Letter to the Editor

Unfortunately, I tossed the paper before cutting out this letter to the editor. However, it has kind of been in the back of my mind since reading it. The author shared his utter disdain for the clothes that "young" people wear to church. He wrote that no one would wear the clothes that these people wear to wedding or funerals and that these clothes dishonor God.

The question I wanted to ask this author:

Would you prefer that these people don't go to church at all?

Honestly, I would be afraid to hear the answer.

I was also reminded of a chapter in Pagan Christianity? entitled, Sunday Morning Costumes: Covering up the Problem. In this chapter, Frank Viola and George Barna explore the roots of "dressing up for church."

Dressing up became increasingly popular with the invention of mass textile manufacturing. Why? Well, all of the sudden, the common people could afford the clothing of the aristocracy. By the 184os, fashion had developed into an important part of "honoring" God. However, the reality is that dressing up for church was nothing more than common folks attempting to show off their improved status by their clothing.

The authors go on to describe why the whole dressing up thing is a problem.

It is nothing more than image management.

From the book:

"Dressing up for church violates the reality that the church is made up of real people with messy problems - real people who may have gotten into a major-league bickering match with their spouses just before they drove into the parking lot and put on colossal smiles to cover it up!

Wearing our 'Sunday best' conceals a basic underlying problem. It fosters the illusion that we are somehow 'good' because we are dressing up for God. It is a study in pretense that is dehumanizing and constitutes a false witness to the world."

Wow, these guys really go at this issue. I can honestly say that this makes sense to me. I know from my own experiences that I act differently when I'm wearing a suit or even a tux - maybe a little less farting, for example. It is kind of like I insert legs into pants and arms into jacket and enter a different world. Honestly, when people dress up to go to the wedding are they really "honoring" the couple or are they concerned about their own image? Again, from personal experience, I would lean toward the latter. In regards to wearing clothes to "honor" the dead. Hey dude, guess what? The people are dead. I doubt that they give a darn about the clothes people are wearing.

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. (Colossians 2:8, NIV)