Casual or Dressy to church for any reason James 2:1- ; My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; And ye have respect to him that wearth the gay clothing, (this was before the word gay became known as a bad word), and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by which y are called? When I look at some of the pictures of the old timers at Apostolic Historians Association, and other places as well, I have found some that have pictures of Jesus on the front pull-pit as well as in their homes and Bibles. These pictures of Jesus were painted two hundred years or so after he walked the earth. They were painted by Western Europe artist; many of them paint Jesus as having long hair, which he did not have. Read Isaiah 7:20 In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired… the head, and the hair of the feet: it shall also consume the beard. The truth of the matter is if Jesus or any of the Apostles’ walked in to MOST of our Oneness Churches today, (and we knew for sure, 100% that it was Him or one of them), looking the way they do in those pictures they would NOT be allowed behind the pull-pit, unless they went and put on a suit and tie. I have quit a long time ago in taking part of the RELIGION OF THE TIE. And because of it I will never be allowed to sing, take up offering, or any other part of the church services. And if I’m right I read that we all will be wearing White Robes in Heaven. It has become a MAN MADE RULE in the last 150 years that a man of God can’t be a preacher unless he is wearing a suit and tie. I’m not talking about someone coming in to church half-naked, I’m talking about fully clothed people wearing the best that they have. Many times these people after they obey Acts 2:38 and have come into the Church, are made to buy a suit and tie if they are to take part in anything behind the pull-pit. Taken From the book Pagan Christianity? By Frank Viola and George Barna Exploring the roots our Church Practices Pages 146-155 Dressing up for Church The practice of dressing up for church is a relatively recent phenomenon. It began in the late-eighteenth century with the Industrial Revolution, and it became widespread in the mid-nineteenth century. Before this time, “dressing up” for social events was known only among the very wealthy. The reason was. Only the well-to-do aristocrats of society could afford nice clothing! Common folks had only two sets of clothes: work clothes or laboring in the field and less tattered clothing for going into town. Dressing up for any occasion was only an option for the wealthiest nobility. From medieval times until the eighteenth century, dress was a clear marker of one’s social class. In places like England, poor people were actually forbidden to wear the clothing of the “better” people. This changed with the invention of mass textile manufacturing and the development of urban society. Fine clothes became more affordable to the common people. The middle class was born, and those within it were able to emulate the envied aristocracy. For the first time, the middle class could distinguish themselves from the peasants. To demonstrate their newly improved status, they could now ‘dress up” for social events just like the well-to-do. Some Christian groups in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries resisted this cultural trend. John Wesley wrote against wearing expensive or flashy clothing. The early Methodist so resisted the idea of dressing up for church that they turned away anyone who wore expensive clothing to their meetings. The early Baptists also condemned fine clothing, teaching that it separated the rich from the poor. Despite these protests, mainstream Christians began wearing fine clothes whenever they could. The growing middle class prospered, desiring bigger homes, larger church buildings, and fancier clothing. As the Victorian enculturation of the middle class grew, fancier church buildings began to draw more influential people in society. This all came to a head when in 1843, Horace Bushnell, an influential Congregational minister in Connecticut, published an essay called “Taste and Fashion.” In it, Bushnell argued that sophistication and refinement were attributes of God and that Christians should emulate them. (Not Want James said in the Book of James) Thus was born the idea of dressing up for church to honor God. Church members now worshipped in elaborately decorated buildings sporting their formal clothes to honor God. Casual or Dressy IN 1846, a Virginia Presbyterian named William Henry Foote wrote that “a church-going people are a dress loving people.” This statement simply expressed the formal dress ritual that mainstream Christians had adopted when going to church. The trend was so powerful that by the 1850’s, even the “formal-dress-resistant” Methodists got absorbed by it. And they, too, began wearing their Sunday best to church. Accordingly, as with virtually every other accepted church practice, dressing up for church is the result of Christians being influenced by their surrounding culture. Today, many Christians “suit up” for Sunday morning church without ever asking why. But now you know the story behind this mindless custom. It is purely the result of nineteenth-century middle-class efforts to become like their wealthy aristocrat contemporaries, showing off their improved status by their clothing. (This effort was also helped along by Victorian notions of respectability.) It has nothing to do with the Bible, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit. SO WHAT’S WRONG WITH IT? What’s the big deal about “dressing up” for church? It is hardly a burning issue. However, it is what dressing up for church represents that is the burning issue. First, it reflects the false division between the secular and the sacred. To think that God cares one whit if you wear dressy threads on Sunday to “meet Him” is a violation of the New Covenant. We have access to God’s presence at all times and in all circumstances. Does He really expect His people to dress up for a beauty pageant on Sunday morning? Second, wearing attractive, flashy clothes on Sunday morning screams out an embarrassing message: that church is the place where Christians hide their real selves and “dress them up” to look nice and pretty. Think about it. Wearing your Sunday best for church is little more than image management. It gives the house of God all the elements of a stage show: costumes, makeup, (in churches that allow this, some oneness churches do) props, lighting, ushers, special music, master of ceremonies, performance, and the featured program. 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. Let’s face it. As fallen humans, we are seldom willing to appear to be what we really are. We almost always rely on our performance or dress to give people a certain impression of what we want them to believe we are. All of this differs markedly from the simplicity that marked the early church. Third, dressing up for church smacks against the primitive simplicity that was the sustaining hallmark of the early church. The first-century Christians did not “dress up” to attend church meetings. They met in the simplicity of living rooms. They did not dress to exhibit their social class. In fact, the early Christians made concrete efforts to show their absolute disdain for social class distinctions. In the church, all social and racial distinctions are erased. The early Christians knew well that they were a new species on this planet. For this reason, James levels a rebuke to those believers who were treating the rich saints better than the poor saints. He boldly reproves the rich for dressing differently from the poor. And yet, many Christians are under the false delusion that it is “irreverent” to dress informal clothing when attending a Sunday morning church service. This is not dissimilar to how the Scribes and the Pharisees accused the Lord and His disciples of being irreverent for not following the tradition of the elders (Mark 7:1-13). In short, to say that the Lord expects His people to dress in fine clothing when the church gathers is to add to the Scriptures and speak where God has not spoken. Such a practice is human tradition at its best.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 00:11:39 +0000
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