Put a tie on!
The latest White Horse Inn, Radical Informality, really got at an issue I take personally, the general lack of formality in appropriate situations in society and in the church in particular. A lot of people I know won't care for these comments, and maybe I am way off base, but that has never stopped me.
What I hear all the time is that God doesn't care what we wear to church. There is a backlash against authoritarian formalism. What ends up happening is that we get so casual about our attire that it bleeds over into our worship, which becomes cavalier and marked by a sense of indifference. Reading from a Bible? Yawn! Tell me an interesting story or read me a joke someone emailed you or pass along a funny quip. Do anything you want, JUST DON'T BORE ME! I am dressed in my jammies, so if the sermon is boring I might drift off.
What is especially irritating is when pastors or anyone who is preaching or teaching in the church can't be bothered to put on something decent to wear.
I am a pretty formal guy in formal settings. I am banker, so I wear a suit and tie everyday. I wear a suit and tie every Sunday morning and typically at least a tie on Sunday evenings. I would never dream of teaching Sunday School or even worse preaching in anything other than a suit and tie. Granted, when I am home I am a sweatpants and t-shirt kind of guy. There isn’t much middle ground with me between suit & tie and sweats & t-shirt, but when the occasion calls for a tie, I wear a tie. Does it make me more holy? Certainly not, but for me it is a reflection on the gravity of the affair. When I preach I insist people stand for the reading of God's Word. We stand to sign hymns and praise choruses, but slouch in our seats when the Bible is read. We have lost all sense of the presence of God in church, probably because given the state of most churches, He isn't present so why bother acting like He is?
One point brought up was that people still dress up for funerals, but even that changes as we try to make funerals into "celebrations of life". The idea of funerals as a celebration has come up because if you are a non-Christian you can’t face death so you try to dress it up as a celebration. If we wear a Hawaiian shirt at a funeral, maybe it won't seem so mournful.
Ken Jones said that this new in formalism in the church is nothing less than a new sort of strange fire offered to the Lord. What a powerful indictment that is. We dress down for church not because it doesn't matter how we dress, but because we rebelliously want to worship God on our own terms. Church isn't that important, the Bible isn't that important, the Gospel isn't that important, hey even God isn't that important. Why not wear shorts?
This of course can go too far the other way. Episcopalians dress up in fancy robes (which may be why certain types of men are drawn to the flashy colors and pretty robes), they have (or had) liturgical, high church, very formal services. But for all their formality, they have lost the Gospel. Formalism without the Gospel, without the Word is worthless.
Dress nice, but bring your Bible too!
2 comments:
I have noticed for several years now that people don't dress up for funerals anymore and it doesn't have anything to do with "celebrating life" so much as it has to do with (1) some people just don't dress up or (2) don't know how to dress up or (3) don't even own any dress-up clothes (or a combination of the three.
This is not to excuse it but the problem is that the culture is so informal that many people who come to church don't even think about dressing up because they don't dress up anywhere else.
We tell our children that we dress up not to impress God (because we cannot impress him) but because we give our best to the Lord. Funny how that makes sense to a child but not to some pastors or church members.
I guess the post comes across more like a stodgy old grump (which kind of fits the bill in my case) crabbing about casual clothes, but the real issue is the casual way we approach worship. Whether it be choosing music that has a nice beat regardless of theology, demanding short sermons that don't require much thought or insisting on something practical instead of doctrinal in Sunday school, like has become all about what we want and not about what God demands. I grew up never going to church, and yet my parents instilled in us a very real awareness of when it was, and was not, appropriate to dress casually. You wouldn't believe what some people wear to interviews with me. It is a bank people, jeans and Birkenstocks are not going to get it done for the interview!
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