The church's associate rector, Susan Anderson-Smith, said "Lord" conveys hierarchical power over things but that's not who Jesus understood himself to be, she told the local newspaper.

Prominent evangelical leader the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called the comments absurd.

"Jesus – the Lord – called His disciples to follow Him. He did not follow them ... He was not a mere 'mentor' and 'companion,'" Mohler wrote in his weblog on Friday. ...