Wearing Our Sunday Best (and why it might be the worst)

If you grew up in the average Christian home, Sunday morning was set aside for looking nice.  Your dad donned slacks and even a tie during special services, and your mom wore heels and a floral-printed dress.  And as a child, you wrestled with your parents as they held you down and pulled similar attire over your screaming head and flailing limbs.  But this isn’t a post about disobedient children—it’s about why Christians feel compelled to wear nice clothes to church services.

You might be surprised, but this practice didn’t start with our grandmas.  It goes back to the Industrial Revolution, where the manufacturing of mass textiles allowed the middle class to buy finer clothes—something to which only the wealthiest were accustomed.  In order to imitate the aristocracy, the middle class proudly displayed their new threads to social events, including church services. 

At first, the early Methodists and Baptists condemned the wearing of fine clothing to church because it separated the rich from the poor—sometimes those in fancy clothing weren’t even permitted to come inside!  Attitudes changed when Horace Bushnell, a minister in Connecticut, wrote an essay called “Taste and Fashion.”  Bushnell asserted that sophistication and refinement were characteristics of God, and Christians should work to be like Him.  This began the idea that we should wear our best clothes to church to honor God.

Admittedly, this isn’t as prominent of an issue as it once was.  It wasn’t too long ago though, that people were apprehensive about entering the church without proper attire.  A woman might decline attending a service solely because she didn’t own a dress. Although no one would say it, frumpy people were unwelcome.

Dressing up for church gives the impression that we must clean-up before we come to God—an odd notion from a people who admit their own depravity and claim purification comes through Christ alone.  Wearing our Sunday best is nothing but a human tradition that was not sanctioned by God.  To decide that church-goers must practice this is similar to the Pharisees criticizing Jesus’ disciples in Mark 7 for not following the traditions of the elders.  Jesus responded, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’  You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”

Naturally, the point is not that we ban ties from our church.  Rather, we must have a watchful eye on our motivation behind our dress.  Is it for our own glorification?  Does it make outsiders feel distant and lowly?  Our church gatherings should draw attention to God, not ourselves.  On Sunday mornings, we should put on the attire God called us to wear—the full armor of God (Ephesians 6). 


Sources:
Barna, George, and Frank Viola.  Pagan Christianity:  Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices.  USA:  Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2008.