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| Dress Up for Worship! | | Date Created: Dec 14, 2004, 12:28 PM |
Some very interesting comments from Peter Toon.
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The very fact that religion is privatized in America tends to make the practice of religion into a leisure activity, howbeit a regular and important one, whether we like it to be so or not. This is because the choice is made to go to church rather than to go to the Mall, the Golf Course, take the kids to soccer games or to creative dancing or the like. Church-going is one of the many choices (in a society which celebrates choice as a "value") open to people to engage in when they are not at work or in school.
Then the powerful reality of individualism and of the therapeutic culture also point and push people into the idea of seeing worship as leisure and of being casual for "worship". In the context of going to the church of one's choice, wearing clothing of one's choice is an expression of the self; and the power of the "community" [church] wherein this individualism is preserved is seen as empowering and conducive to self-worth and self- realization and fulfilment.
Thus the impact of this social and cultural situation is that many people dress for worship in much the same way (even in an identical way) as they do for going to the Mall, taking the kids to soccer and so on. So to see people going to church on Sunday mornings, to see them at the coffer hour and in the sanctuary is to view a people who are to all outward appearances dressed for leisure. Also, even those taking part in the service also often do so without special vestments – e.g., the distribution of Holy Communion at the R C Mass is often done by men in sports slacks and open shirts and by women in blouses and shorts or slacks.
Further, the way that "worshippers" and "worship leaders" dress appears to be conditioned by (certainly very much related to) the type of services in which they participate. Services are often informal, easy-going and participatory and to dress up for them in formal clothing is seen to be "over-dressed". In this kind of assembly, as the style, the words and the music appear to indicate, the presence of "God" seems to be perceived or thought of as being that of an Invisible Friendly Spirit and a "Father-God" whose function is to make people feel good about their religious exercises and experience together and to bless them according to their needs. [The classic sense of the presence of God as above and beyond (transcendent) in his holiness and glory and yet present to the humble and lowly soul does not seem to go with the leisure-style mindset, dress and deportment, and neither does the classic doctrine of worshipping the Father through the Son and with the Holy Spirit in the beauty of holiness and in spirit and in truth.]
Where this form of worship as attractive experiential religion is well presented, it is very attractive to millions of middle-class Americans (and to some middle-class Brits and Canadians). The reason is, I suggest, because it is culture friendly in a general way, even though in a few specifics it is anti-cultural (e.g., anti-abortion or pro-life). So its distinctiveness is primarily in the very narrow area where it actually differs from the dominant western culture of individualism, rights, leisure activities and communities of mutual interest. Yet as was seen in the recent Presidential Election this narrow area of difference (opposition to same-sex marriage, pro-life etc.) is, at the moment, important and is more than sufficient to be distinctive--even though this experiential religion as a whole is so very obviously only possible to practice in modern western society.
Of course there is a minority of middle-class churches where people attend dressed in their "Sunday-best" because they have been taught that in going to meet with God one should dress in at least as formal a way as one would if one were going to the White House for an audience with the President. (Usually these traditional churches have a formal liturgy with minimal participation by other than ordained ministers who are dressed in some form of vestments.)
And then also many of the African-American churches present to the onlooker on Sunday mornings congregations of people "dressed up" for their members are taught that in the Lord's House and presence they are to dress appropriately as they meet with King of kings.
What seems clear--when one seeks to separate religion from the strong cultural and social elements--is that where a congregation has a profound sense of the glorious transcendence of God the Holy Trinity and also a vital sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of the Lord Jesus in its midst, then it does not regard what it is doing in worship as recreational and its members do not dress as if they were going to a ball game! |
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