedly.
The event prompted the city’s black clergy to come together and create the TenPoint Coalition, whose groundbreaking work in reducing violent crime built several of Boston’s black ministers a national reputation.
Borders, however, made a conscious decision to focus on his ministry rather than on becoming an activist. He felt his congregation needed him. Now, Morning Star has 2,000 members, thousands more watch sermons online or listen to his Beacon Light radio broadcast on WEZE-AM.
“In his community he has labored, and the entire community knows that,’’ said Monica Jones, a social service worker from Dorchester and a member of Morning Star.
Borders became bishop with the approval of his congregation, and at the urging of the 26 men and women who have become ministers and pastors under his guidance, and who signed a document recognizing his spiritual authority in their lives.
With no established denominational hierarchy to bestow the title, Borders and others in the new generation of Baptist pastors look to a variety of authorities for validation.
“In my eyes, he was already bishop,’’ said Gillian Thomas, an associate minister at Morning Star.
“He has earned it. We are honoring him by recognizing in a formal way who he really is to us and who we believe he is to the city.’’
In an ornate ceremony in Memphis, where at one point he lay on the ground prostrate to demonstrate deep humility, Borders was consecrated bishop by the International Bishops Conference USA, a small and relatively new organization with members from a variety of Christian denominations.
Archbishop LeRoy Bailey Jr., a senior member of the conference who leads a Baptist congregation of 11,000 members in Hartford, said the 20 or so US bishops stay in close touch, challenging one another spiritually and offering practical and moral support.
“It is lonely being a minister, and a lot of guys who have been in ministry 20 or 30 years, they retire and don’t even have a single friend,’’ he said.
Borders says he is now building new kinds of collegial relationships he has long craved, and that did not always feel easily accessible to him through the National Baptist Convention, with which Morning Star remains affiliated, because of the convention’s large size and structure.
Though Borders tells his parishioners to call him whatever they please, Jones loves his new title.
She says it has ushered in a season of spiritual growth at Morning Star that she feels keenly in her own life.
There has been, she said, “a shift in the way that I see God, in the way I go out of here and sit with God during the week.’’