Bro. -- Monk or fellow Christian?
I tried to research this online but am having problems figuring out how.
When you see Bro. before a name, what do you think? The person is a pastor? He's a monk? He's a fellow believer in Christ? Something else?
When you see Bro. before a name, what do you think? The person is a pastor? He's a monk? He's a fellow believer in Christ? Something else?
posted by MommyLydia | 5/31/2006 09:56:00 PM
5 Comments:
If I see "Bro." in print, I assume it's a Catholic monk.
If I hear "Bro." preceding a man's last name, I assume I am in a church somewhere in the South!
To answer the second question, it depends why you're writing the essay. For something academic, if the person has no formal title in the religious sense, I would use his given name alone--or use a qualifier before his first and last name that puts him in context--such as "devout Christian John Doe" or "church leader John Doe."
If you're writing the essay for another purpose, such as an organization's newsletter, then it's up to you. I might still say "brother in Christ John Doe" rather than Bro. Doe unless that abbreviation is what readers would recognize as not Catholic.
As I commented in the Miss vs. Mrs. post below I'm in the deep South. Here Bro. usually is a substitute for Pastor. Frequently deacons are also referred to as Bro. Unless you are Pentecostal, in which case all men are Bro. and all women are Sister! :)
I grew up Baptist in Houston.
And there Bro. was for men and Sister for the ladies.
I still use Bro. all the time. And it was just recently pointed out to me that Bro. was a monk.
I've always thought Brother was for monks, while Bro. was a title for a fellow Christian brother (although I must say for some reason, while keeping the Bro., I've dropped Sister)
I remember a chorus we used to sing.
"Here we are together again, just praising the name of the Lord.
It's been a while since we seen each other.
I'm glad to be with my sisters and brothers.
Here we are together again, just praising the name of the Lord."
From South Mississippi here....and we grew up calling all men in the church brother. I now attend a church where a few people do that and a few do not. I still call some of them Brother. It's mostly according to how we were introduced.
Funny thing is, in the church I grew up in, we never said "Sister". It was Bro. So and So and Mrs. So and So.
My husband teases me about the "Brother" thing...but he's a city boy from out west. Namely Tuscon and L.A.
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