Clothing and Worship

i know i've written about this before, but it's on my mind again. i don't think dressing up for worship gatherings should be taught as a binding custom (and more strongly, i think it ought not be practiced whether bound by someone else or not) because:

1. It equates wealth or materialism with reverence. The niceness or professional-like-aesthetic of one's clothing is seen as showing respect and reverence toward God. This custom thus equates a material end with a spiritual end.

Consider an analogous case with singing: Does it seem spiritual or Christ-like or right to say that because someone doesn't have a singing voice which meets a certain cultural aesthetic standard, that person doesn't have the level of devotion or heart-felt-ness in their praise in comparison to someone who does have an aesthetically pleasing singing voice? Would we say that a "better" singer is in some sense more spiritual than a "worse" singer? What if a person could spend the time to train his voice to become a better singer, but refused to do so? Should we say that such a person is somehow spiritually defficient because he could improve his musical skills but won't? My intuition says that by and large no one would find such a person blameworthy. If that is the case, then, similarly, why should people feel they are less spiritual for not being "better" dressers?

2. It is conducive to character judgments based on appearance. First, if reverence is equated with a certain spectrum of appearances, then those who choose to fall into that range of appearance will assume by their own appearance that they are therefore reverent. However, even the most sharply dressed person is not necessarily reverent. And more to the point, if a person is irreverent, no level of professional-like apparel with alter or improve that irreverence. Yet people holding to this notion of nice-apparel indicating reverence are more likely to believe they possess the attitude or disposition of reverence due to their appearance.

Second, if reverence is equated with a certain spectrum of appearances, then those within that spectrum of appearances are likely to mark those who fall outside that range of appearance as irreverent. This notion, if i believe it, urges me toward assuming things about others' relationship with God based solely on their clothing. Is this qualitatively any different than the Pharisees assuming that Jesus couldn't possibly have been the Christ because He socialized with less-than-reputable classes of people or didn't make His disciples ceremonially wash their hands?

3. It is conducive to partiality. Believing this notion creates a division between those who fall within that range of appearances deemed as "reverent" and those who fall outside it. Thus, it is conducive to people preferring to keep company with "their own kind." People who believe that falling within that range of appearances correlates with a higher level of some spiritual quality are likely to be more comfortable and open to others who also fall within that same range of appearances.

James says quite explicity that no preference or partiality should be shown based on niceness of clothing (James 2:1ff). Many people have explained his words by adding this qualification to the dressing-up-rule: People just need to be doing the best they can do; as long as they're wearing they're personal best, they're fine. However, this passage in James mentions no such qualification. There's nothing in this passage that indicates James shares this underlying qualification in the matter. Rather, James states in a raw way that partiality based on niceness of clothing are forbidden.

Further, however noble this qualification sounds ("as long as someone wears his personal best..."), it doesn't change the fact that there is a majority demographic of a certain appearance level. If i do not fall within that majority demographic, then no matter how many times people within that demographic tell me i'm okay based on this qualification, there is nevertheless a clear and obvious difference between me and those within that demographic--i don't belong to this group. Imagine if you were to wear your suit into an assembly and when you walked in, every one else in the room was wearing tattered and worn rags reminiscent of homeless people. Would you not be uncomfortably aware of the difference between you and them? If some of them discreetly tried to comfort you by saying since you're wearing your personal best, it's fine that you don't look like the rest of them--would that make you any less aware in a social sense of the difference between you and them?

The point being that this particular practiced even when framed in a nicer way is still conducive to an air of exclusion and preference--exclusion and preference based on criteria over which no one ought to be excluded or preferred.

4. It is conducive to hypocrisy. If people equate certain appearances with certain character states, then they are likely by appearance and to others who believe this notion to present themselves as having certain character states that they do not, in fact, have. In other words, lending such weight to appearances leads to pretenses and "masks." When i dress up to call attention to some spiritual disposition i'm supposed to have at a certain time and place, you are seeing how i appear to be but not necessarily who i really am.

Further, if i dress this way only on a certain occasion, and if there are those who basically only see me on that certain occasion, then in a practical way, others are disallowed access to who i am normally outside that occasion.

i think integrity can be described as being the same person in character and virtue at all times. To have integrity is not to be, as it were, two-faced--a different person in character on one occasion than on another. Yet it seems that this custom of dressing up for church is conducive to that very thing.

5. It creates a perceived, yet erroneous, difference between the "sacred" and the "secular." i am personally unable to discern from the New Testament that Christians assembling together is a "special occasion" or "sacred" in the sense that it is often treated in modern times. Is it really the case that i'm somehow more obligated to revere God during an assembly than any other time? Is it the case that i'm somehow more in the presence of God when i assemble with other Christians to pray compared to when i pray privately on some other occasion? When i assemble with other Christians and participate in that assembly, am i somehow moreso serving God during that time than i am when i live the way God wants me to live during any other given time in my life? To put it candidly, does God care that i look nice during church but He doesn't care if i look nice at work?

i think dressing up for church buttresses the notion that there is a difference between Sunday and every other day of the week in regards to my discipleship. Am i any less obligated to follow Christ any other day of the week? Am i any less obligated to revere God any other day of the week? Am i any less obligated to "be on my best behavior" any other day of the week? If none of these obligations change at any given time, and if a certain appearance is indicative of meeting those obligations, why would any Christian be any less obligated to dress up any other day of the week?

i think it is a false and unbiblical notion to say that parts of my life are less "spiritual" or less "sacred" or less important to God than others. Of course, i should sing and pray to the glory of God when assembled with other Christians. But nonetheless should i pursue my career to the glory of God or vacation to the glory of God or play with my son to the glory of God. i am no less a Christian outside an assembly of Christians than when i am in one. If there is something distinctively Christian about dressing up, then why wouldn't i be obligated to dress up at all times?

6. There's no New Testament precedent for it. Why do we take the Lord's Supper? Why do we pray together? Why do we assemble regularly? Why do we send and support missionaries? Why do we study the scriptures? We find these things practiced by and enjoined upon the New Testament church and we believe we ought to imitate them. Dressing up for church is clearly a wide-spread custom in our culture such that some (maybe even many) consider it obligatory. But where is the New Testament precedent for it? Where does the New Testament show us that this practice was customary and sanctioned by the New Testament church? Unless i have completely missed some scriptures somewhere, it seems this custom is one of human invention and initiative rather than from God.

Does God Let Us Get Away With Stuff?

i just came across a verse that i don't know what to make of:


"For David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not failed to keep any of the LORD's commands all the days of his life—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite." (1Kings 15:5)

Really? David never messed up except with Uriah? What about the other people who were hurt?--Bathsheba and the baby and all the people David made a party to his crime? i know we could say, "well, 'in the case of' is general and covers the entire incident and everyone involved." Okay, fine. But what about letting his men eat the show bread? What about taking that census near the end of his reign? And what about what history doesn't record?--surely David sinned other than just the one awful weekend, right?

There may be ways to textually resolve all this. But the question it really raises in my mind is how God judges us in total. i've heard a lot of guys try to explain away all the polygamy in the Old Testament, but i have never gotten over the gut feeling that either it wasn't wrong at all, or else God just plain let some of those guys get away with it. And listen, polygamy is just one example. Read the OT and some of the men's lives recorded there. They are heralded as heroes of faith, and yet some of them were jerks (Jacob or Samson are pretty good examples).

So here's the question that's interesting to me: Do we really have to do everything right all the time? Is it possible that someone could die having never repented of certain behaviors and yet still be eternally safe? Is it possible there are sins i will be sinning for the rest of my days and never change and nevertheless be redeemed by Christ on the last day?

i used to tell myself that it was about an attitude of repentance. And i'd say that's basically how i still understand things--that as long as a person who's in Christ maintains a disposition of penitence (and thus, growth), that they are safe and can know they are safe and are in no danger at all eternally. This means that perfection is not required, but nor is it okay to live in sin.

But what do you want to say about men in the Bible who seem to have sinned impenitently even up to their deaths? i know the cards that a lot of people play when dealing with these questions:

The Ignorance Card -- Well, we honestly don't know whether or not they'll be in heaven or not because it doesn't tell us. So it's not our place to assume they're saved for eternity.

Historical Service vs. Personal Salvation -- Well, look, all those guys were servants of God in the sense that they were used by God to fulfill His historical purposes for bringing about the grand scheme of redemption, but this does not necessarily imply anything about their individual salvific statuses.

Those points are fine and good points, and i would still present them as possibilities myself in the discussion. The problem i have with playing these two cards is that (1) they're merely strategic and (2) they're only possibilities.

(1) They are strategic in the sense that a person who plays these cards is basically already committed to saying that no one could be personally saved if they died with sins-unrepented-of. But that presupposition is, itself, in question here.

(2) They are possibilities in that they are speculative, and they are no more or less a legitimate possibility than is the fact that at least one of the historical individuals in question truly did die with sins-unrepented-of and yet was still eternally safe.

It still seems like a live option is that someone like David (especially when you think about 1Kings 15:5 in view of several other passages in which his actions seem sinful) had sins that even though he didn't repent of them God didn't count them against him.

What does this mean? What would it imply about salvation for individuals today? Anything? Nothing?

Why Do You Believe?

Why do you believe in God? Is your belief in God really rooted on one of the traditional arguments? Do you really believe in God because you find the cosmological argument to be compelling? Or the ontological argument or which ever? In other words, is your belief in God such that if you found out these arguments didn't work, you'd stop believing in God?

i can answer for myself and say a big, fat "no." If i discovered tomorrow that the cosmological argument just fell flat, or the teleological argument was just flawed through and through, or whichever argument--i wouldn't stop believing in God. Obviously then, such arguments are not the basis nor motivation for my personal belief in God. And i'm guessing that if i stood up on a Sunday morning and explained to a congregation of 300 people why these arguments failed, most of them wouldn't stop believing in God either.

i find it interesting to identify that such arguments are not that basis or motivation. If that is the case, then i have a couple questions:

1. If such arguments do not form the basis nor motivation for our own religious beliefs, why do we use such argumentation as a tool for forming religious beliefs in others? In other words, if we don't believe in God because of the ontological argument, why do we think that an atheist will?

2. What is the basis and motivation of religious belief? Why do people form religious beliefs?

The "Christian" West & Things That Don't Seem To Add Up

Just a few things on my mind briefly:

i get the impression that values in the religious West are taken for granted but are not consistent with Christianity.

First, it seems that rugged monetary individualism is taken as a value even among religious people. Social programs and wealth redistribution are frowned upon even by many religious people. And yet in Judaism, a theocracy--that is, in a governmental system authored by God, Himself--social programs and wealth redistribution were commanded by God. Fields, orchards, and vineyards were not to be fully harvested, but were to be left for the poor to come and help themselves (Lev 19:9-10; Deut 24:19-22). And the Jewish tithe (analogous to taxes) was systematically (albeit partially) redistributed to the poor (Lev 26:12-14; Deut 26:12).

Second, the early church either lived socialistically (Acts 4:32-35; 6:1) or monetarily supplied the poor abroad (1Cor 16:1-2). Yet what does the modern church spend its money on largely? Buildings? Pulpiteers and religious leaders? Technology?

Third, modern religious culture, at least in my own experience, seems to be largely occupied by one sub-culture--middle class, caucasian suburbanites. Yet Jesus seemed to seek out and spend time with the lowest class peoples and those on the social fringes.

Fourth, i realize this one is a far bigger can of worms than i'm acknowledging, but i'll throw it out there nonetheless: People in the religious West seem quick to defend and support and justify war. It seems arguably the case to me that Jesus was opposed to war and violence.