My general rule re: church dress codes would be, on my first visit there, dress reasonably smartly (but not ostentatiously so), and then observe how the other people there are dressed and follow their lead.
Ok. Let's back up a bit and I'll try to avoid 'shoulds' and 'shouldn't's.
@KarlLB - no, people in my poetry group wouldn't give two hoots what I wear but someone did comment once when I wore a quirky retro jacket because they thought it was 'scruffy'. His was a minority voice but I do feel more in the zone when I'm wearing a decent tweed jacket and my best cords. I do wear jeans to the group sometimes depending on what mood I'm in.
Look at it this way. I knew a bloke who worked from home much of the time, before it became a thing. He said he could only get into the right attitude to work if he put on a shirt and tie before entering his study. Nobody could see him but it put him in the right frame of mind. I get that.
I'm with @stetson. It's about not being an attention-pimp. It's about dressing appropriately for whatever you are doing. I wear an old pair of cords with the arse hanging out around the house.
I don't wear them outside.
@Nick Tamen yes, and I'm grateful to @mousethief for this, the Orthodox do have a saying, 'Keep your eyes on your own plate.'
We don't always live up to it.
I know @KarlLB has said that people have looked at him in a judgemental way in some churches he has attended on account of what he was wearing. That wouldn't happen with us although I don't think Orthodoxy would be a good fit for him - although if he likes LoTR he may like some of our clerical costumes and beards ... 😉
#Doublethink mentioned the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I spike to a retired vicar the other day who'd been invited along to a performance by a friend (the usual excuse eh? 😉). He was blown away by how 'uninhibited' it was. He and his pal retired to a pub for a pint afterwards. He was in clerical dress. Someone came up to him and said that they'd noticed him in the theatre and complimented him on his 'costume' which he felt looked very authentic.
Not sure I've ever said that. To be honest I stick out at churches anyway by being the one of the youngest people there by around a 20 year deviation from the mean.
I know some people feel they need to be "dressed right" for a particular setting -like working - but that's rather the point - other people don't. But here we are making assumptions about what's going on in people's heads based on what would be going on in ours if we did the same thing.
@HelenEva has offered an interesting autistic perspective and I'd like to introduce another - perhaps an insight one gets from autism is the realisation of just how differently different people's minds work. It's really obvious when yours is one of the most noticeably unusual ones. I wish people understood that better. People really do have massive differences in how their minds work and what seems reasonable and what seems obvious.
I don't know what they say, @Nick Tamen. What I'm saying here is that this guy's wardrobe is a mess compared to his family's, and that his attitude comes across pretty poorly, which I've inferred to be his intention. Maybe I'm wrong.
I figured there'd be a certain amount of backlash here. I was right about that, anyway.
Well, I’d suspect that at least part of that backlash—maybe “pushback” is closer to what’s happening?—has to do with you being the only one who’s actually seen how this guy and his family dress, and who’s observed him week after week. We know only what you describe, and we certainly aren’t going to assume you’re not describing it all accurately. So, the rest of us are going to go to our own experiences and to more general thoughts about how people dress for church or other activities, and the judgments we make about that.
I don't know what they say, @Nick Tamen. What I'm saying here is that this guy's wardrobe is a mess compared to his family's, and that his attitude comes across pretty poorly, which I've inferred to be his intention. Maybe I'm wrong.
I figured there'd be a certain amount of backlash here. I was right about that, anyway.
Well, I’d suspect that at least part of that backlash—maybe “pushback” is closer to what’s happening?—has to do with you being the only one who’s actually seen how this guy and his family dress, and who’s observed him week after week. We know only what you describe, and we certainly aren’t going to assume you’re not describing it all accurately. So, the rest of us are going to go to our own experiences and to more general thoughts about how people dress for church or other activities, and the judgments we make about that.
Call it pushback, then, sure. It's fine. Judgments are liabilities. I'm just wicked enough to share one here in Hell. LOL. Being lightly toasted is part & parcel.
We make judgements on appearance all of the time. Many is the time a hiring decision is made when a candidate enters the room but has yet to answer the first question.
During our engagement I carried my now wife’s keyboard to various places for her. One time she was going to be playing for a Pentecostal Church that dressed formally. I put on my suite and went over to her flat. The church cancelled. We decided to go and see one of our fave singers in a small West London rock venue near by. She got chance to change. I went in my suite. Nobody said anything but I felt out of place.
I think so, yes. And I should be clear and reiterate that this thread is based on a longstanding observation of a particular father/family. It's not a general approach I use for or against anyone who walks through the door. This a specific case, and I've made my rant about it.
In the larger world, at least here in the US, there has been a an unmistakable migration toward casualization. It's happened/-ing across the culture. It's been bemoaned in some church settings, air travel settings, dating settings (the memes re: this concerning the enormous gap between how young men and women dress for dates are Legion), etc. I don't deny it. But that's not what this situation is. This man's attire seems to be, for all intent and purposes, an extension of his plainly obvious desire to be anywhere else in spite of the very different efforts his wife seems to be making.
And at the risk of getting primitivism
branded as the last refuge of the tatterdemalion...
Can we really imagine Jesus disembarking from his donkey on Palm Sunday and thinking "WTF, look at how some of these jerks are dressed!"
I doubt that Jesus would think WTF at any time.
I think that adults should make an effort. On the other hand my 7 year old grandson occasionally turns up dressed as a super hero.
Why should they "make an effort?"
Where does this "should" come from?
Basically because clothing is a form of social communication - complicated by changing social norms.
Re “dressing up” - this communicates you think the occasion or setting is special: either in terms of joyous, or possibly in need of a demonstration of deference or respect.
What constitutes dressing up will depend on the social group and the setting. People dressing up for the Rocky Horror Picture Show are also doing so for a special celebration - but not in the way they typically would for a wedding, a court date or in church.
@HelenEva has offered an interesting autistic perspective and I'd like to introduce another - perhaps an insight one gets from autism is the realisation of just how differently different people's minds work. It's really obvious when yours is one of the most noticeably unusual ones. I wish people understood that better. People really do have massive differences in how their minds work and what seems reasonable and what seems obvious.
Well it’s maybe an insight *some* people get from autism. To be honest, as someone with an autism and ADHD diagnosis in their forties I’m still utterly bewildered that everyone’s minds don’t work the same way.
I’ve spent almost my entire life assuming that they do and that I was just bad at life. Tbh the diagnoses have not changed that, other than offering an excuse for my continuing bewilderment.
@HelenEva has offered an interesting autistic perspective and I'd like to introduce another - perhaps an insight one gets from autism is the realisation of just how differently different people's minds work. It's really obvious when yours is one of the most noticeably unusual ones. I wish people understood that better. People really do have massive differences in how their minds work and what seems reasonable and what seems obvious.
Well it’s maybe an insight *some* people get from autism. To be honest, as someone with an autism and ADHD diagnosis in their forties I’m still utterly bewildered that everyone’s minds don’t work the same way.
I’ve spent almost my entire life assuming that they do and that I was just bad at life. Tbh the diagnoses have not changed that, other than offering an excuse for my continuing bewilderment.
YMMV. Mine absolutely does.
Oh, I'm utterly bewildered by minds that work differently to mine.
*That* they inexplicably do has been obvious for a very long time. Probably from the very first time at the age of six when everyone else was talking about a football match I didn't even know had happened.
Being a person with a wicked sense of humor, if we had such a person, I’d take it upon myself to greet him every week as my best friend—warmly, as if seeing him just made my whole morning. Part of it’s just my general desire to fuck with people’s minds, but part is having done this before and seen a huge turnaround in the person’s life and happiness. They don’t know why the hell you’re so happy to see them, but it’s hard to stay glum and rude in the face of that kind of welcome, and, well, we tend to end up good friends ten years later. Though i never dare confess why i started it…
Of course, you could always welcome him genuinely without taking the piss.
Okay, looks like I've got a communication problem.
This IS my genuine welcome. I am not holding him in contempt, as a couple of you seem to think. I am looking at someone who (if you're describing him accurately) is unhappy and acting out in a childish way that is as far as I can see deliberately intended to make his family uncomfortable and to communicate "I don't want to be here" to everybody else.
That IMHO is childish, and yes, it's apt to get an internal laugh from me. It will also get compassion, because the guy IS at least showing up (and so he is keeping whatever commitment he made) and that is worthy of respect in my eyes. I don't want him to be miserable. I don't think less of him as a human being because he's acting out in a way that I myself have often done. I will go out of my way to make him feel better about being here (there, whatever). And if I laughed internally and took his misery as a challenge to make him feel better--where's the harm in that? Especially if, as I noted, it winds up with us becoming good friends?
I wasn't in any way pontificating about does, doesn't, should or shouldn't go through other people's minds.
I can only speak about what goes through mine. I prefer to be reasonably tidy but not over-dressed when I do my poetry stuff or when I go to church services.
In saying that I am in no way making a value judgement about what other people wear, unless they are deliberately trying to be scruffy in order to make a point or are dressing ostentatiously in se way that goes beyond what might reasonably be expected.
I wouldn't criticise people in black-led Afro-Caribbean churches for dressing up to the nines, because that's part of the church culture.
Equally, in some kind of young, trendy hipster church I'd expect the people there to dress accordingly. Similarly at the local Gospel Hall or independent conservative evangelical church.
@The_Riv Never mind is he dressed suitably for church, is he dressed decently and suitably for being in public with his wife and children? Its not about looking like a fashion plate, but an adult should always be in clothes that are clean, tidy, fit properly and are appropriate to the occasion.
Why? Who gets to decide on "appropriate"? How well fitted is "properly"?
Isn't life hard enough without all these additional rules to negotiate?
Appropriate to the occasion as in as would be expected - in other words you shouldn't show-up to a formal dinner wearing cut-off shorts and a stained T-shirt.
Properly fitted? The right size - in other words if your own waist is now bigger than your trousers get some in a larger size.
I'm thinking of the person referred to in the OP: his children were there and were probably mortified that Dad didn't look the same as the other fathers - children care about this sort of thing.
Which is no different than your caustic judgment toward me, @Ruth. S'fine.
This is kind of like criticizing people for not being "tolerant" of intolerant people. Fun, but I don't think it sticks.
For the record, I'm a church worker ...
A lot of thoughts about being a church worker, as I did it for 23 years, but I'll limit myself to pointing out that you're being paid to be there, while what he gets out of it is ... well, who knows, maybe a minor reduction in domestic strife, maybe nothing.
This man's attire seems to be, for all intent and purposes, an extension of his plainly obvious desire to be anywhere else in spite of the very different efforts his wife seems to be making.
But is there any reason to be sure his attitude is the wrong one? Maybe his wife should just say, "Hey, this is clearly not for you. It's fine if you don't go to church." I assume the point of his attendance is to present a united front to the children, and that's not coming across in his attitude and appearance -- but that would be a lie.
I definitely dress like an attention pimp! That includes at church.
There's a woman at the church I used to attend who dresses like she's going clubbing -- form-fitting animal-print dresses and very high heels. She looks amazing, and she's 10 years older than me, so my feeling is basically: You go, girl!
And at the risk of getting primitivism
branded as the last refuge of the tatterdemalion...
Can we really imagine Jesus disembarking from his donkey on Palm Sunday and thinking "WTF, look at how some of these jerks are dressed!"
I doubt that Jesus would think WTF at any time.
I think that adults should make an effort. On the other hand my 7 year old grandson occasionally turns up dressed as a super hero.
I'm pretty sure whatever else there may be in the church dress code, turning up dressed as a super hero when aged 7 is keenly encouraged. Or a dinosaur. Dinosaurs are always good.
We had a kid in our congregation who was about 7 at the time who loved to wear his cowboy outfit. Mom would not let him wear his toy gun to church though.
@The_Riv Never mind is he dressed suitably for church, is he dressed decently and suitably for being in public with his wife and children? Its not about looking like a fashion plate, but an adult should always be in clothes that are clean, tidy, fit properly and are appropriate to the occasion.
Why? Who gets to decide on "appropriate"? How well fitted is "properly"?
Isn't life hard enough without all these additional rules to negotiate?
Appropriate to the occasion as in as would be expected - in other words you shouldn't show-up to a formal dinner wearing cut-off shorts and a stained T-shirt.
Properly fitted? The right size - in other words if your own waist is now bigger than your trousers get some in a larger size.
I'm thinking of the person referred to in the OP: his children were there and were probably mortified that Dad didn't look the same as the other fathers - children care about this sort of thing.
Formal dinners have an explicit dress code (I assume; I've never been to one; I don't move in those circles). Who sets "appropriate" for church?
We have absolutely no evidence that the children are mortified; as I child I barely noticed what adults were wearing, much less cared.
But I still don't get how it affects anyone else what a person wears unless they choose to make it affect them.
I wouldn't want to over-emphasise the Pond Differences here, but it strikes me that the scenario outlined in the OP would feel very alien to most British churchgoers.
Where I grew up, and in many other parts of the UK I'd imagine, it was quite common until the late '60s/early '70s for people to send their kids to Sunday School but not attend church themselves.
My mother had a faith but never attended church regularly. My Dad was always down the pub on a Sunday morning (this was 'wet' Wales) and wouldn't have tuted up at church at all, let alone in slobby shorts by means of protest.
Besides, British dress codes were not as casual as US ones back then.
I daresay American dress codes are more informal now than they would have been at that time.
So the idea of a father attending church under sufferance with his wife and kids just wouldn't come into a UK frame of reference other than among some minority communities or perhaps in parts of Northern Ireland or Scotland.
The OP scenario just.would.not.happen.
I'd be reluctant to sit in judgement on the fella in the OP one way or the other. Neither in a, 'Dress smartly, man!' way nor in a @Ruth way of, 'What the heck are you doing? Stay away if you don't want to go ...'
Although I agree with Ruth that it probably isn't doing him, his family or anyone else any good by turning up against his will.
The same applies of course to someone who might turn up smartly dressed and looking the part but who might be plotting his next Machiavellian corporate shenanigan during the service or ogling members of the congregation or thinking he's gaining brownie points whilst acting like a complete bastard the rest of the week.
Whither neckties? I haven't worn one since I retired 15 years ago. On TV apart from newsreaders, smart attire seems to be a suit with an open neck shirt.
Agree - my father and his sister were dispatched to church (never mind Sunday School) in the 1950s from the age of about 5. His parents certainly didn’t attend. They did believe, but they were farmers… aside from confirmation I’m not sure dad ever went to a church service with his parents that wasn’t a wedding, christening or funeral, but he was made to go week in week out.
So the idea of a father attending church under sufferance with his wife and kids just wouldn't come into a UK frame of reference other than among some minority communities or perhaps in parts of Northern Ireland or Scotland.
Or a CofE Primary School in the parish with a good OFSTED report
In my previous church we had a lot of baptisms. The appearance of the families was often a cause of amusement for the regulars. Most of the parents and their contemporaries looked as though they were either going to a wedding ( fascinators included) or going clubbing. The grandparents, on the other hand, were dressed more like the rest of the regular congregation, presentably but not overdressed.
So the idea of a father attending church under sufferance with his wife and kids just wouldn't come into a UK frame of reference other than among some minority communities or perhaps in parts of Northern Ireland or Scotland.
Or a CofE Primary School in the parish with a good OFSTED report
Sure, but only for a short time.
@betjemaniac - yes, we were despatched to Sunday School initially and then church but we dropped out when they began to talk about confirmation classes.
I say 'we' because I have an identical twin brother. What made it worse was that our Mam made us dress up smart and comb our hair and we'd walk across the fields (it's long been houses now) to church with all those local kids who didn't go taking the mickey out of us.
Most of those who went dropped out by the time they went to secondary school.
Attendance was never high and that parish church is likely to close down very soon. The URC and the 'Sally Army' place close by are still soldiering on but the Pentecostal church which had a modern new build in the '60s is now a nursery.
Ebenezer Baptist just along the canal went all charismatic after our time but I don't know how it's doing now.
'The old home town looks the same, as I stepped down off the train ...'
Except it doesn't. It's pretty run down by and large.
My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are pretty much among the youngest in their Methodist church which is projected to have no more than 10 years left.
I've just had this ghastly realisation that at 63, I'm not far off one of those twin peaks at the Methodist church you mention.
My in-laws are younger than me, my sister-in-law by a few years but my brother-in-law is nobbut a lad and still in his 50s.
They are very pragmatic and aim to make the most of it while it's still there and to support the minister as much as they can. They are very much glass half full people, which is very touching given my sister-in-law's prognosis with MS and my nephew's mental health issues.
I admire them greatly for sticking with it but I know that that option wouldn't be for everyone.
The smartest dressed people at the local Methodist church are two black families, especially the Grandma. I think most of the congregation wear Sunday clothes, a bit smarter, newer than in the week. There is also a large Hong Kong contingent, but I have not been to a service there since they arrived.
Look, I get it. You don't want to be there. Your wife is dragging you to church some Sundays (Lord knows you can't string three 'present' Sundays in a row) because the two of you have a few kids, and at some point you agreed they c/should be raised in the Church. Problem is, your wife is committed, and you now find yourself three years into a 20-year program, and you're decidedly not a fan. So you're doing The Things your fraternity does: only accompanying your family one or two Sundays a month; dropping them at the door and only managing to get yourself inside the building sometime during the readings; taking a bathroom break during communion; standing slowly, and in noticeably detached apathy during hymns and responses with arms folded or dug into your pockets... and then there are the pockets. Today your pockets are in a pair of slightly torn khaki cargo shorts you bought sometime during the Obama Administration. You have to wear them below your hips to accommodate your belly, which means your shirt doesn't always stay tucked in all the way around. There's no belt, and so I sit and ponder the physics the button of your shorts is well and truly defying to remain in place against what must be significant force. Your shirt, a hard-worn knit polo in some shade of pink between mauve and peach. And what choice of footwear did you make today? Ah yes, the "good" flip-flops -- of course. Who'd have thought the Tevas with white socks from a couple of weeks ago would be preferable. Your family is dressed well, including your three year-old son who's in a button-down oxford dress shirt with a little v-neck sweater vest. He's in blue jeans, but they're clean, fit him well, and break just above his little brown dress shoes. Your daughters and wife are all in dresses -- and your daughters' dresses match. Why you persist with your slovenly appearance is beyond me. Get it together, man. Grow up. And if you can't do that, at least dress decently. Crikey.
@Gamma Gamaliel: one church-going parent dragging the other along is a familiar sight in US churches, usually a woman trailed by a reluctant man. Though in my partner's family of origin it was his father who was devout and made everyone attend church. My partner was required to attend up through confirmation. He says he was drafted into the army of Christ and promptly deserted.
Ok. You wouldn't find that in the UK, other than perhaps among some ethnic minority groups.
It probably hasn't been like that here for a hundred years, perhaps longer. It's interesting but on my father's side of the family they were Baptists and my great, great grandfather was a prominent Baptist minister.
They all seem to have become nominal or 'free thinkers' during the 1900s and 1910s, coinciding with the time they became monoglot English speakers rather than bilingual in both Welsh and English.
People often talk as if the decline in church going in the UK was a 1960s thing. It'd been going on for generations before. Even in the 1600s and 1700s church attendance wasn't as high as might be expected, particularly among poorer people who couldn't afford the pew-rents.
There was a residual 'chapel culture' when I was growing up in the South Wales of the 1960s but it was very residual.
People often talk as if the decline in church going in the UK was a 1960s thing. It'd been going on for generations before. Even in the 1600s and 1700s church attendance wasn't as high as might be expected, particularly among poorer people who couldn't afford the pew-rents.
I've had the impression that there was a reaction after the Wars of the Three Kingdoms against the church, seeing what its squabbles had wrought, followed by a swing back towards the church in the 19th century and a further reaction after WWI. But in all time periods church attendance was never as high as rose-tinted hindsight would have us believe. I do wonder if we will see a further swing back towards the church (I won't say faith as that's much less measurable) or whether the pendulum has now smashed through the side of the metaphorical clock and become thoroughly detached.
Not forced, but reluctant attenders, there to support their children who are perhaps flag bearers for Beavers or Brownies at a Parade Service and too young to go by themselves.
A lot of thoughts about being a church worker, as I did it for 23 years, but I'll limit myself to pointing out that you're being paid to be there, while what he gets out of it is ... well, who knows, maybe a minor reduction in domestic strife, maybe nothing.
Someone whose goal is less domestic strife would not choose to do one helpful thing (actually make the trip to the church), but then undermine it via two or three harmful ones. For the thread title I picked out the clothing aspect because it is, as horrifying as it seems to some that it should even be mentioned aloud, an observable part of this whole dynamic. I'm just one observer, and my powers of observation may be terrible, but I don't think so.
This man's attire seems to be, for all intent and purposes, an extension of his plainly obvious desire to be anywhere else in spite of the very different efforts his wife seems to be making.
But is there any reason to be sure his attitude is the wrong one? Maybe his wife should just say, "Hey, this is clearly not for you. It's fine if you don't go to church." I assume the point of his attendance is to present a united front to the children, and that's not coming across in his attitude and appearance -- but that would be a lie.
Maybe his wife will. All I can say is that for the context I'm citing (being at church with his wife and kids) his attitude seems to be questionable at best.
I definitely dress like an attention pimp! That includes at church.
There's a woman at the church I used to attend who dresses like she's going clubbing -- form-fitting animal-print dresses and very high heels. She looks amazing, and she's 10 years older than me, so my feeling is basically: You go, girl!
People often talk as if the decline in church going in the UK was a 1960s thing. It'd been going on for generations before. Even in the 1600s and 1700s church attendance wasn't as high as might be expected, particularly among poorer people who couldn't afford the pew-rents.
I've had the impression that there was a reaction after the Wars of the Three Kingdoms against the church, seeing what its squabbles had wrought, followed by a swing back towards the church in the 19th century and a further reaction after WWI. But in all time periods church attendance was never as high as rose-tinted hindsight would have us believe. I do wonder if we will see a further swing back towards the church (I won't say faith as that's much less measurable) or whether the pendulum has now smashed through the side of the metaphorical clock and become thoroughly detached.
Yes, although there is some evidence that poorer families weren't attending church in any great numbers even before the civil turmoil of the mid-1600s.
It's often been said that the Methodists exaggerated the parlous state of Anglican parish life in the mid-1700s in order to magnify their own achievements. Even though many families didn't attend church week by week, largely due to poor roads and weather, there were still family prayers involving servants as well as family members in many households. There were also 40 'religious societies' meeting in London when John Wesley founded his first on Fetter Lane I think it was.
But yes, overall, I think what you describe is the general trajectory. Whether the pendulum is completely detached as in your metaphor, I'm not sure.
All I can say is that for the context I'm citing (being at church with his wife and kids) his attitude seems to be questionable at best.
What I always wonder is how and why people get themselves into situations like this in the first place. If he agreed to raise the kids in the church, what did he think that meant? If she knew he wasn't devout when they married, what did she think was going to happen when the kids came along?
Thing is, in relationship issues, as in much else, reason and rationality don't always feature as prominently as they ought.
I can't be the only one here who has developed 'feelings' for people who certainly wouldn't have been an appropriate 'match' for me (or them) had anything actually developed.
It's one thing for us to sit in judgement on what this couple should or shouldn't do, quite another for them to resolve it.
There are probably things any of us here might do that they might shake their heads at or do differently. Who knows?
Most churches are used to people dressing to make a statement. Be it revealing, slobbish or any other way. If these people decide to stay they will generally dress how they want but more in keeping with the church.
Another story. There was a friend of my wife’s family who was from a generation where you dressed up and put makeup on to go anywhere. Even down to the shops. It was just what you did. At one point a vicar who was running the church she went to at the time asked her to dress down. She didn’t. She just couldn’t. Individual people are individuals.
Most people dress to make a statement (whether that's a conscious or subconscious decision). Clothing (and, hairstyles, choice of jewellery or makeup including not to wear them, tattoos etc) are part of how we communicate who we are to other people. Everyone on this thread, or the AS "what I wear to church" thread or the umpteen other threads on clothing in church over the years, who has explained why they dress as they do has acknowledged that they're making a statement through what they wear.
Some dress to make a statement that they're adhering to a "uniform" (that could be an actual uniform that makes a statement about who they are and their role in society such as police or military; a de-facto uniform that says much the same such as clergy wearing a dog-collar or vestments while leading worship; the near identical black suits worn in Japan by anyone with an office job; or maybe the practical clothing necessary for some work such as scrubs for hospital staff). Some dress to make a statement that they refuse to adhere to the "uniform" expected of them, even if that's just the choice of a slight variation (how many school kids wear their uniform, because they have too, but push the limits of that by not doing their tie up properly or including an item of jewellery that they shouldn't really be wearing?).
Some dress to make a statement that they think they look good in those clothes. Others to make a statement that as long as they're decent they don't really care how they look. Some make a statement about the sports team they support or the music they enjoy listening to. Some want to wear something goofy to make others laugh. Some use clothing to indicate how important they consider an event to be, others choose clothing because they don't want to make a statement about the importance of an event (and choosing not to make a statement is just making a different form of statement).
If there's anyone (let alone a church) that isn't used to people dressing to make a statement then they're clearly not aware of why people wear what they wear.
The questions for all of us are "what statement am I making?", "is that a statement I actually want to make?" and "are other people hearing the statement I'm making or am I miscommunicating?"
Interesting, how I try to do a search on what would be considered unacceptable to wear in church, and all of the sudden MSN Bing keeps sending me all sorts of lists.
Basically, the no nos are
Ripped clothing which is a fad among young people.
Dirty clothing
Sandals or flip flops
Clothing with graphic images
Revealing Clothing.
Since I live in a university town there is actually nothing I have not seen at church. The kids come with ripped clothes. A former pastor often wore sandals at church. With socks during winter, without socks during summer. A drummer we had used to wear tees with graphic images. Short shorts, high hems, low cut blouses. A retired professor often wears gym clothing. I remember a time when a little Chinese kid would wear a tee shirt glorifying the People's Liberation Army--yes, the Red Army.
But, you know what? The wearers are at church. Don't want to discourage them. God surely laughs at all the conniptions we go through.
Comments
@KarlLB - no, people in my poetry group wouldn't give two hoots what I wear but someone did comment once when I wore a quirky retro jacket because they thought it was 'scruffy'. His was a minority voice but I do feel more in the zone when I'm wearing a decent tweed jacket and my best cords. I do wear jeans to the group sometimes depending on what mood I'm in.
Look at it this way. I knew a bloke who worked from home much of the time, before it became a thing. He said he could only get into the right attitude to work if he put on a shirt and tie before entering his study. Nobody could see him but it put him in the right frame of mind. I get that.
I'm with @stetson. It's about not being an attention-pimp. It's about dressing appropriately for whatever you are doing. I wear an old pair of cords with the arse hanging out around the house.
I don't wear them outside.
@Nick Tamen yes, and I'm grateful to @mousethief for this, the Orthodox do have a saying, 'Keep your eyes on your own plate.'
We don't always live up to it.
I know @KarlLB has said that people have looked at him in a judgemental way in some churches he has attended on account of what he was wearing. That wouldn't happen with us although I don't think Orthodoxy would be a good fit for him - although if he likes LoTR he may like some of our clerical costumes and beards ... 😉
#Doublethink mentioned the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I spike to a retired vicar the other day who'd been invited along to a performance by a friend (the usual excuse eh? 😉). He was blown away by how 'uninhibited' it was. He and his pal retired to a pub for a pint afterwards. He was in clerical dress. Someone came up to him and said that they'd noticed him in the theatre and complimented him on his 'costume' which he felt looked very authentic.
I know some people feel they need to be "dressed right" for a particular setting -like working - but that's rather the point - other people don't. But here we are making assumptions about what's going on in people's heads based on what would be going on in ours if we did the same thing.
@HelenEva has offered an interesting autistic perspective and I'd like to introduce another - perhaps an insight one gets from autism is the realisation of just how differently different people's minds work. It's really obvious when yours is one of the most noticeably unusual ones. I wish people understood that better. People really do have massive differences in how their minds work and what seems reasonable and what seems obvious.
Call it pushback, then, sure. It's fine. Judgments are liabilities. I'm just wicked enough to share one here in Hell. LOL. Being lightly toasted is part & parcel.
I think so, yes. And I should be clear and reiterate that this thread is based on a longstanding observation of a particular father/family. It's not a general approach I use for or against anyone who walks through the door. This a specific case, and I've made my rant about it.
In the larger world, at least here in the US, there has been a an unmistakable migration toward casualization. It's happened/-ing across the culture. It's been bemoaned in some church settings, air travel settings, dating settings (the memes re: this concerning the enormous gap between how young men and women dress for dates are Legion), etc. I don't deny it. But that's not what this situation is. This man's attire seems to be, for all intent and purposes, an extension of his plainly obvious desire to be anywhere else in spite of the very different efforts his wife seems to be making.
Disappointingly.
Nobody else cares what your opinions are unless you explain why they should.
Well it’s maybe an insight *some* people get from autism. To be honest, as someone with an autism and ADHD diagnosis in their forties I’m still utterly bewildered that everyone’s minds don’t work the same way.
I’ve spent almost my entire life assuming that they do and that I was just bad at life. Tbh the diagnoses have not changed that, other than offering an excuse for my continuing bewilderment.
YMMV. Mine absolutely does.
Oh, I'm utterly bewildered by minds that work differently to mine.
*That* they inexplicably do has been obvious for a very long time. Probably from the very first time at the age of six when everyone else was talking about a football match I didn't even know had happened.
Okay, looks like I've got a communication problem.
This IS my genuine welcome. I am not holding him in contempt, as a couple of you seem to think. I am looking at someone who (if you're describing him accurately) is unhappy and acting out in a childish way that is as far as I can see deliberately intended to make his family uncomfortable and to communicate "I don't want to be here" to everybody else.
That IMHO is childish, and yes, it's apt to get an internal laugh from me. It will also get compassion, because the guy IS at least showing up (and so he is keeping whatever commitment he made) and that is worthy of respect in my eyes. I don't want him to be miserable. I don't think less of him as a human being because he's acting out in a way that I myself have often done. I will go out of my way to make him feel better about being here (there, whatever). And if I laughed internally and took his misery as a challenge to make him feel better--where's the harm in that? Especially if, as I noted, it winds up with us becoming good friends?
I can only speak about what goes through mine. I prefer to be reasonably tidy but not over-dressed when I do my poetry stuff or when I go to church services.
In saying that I am in no way making a value judgement about what other people wear, unless they are deliberately trying to be scruffy in order to make a point or are dressing ostentatiously in se way that goes beyond what might reasonably be expected.
I wouldn't criticise people in black-led Afro-Caribbean churches for dressing up to the nines, because that's part of the church culture.
Equally, in some kind of young, trendy hipster church I'd expect the people there to dress accordingly. Similarly at the local Gospel Hall or independent conservative evangelical church.
All these places have dress codes.
Appropriate to the occasion as in as would be expected - in other words you shouldn't show-up to a formal dinner wearing cut-off shorts and a stained T-shirt.
Properly fitted? The right size - in other words if your own waist is now bigger than your trousers get some in a larger size.
I'm thinking of the person referred to in the OP: his children were there and were probably mortified that Dad didn't look the same as the other fathers - children care about this sort of thing.
A lot of thoughts about being a church worker, as I did it for 23 years, but I'll limit myself to pointing out that you're being paid to be there, while what he gets out of it is ... well, who knows, maybe a minor reduction in domestic strife, maybe nothing.
But is there any reason to be sure his attitude is the wrong one? Maybe his wife should just say, "Hey, this is clearly not for you. It's fine if you don't go to church." I assume the point of his attendance is to present a united front to the children, and that's not coming across in his attitude and appearance -- but that would be a lie.
There's a woman at the church I used to attend who dresses like she's going clubbing -- form-fitting animal-print dresses and very high heels. She looks amazing, and she's 10 years older than me, so my feeling is basically: You go, girl!
We had a kid in our congregation who was about 7 at the time who loved to wear his cowboy outfit. Mom would not let him wear his toy gun to church though.
Formal dinners have an explicit dress code (I assume; I've never been to one; I don't move in those circles). Who sets "appropriate" for church?
We have absolutely no evidence that the children are mortified; as I child I barely noticed what adults were wearing, much less cared.
But I still don't get how it affects anyone else what a person wears unless they choose to make it affect them.
Where I grew up, and in many other parts of the UK I'd imagine, it was quite common until the late '60s/early '70s for people to send their kids to Sunday School but not attend church themselves.
My mother had a faith but never attended church regularly. My Dad was always down the pub on a Sunday morning (this was 'wet' Wales) and wouldn't have tuted up at church at all, let alone in slobby shorts by means of protest.
Besides, British dress codes were not as casual as US ones back then.
I daresay American dress codes are more informal now than they would have been at that time.
So the idea of a father attending church under sufferance with his wife and kids just wouldn't come into a UK frame of reference other than among some minority communities or perhaps in parts of Northern Ireland or Scotland.
The OP scenario just.would.not.happen.
I'd be reluctant to sit in judgement on the fella in the OP one way or the other. Neither in a, 'Dress smartly, man!' way nor in a @Ruth way of, 'What the heck are you doing? Stay away if you don't want to go ...'
Although I agree with Ruth that it probably isn't doing him, his family or anyone else any good by turning up against his will.
The same applies of course to someone who might turn up smartly dressed and looking the part but who might be plotting his next Machiavellian corporate shenanigan during the service or ogling members of the congregation or thinking he's gaining brownie points whilst acting like a complete bastard the rest of the week.
Or a CofE Primary School in the parish with a good OFSTED report
Sure, but only for a short time.
@betjemaniac - yes, we were despatched to Sunday School initially and then church but we dropped out when they began to talk about confirmation classes.
I say 'we' because I have an identical twin brother. What made it worse was that our Mam made us dress up smart and comb our hair and we'd walk across the fields (it's long been houses now) to church with all those local kids who didn't go taking the mickey out of us.
Most of those who went dropped out by the time they went to secondary school.
Attendance was never high and that parish church is likely to close down very soon. The URC and the 'Sally Army' place close by are still soldiering on but the Pentecostal church which had a modern new build in the '60s is now a nursery.
Ebenezer Baptist just along the canal went all charismatic after our time but I don't know how it's doing now.
'The old home town looks the same, as I stepped down off the train ...'
Except it doesn't. It's pretty run down by and large.
Draw your own conclusions.
My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are pretty much among the youngest in their Methodist church which is projected to have no more than 10 years left.
I've just had this ghastly realisation that at 63, I'm not far off one of those twin peaks at the Methodist church you mention.
My in-laws are younger than me, my sister-in-law by a few years but my brother-in-law is nobbut a lad and still in his 50s.
They are very pragmatic and aim to make the most of it while it's still there and to support the minister as much as they can. They are very much glass half full people, which is very touching given my sister-in-law's prognosis with MS and my nephew's mental health issues.
I admire them greatly for sticking with it but I know that that option wouldn't be for everyone.
Befriend him.
It probably hasn't been like that here for a hundred years, perhaps longer. It's interesting but on my father's side of the family they were Baptists and my great, great grandfather was a prominent Baptist minister.
They all seem to have become nominal or 'free thinkers' during the 1900s and 1910s, coinciding with the time they became monoglot English speakers rather than bilingual in both Welsh and English.
People often talk as if the decline in church going in the UK was a 1960s thing. It'd been going on for generations before. Even in the 1600s and 1700s church attendance wasn't as high as might be expected, particularly among poorer people who couldn't afford the pew-rents.
There was a residual 'chapel culture' when I was growing up in the South Wales of the 1960s but it was very residual.
The situation you describe is unimaginable.
I've had the impression that there was a reaction after the Wars of the Three Kingdoms against the church, seeing what its squabbles had wrought, followed by a swing back towards the church in the 19th century and a further reaction after WWI. But in all time periods church attendance was never as high as rose-tinted hindsight would have us believe. I do wonder if we will see a further swing back towards the church (I won't say faith as that's much less measurable) or whether the pendulum has now smashed through the side of the metaphorical clock and become thoroughly detached.
(Of course, at one time people were fined for not attending. But that was mainly a way of getting at Catholics and non-Conformists.)
If anyone tried that on me it would be extremely counter-productive.
Someone whose goal is less domestic strife would not choose to do one helpful thing (actually make the trip to the church), but then undermine it via two or three harmful ones. For the thread title I picked out the clothing aspect because it is, as horrifying as it seems to some that it should even be mentioned aloud, an observable part of this whole dynamic. I'm just one observer, and my powers of observation may be terrible, but I don't think so.
Maybe his wife will. All I can say is that for the context I'm citing (being at church with his wife and kids) his attitude seems to be questionable at best.
I can't add anything here.
Yes, although there is some evidence that poorer families weren't attending church in any great numbers even before the civil turmoil of the mid-1600s.
It's often been said that the Methodists exaggerated the parlous state of Anglican parish life in the mid-1700s in order to magnify their own achievements. Even though many families didn't attend church week by week, largely due to poor roads and weather, there were still family prayers involving servants as well as family members in many households. There were also 40 'religious societies' meeting in London when John Wesley founded his first on Fetter Lane I think it was.
But yes, overall, I think what you describe is the general trajectory. Whether the pendulum is completely detached as in your metaphor, I'm not sure.
I can't be the only one here who has developed 'feelings' for people who certainly wouldn't have been an appropriate 'match' for me (or them) had anything actually developed.
It's one thing for us to sit in judgement on what this couple should or shouldn't do, quite another for them to resolve it.
There are probably things any of us here might do that they might shake their heads at or do differently. Who knows?
Another story. There was a friend of my wife’s family who was from a generation where you dressed up and put makeup on to go anywhere. Even down to the shops. It was just what you did. At one point a vicar who was running the church she went to at the time asked her to dress down. She didn’t. She just couldn’t. Individual people are individuals.
Some dress to make a statement that they're adhering to a "uniform" (that could be an actual uniform that makes a statement about who they are and their role in society such as police or military; a de-facto uniform that says much the same such as clergy wearing a dog-collar or vestments while leading worship; the near identical black suits worn in Japan by anyone with an office job; or maybe the practical clothing necessary for some work such as scrubs for hospital staff). Some dress to make a statement that they refuse to adhere to the "uniform" expected of them, even if that's just the choice of a slight variation (how many school kids wear their uniform, because they have too, but push the limits of that by not doing their tie up properly or including an item of jewellery that they shouldn't really be wearing?).
Some dress to make a statement that they think they look good in those clothes. Others to make a statement that as long as they're decent they don't really care how they look. Some make a statement about the sports team they support or the music they enjoy listening to. Some want to wear something goofy to make others laugh. Some use clothing to indicate how important they consider an event to be, others choose clothing because they don't want to make a statement about the importance of an event (and choosing not to make a statement is just making a different form of statement).
If there's anyone (let alone a church) that isn't used to people dressing to make a statement then they're clearly not aware of why people wear what they wear.
The questions for all of us are "what statement am I making?", "is that a statement I actually want to make?" and "are other people hearing the statement I'm making or am I miscommunicating?"
Basically, the no nos are
Ripped clothing which is a fad among young people.
Dirty clothing
Sandals or flip flops
Clothing with graphic images
Revealing Clothing.
Since I live in a university town there is actually nothing I have not seen at church. The kids come with ripped clothes. A former pastor often wore sandals at church. With socks during winter, without socks during summer. A drummer we had used to wear tees with graphic images. Short shorts, high hems, low cut blouses. A retired professor often wears gym clothing. I remember a time when a little Chinese kid would wear a tee shirt glorifying the People's Liberation Army--yes, the Red Army.
But, you know what? The wearers are at church. Don't want to discourage them. God surely laughs at all the conniptions we go through.