Comments on: Atheists: Be Careful What You Wear to Church

By: bullet

bullet — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:35:23 +0000

When I was a teenager constantly obsessing about my appearance and usually running late because of it, my mother would say, “God doesn’t care what you look like.” One Sunday, I finally had enough and asked, “Then why can’t I wear jeans?”

By: Jess

Jess — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:09:36 +0000

Funny story…In college I regularly attended a fairly casual church. The contemporary feel of the building and the predominately 20something crowd made it so. This year I moved to a different city and began looking for a church. One church in my town is a fairly large building, has a huge electronic sign out front, and had advertisements for a Sunday night service. Thinking that Sunday night services (even in Baptist churches) tend to be a younger crowd and more casual, I show up with jeans, a sweater, and my bright orange Crocs.

I soon found out that the church was not as contemporary as I had assumed, nor was it casual. Most of the women (and I say women because they were all over 40) were in dresses, and men had slacks and a polo at least. Oops.

By: Josha

Josha — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:53:39 +0000

When I go with my family to church we all dress nice. Not too nice but no jeans or t-shirts. My family’s church is a laid-back modern Catholic church where you see people both dressed up and dressed down. I still cannot make myself wear anything that shows the shoulders in church. I have this leftover Catholic feeling that it’s immoral in house a worship.

I would dress up in any church or temple I go to, just to show respect for the people that are there.

By: writerdd

writerdd — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:11:08 +0000

I wear jeans everywhere and if I were to go to church for some reason, I would probably wear jeans. I dress up a little for weddings and funerals (usually the only time I enter churches), but I would not wear a dress. I don’t own one and I wouldn’t buy one to wear one time.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:42:09 +0000

I wore it “under-cover”. I didn’t yet want to “blow my cover” for the Christian Small Group I participate in. There is also a “friendly” aspect to me in that I didn’t want to overtly mock their beliefs in their house of worship.

On other thoughts…

WWJW (what would Jesus wear?) Remember Jesus was always nicely dressed. Polished shoes, creased dress pants, starched shirt, coat & tie, short cropped hair, clean shaven, and patriotic lapel pin.

In “rebelling against Jesus” (as the Christians probably think I do) I try to do the opposite: comfortable shoes, loosely fitting casual clothes, and I question the politics of the current administration…

By: Karen

Karen — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:19:23 +0000

Of course the best thing to wear to church is a Friendly Atheist wrist band. I’ve done that too

Ha, ha! Were you undercover? Like, did you keep it under your shirt sleeve, or did anyone see it and ask what it was?

By: Karen

Karen — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:18:27 +0000

So it sounds like the point is to make a distinction between Sunday life and REAL life.

Yeah, pretty much to make Sunday a “special” day and to differentiate church attendance from the work day.

I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve never seen such fancy Sunday clothes as I did when attending a small black church in a low-income neighborhood as part of a special racial reconciliation program. The women were in feathered hats, white gloves, nylons and pumps with matching bags. A whole group of older women dressed all in identical white suits and hats were seated together as honorees in the front rows. The men wore three-piece suits with pocket handkerchiefs and highly shined shoes. Man, they were great-looking!

This was much dressier than anything people in my middle- to upper-class white church wore – by far – even though we had a moderately formal church (not a sandals-and-shorts congregation).

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:04:20 +0000

Of course the best thing to wear to church is a Friendly Atheist wrist band. I’ve done that too

By: Jen

Jen — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:03:29 +0000

I have a theory. My theory goes like this: these days, there are more women than men who go to church- and they are probably the ones dressing the kids. Women prefer not to dress up, because for women to dress up once a week costs much, much more than for men to do the same.* Perhaps they also don’t want to buy dress shoes for six year olds.

*And they have to wear pantyhose. Fucking pantyhose.

By: Jewel

Jewel — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:47:25 +0000

That is great Jeff! When I was a kid and was told to dress up out of respect for God, I always had 2 questions:

1) Wouldn’t it be more important to God that you go to church than what you wear to church?

2) If God likes dress clothes so much, why are we born naked?

That 2nd question was never too popular.