On Dressing up for Church

Sunday "Best?”

I tried to mostly keep offline to enjoy the holiday over the last week, but I couldn’t help but notice the dustup surrounding this meme:

Some posted it in agreement, leading others to post it in disagreement. Hundreds of comments ensued.

On the whole, the sense I got is that the practice of having “Sunday Best” and dressing up for worship is now mostly seen as little more than a culture preference held by generations past. Some would go so far as to say more formal dress is actually harmful to the church. In either case, the consensus seems to be that dress should be heavily de-emphasized.

I’m not sure I agree.

To be fair, I do think the meme is rather poorly done. It raises the question, is Jesus not there on Wednesday night when few wear their Sunday suits or dresses back to the building? Do we not “go to see Jesus” every day in our prayer lives, and if so are we expected to dress to the nines for that, too? The wording doesn’t hold up, and the condescension isn’t going to win anybody over.

Having said that, the objections are fairly questionable, too. Let’s work through a few.

James 2

Many of the objectors appealed to James 2. In verses 1-13 we’re given what seems to be a semi-hypothetical situation in which the members of a congregation treat a man dressed in fine clothes better than they do a poor man in filthy clothes.

To be clear, the chapter does not say “Do not dress nice for church” or “Do not prefer that people dress nice for church.” It says we should not treat people better or worse depending on their clothing.

However, it’s hard to make a one-for-one comparison with the issue in their day and ours. We do not have people living in rags. Our standard of living even at the lowest levels is well above the kind of thing James would have addressed.

Years ago I knew a couple of rather humble means who, on the day they were baptized, decided they wanted to dress nicely for worship. They got a hold of some suits and dresses either by member donation or at thrift stores and were some of the sharpest-dressed people in attendance each week, even if the clothes were a bit dated.

There is a big difference between “can’t” and “could have but didn’t,” but the two have been conflated for the sake of argument. I suspect we have another Granny Johnson situation at play here, with those who are perfectly capable hiding behind those who may hypothetically be less capable.

We can argue for whether dressing a little nicer for worship is a good thing without hiding behind the poorer member. In our culture, it is not inability that’s at play here, so let’s not pretend it is. Let’s also not pretend those who are proponents of nicer dress are being mean or insensitive to the poorer members.

It doesn’t make a difference.

Part of the generational argument seems to be “They cared about that kind of stuff back then, but today’s society just doesn’t.” But just because we have so devalued nearly everything we do does not mean we are right about this.

We’ve become incredibly gnostic on this point. There’s been plenty of research done (with a few linked here) to show that how we dress affects our internal state. Biblically, you can read through the Law and see just how much external adornment God placed on the tabernacle and priestly garments, plus the kind of preparation people were expected to make when coming before Him corporately.

The idea that OT God was physical and NT God is spiritual is, again, a form of gnosticism. He still cares about the physical. And deep down, humans have always known the importance of the external.

Cultures the world around have long placed value on dress for things that are important. The things we dress up for—funerals, weddings, anniversary dates, graduations—are what we deem important. Our clothing speaks louder than our words, and our worship clothing is increasingly saying “This is just another event on the calendar.”

And though a lot of people are allergic to the modesty discussion, it’s still valid and it factors in here. If your preacher got up to give the sermon in a Speedo, it would be a problem because dress, on some level, does matter. If he got up to preach in sweats and a gym shirt, it would similarly be seen as strange. The objection might be, “well that’s just because of people’s expectations,” but there’s a reason they have those expectations. Serious matters are expected to be treated seriously.

Making visitors comfortable

This is the claim I want to put under the microscope, as it is the primary reason given for diminishing dress standards. It’s just assumed that this is obviously what we want to do.

Have we ever asked ourselves whether making visitors feel comfortable in our assemblies is a positive goal?

What if feeling like you don’t belong but really wishing you did is a motivator to change?

I wrote about this a while back with the illustration of the country club that will lower its ground rules and membership cost out of desperation for new members, and what that would say about such an institution. Isn’t the classier feel of the country club the thing that makes people want to join in the first place?

Similarly, when people come to observe the gathering of the saints, shouldn’t it feel wildly different from everything else they do all week long? Visually, aurally, mentally, and spiritually, it should feel like they’ve stepped into another world. Because they have.

Instead, they generally are treated to an experience that feels little different than attending a Ted Talk would. A little discomfort that creates a craving for something more would go a long way.

Before I’m misquoted, I’m not saying people should be treated any differently if they come in dressed more casually than the membership. There is a big difference between making people feel unwelcome and making them feel uncomfortable. They are guests and should be treated as such, but they are guests who are being allowed to observe our worship to God. It is not about them, and I believe we have hurt both ourselves and them with all of the efforts to make the Sunday assembly the church’s biggest outreach.

It is not our similarity to the world but our difference which will attract them. They can get casual, comfortable, unchallenging religion literally everywhere else. Why try to compete with that? Why not show them this is truly something they’ve never experienced before? Why not show them this isn’t about them, but we would love to have them join us in exalting the One whom it is about?

So what would this look like?

I’m not pushing for a dress code enforced at the door (with a few exceptions). I’m advocating for church leadership to raise the bar by their example and by encouraging others to step up in this area, too. That’s it. It’s not a “yOu CaNt BiNd ThAt” issue.

It’s a question of best practices, and I believe practices which emphasize Christianity’s distinctiveness rather than its sameness are to be preferred.

Agree, disagree? Comments are open.