You know the Huffington Post, right? Far left. As far as it gets. So when they ask, "Why Don't Christians Wear Their 'Sunday Best' to Church Anymore?," we might choose to ignore it. Or not. Their answers were interesting. Part of it is culture. You know, like in the '40's and '50's when they used to "dress for dinner" but no one does now. But the big one was telling. "Most Christians don't really have a high view of God." Ouch!
The author was a pastor living in Shanghai, and he noted that other places still have dress codes for places of worship, but we don't. "Think about it," he wrote. "We're daring to approach a transcendent God dressed like Neanderthals? Really? Seems disrespectful." Instead, we have a "God is our buddy" view. The omnipotent, unapproachable, transcendent God doesn't really demand your respect. Part of it, he tells us, is that evangelism is about attracting people to church and they just won't come if we ask them to dress up. And there is no biblical dress code, right? So the ends justify the means, and if we can make sinners more comfortable in the presence of a God whose wrath they're currently facing, that should make things better.
Look, to me it's not actually about what you wear to church. It's about your heart. It's about your attitude. A guy in a suit and tie who's there to impress is in a bad condition while a farmer who puts on his cleanest t-shirt and jeans out of respect for God is not. My concern, then, isn't the outside. It's what the outside tells us about the inside. Truthfully, America has largely lost their sense of "appropriate," as demonstrated by recent news stories about the "evil" government trying to keep inappropriate material out of school children's hands. When I moved to Arizona years ago and showed up for my first job interview in a suit and tie, they told me, "Don't do that. No one does that here." We don't grasp the notion of "appropriate" about anything much anymore. And that carries over to church. But the real problem isn't "appropriate dress." The real problem is a God we don't know. We've never encountered the God of Sinai who was so frightening that the people asked Moses not to have them show up anymore (Exo 20:19). We've never seen the Lord, sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted ... a sight that drove a prophet to come undone about his sinful lips (Isa 6:1-5). So we have this lowly view of the God Most High. And our attitudes and actions show it. Which is not to our credit.
4 comments:
Truthfully, in our mind and our heart, how many of us for any Sunday morning really make any effort to prepare ourselves and plan on encountering God
This has been bothering me a lot as of late. I agree there's no prescription for dress, but when I look at church members in the same exact things they wear during the week, I see people who see God as just a nice guy, no different than visiting your next door neighbor. It's sad that we give more respect to weddings and funerals than to the Most Holy Lord that has saved us from our sins. I reject the argument that nonbelievers will be turned away by a respectfully dressed church. If they see that God makes no difference to us even in our "holy" places, what difference does He make in our lives?
I completely agree that this is more of a heart issue than a dress code issue. Strangely enough, I just received a compliment that last time I played at church because these friends thought I was more appropriately dressed than others up front. I personally choose more dressed up when I am "up front" than when I'm not. But that's a personal choice, not a prescription. I'm in the position of agreeing with the concept, but realizing that it can be used in an inappropriate way.
I was surprised the first Sunday I went to church in Haiti, when the Haitians were spectacularly well dressed. I was also a little surprised when our family would have lunch at a restaurant in a more urban area on Sundays at how well dressed the African Americans who came in after church were.
In a strange way, I suspect that when we do actually encounter YHWH face to face that what we might be wearing, is going to be the least of our concerns.
I became a believer in 1974 at the age of 22, but my thoughts about how to dress appropriately for church came from watching movies; you always saw the church-goers dressed in their "Sunday best." So when I began going to church I dressed in my best because I saw it as part of how we come before God. Except in cold weather when I wear nice pullover sweaters with my slacks, I always wear a tie.
Over the years my wife and I have often discussed how fewer and fewer people dress up for church; usually it's older people who do so, but even among them it is fewer. There is one family in our church (10 kids, homeschoolers) who are always dressed up for church. A couple families the parents are dressed semi-casual while they dress up their children! Of all the teens and college-aged young people, only one wears a tie.
I have long chalked it up to the lack of awe in our worship nowadays. I have to agree with David's comment.
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