Let me get this out of the way: I pastor a church that would fall squarely into the "traditional" and "formal" side of the spectrum. I almost always preach in a tie and sport coat, even on Wednesday evening services. Personally, I like it when people dress up for church.
But there is one phrase I've heard a million times in my life that needs to die. That being the phrase "dress your best for the Lord."
I'm not arguing against dressing up to go to church. I think a legitimate argument can be made for having "church clothes" and dressing in a respectful manner when you go to the church house. What I am arguing is that that phrase needs to die and be replaced with an argument that is clear and actually biblical.
What's wrong with "Dress your best for the Lord?"
1. "Dress your best for the Lord" is not biblical.
Quick quiz: find me the Bible passage that talks about what we should wear to church. Keep looking...
I can find only two passages in the whole Bible that mention what people wear to church, and if anything, they run against the "dress your best for the Lord" mantra.
James 2:1-4 - KJV
- 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 weareth the gay clothing, 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?
1 Timothy 2:9
- In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
I find it interesting that the only passages in scripture mentioning clothing in church seem to rebuke us for our over-emphasis on nice clothes and the partiality they engender. If we are to be biblical Christians, we at least need to consider this as evidence against the "you have to dress up for church" dogma.
As Bible-believing Christians, we should be able to at least point to the scriptures as the source of our beliefs and practice - and this phrase just doesn't have much direct scriptural support.
2. "Dress your best for the Lord" is not historical.
Historically "dressing your best" wasn't a problem. Prior to the industrial revolution (which in historical terms happened ten minutes ago) clothing was just so hard to make that few people had more than a few outfits.
But I've always found it interesting to go back to the times of the great awakening and to the early english baptists and see that they were preaching against wearing fancy clothes in church.
Let your dress be cheap as well as plain; otherwise you do but trifle with God, and me, and your own souls.
and
"Wear nothing of a glaring colour, or which is in any kind gay, glistering, or showy; nothing made in the very height of the fashion, nothing apt to attract the eyes of bystanders."
The early methodists would actually have deacons at the door turning away people who were too dressed up.
Early American Baptists also spoke out against fine clothing. If you were to read the covenants, minutes and other writings of from the late 1700s and early 1800s you'd find that Baptists were concerned with "extravagance of apparel" and "superfluity of apparel" and not with people not dressing up enough for church.
Two things seem to have moved the pendulum to the other side:
- The industrial revolution made clothing much easier to come by. Most of us have more clothes today than kings would have had 500 years ago.
- The dominant culture moved away from formality in the 1960s and has been moving in that direction ever since.
My point is just that if you were to go to a church in the 1700s and start preaching about "dressing your best for the Lord" you would have sounded like an alien. It's a historically novel concept.
3. "Dress your best for the Lord" is not logical.
It doesn't take too much thinking to poke logical holes in the phrase "dress your best for the Lord:"
What if my best is a tuxedo with tails? Am I to wear that to church? Expensive cufflinks? Diamond jewelry? Once we send people hurtling in that direction, where is the brake on the top end?
What if my best is so much nicer than the congregation that it engenders jealousy in my poorer brethren? This is, after all, what James 2 and 1 Timothy 2:9 seem to be addressing.
Further, what if "my best" isn't what you are looking for? What if "my best" is $500 sneakers and $500 jeans with holes in them?
4. "Dress your best for the Lord" is a source of pride and judgement.
Too many people believe the Bible says "dress your best for the Lord." It has become so ingrained in them that it becomes a source of pride and judgmentalism. They sit in the church house looking down on those who aren't "dressed up" for church.
Times have changed. Most unchurched people aren't thinking about dress clothes. They no longer feel burdened about church attendance, never mind dressing up to go to church. We can bemoan this reality all day - but it is still reality.
I think if people do come to our church, they don't need to feel judged by half the congregation because they aren't dressed up enough.
Can we save formal church dress?
As I said in my introduction, I am a proponent of formal church dress - just not a fan of telling people to "dress their best for the Lord."
I do think a biblical case can be made for dressing up for church, and I think we should make it - but not overstate our case.
In the scriptures, whenever people met with God, it was humbling event. Whether it was the Jews' rites of cleansing and offerings before coming to the edge of the tabernacle or Isaiah falling on his face before God - people's interactions with and worship of God was anything but casual.
Why do we dress up? Why do we wear formal clothes when we go to the funeral home or to a wedding? Is it not to show respect for the occasion? In our culture (and in many others around the world) we have formal clothes that denote the importance of our occasion.
There is no doubt that this has changed and is changing. What passes as formal today would be considered activewear 100 years ago. It also changes based on location: in the farm-centered town I live in, you are going to see a lot more jeans at church than in suburban New England.
I think we just need to periodically remind people that worshipping the Lord is an important occasion and to show proper respect to it in the clothing they wear, and to model that as leadership, but that there is no need for it to be an emphasis. (It's certainly not the emphasis of scripture.) People will pick up on it on their own over time.
If someone is a particularly grievous offender - and they should know better - why not talk to them about it graciously? Too often, we make policies when we should have conversations. Instead of imposing arbitrary standards on everyone, just tell Bob maybe he shouldn't wear basketball shorts and crocs to church every Sunday.
What we don't need to do is give something an importance that the scriptures do not give to it. To "teach for doctrines the commandments of men" and to say potentially confusing and easily refuted things like "dress your best for the Lord."