mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (09/21/84)
I myself tend to go to churches where the question of how to dress is taken
with the proper attitude of "who cares?". This doesn't mean that everyone
shows up in dirty jeans. At my home parish and the Episcopal chaplaincy on
campus, some people come dressed fairly casually; others come in suits. It's
all a question of what feels right for the individual.
My theological justification for what I wear is that clothes in church are
the 'vestments' of the congregation. People should wear what they feel
comfortable in approaching God in public. I wear the clothes I wear to
work (dress shirt and reasonably neat pants); I feel presumptious in wearing
more and disrespectful in dressing down from that.
I tend to be wary of parishes where there is too much emphasis on how
people dress. When the congregation worries too much about clothing, it is
overly concerned with external appearances and is forgetting its religion.
(Of course, all this is rendered moot some Sundays, when I don an alb and
carry the processional cross around the church!)
(And I really love flashy vestments on the priest!)
Yet Another Broad Churcher,
Charley Wingatefeatures@ihuxf.UUCP (M.A. Zeszutko) (09/27/84)
I'm surprised that no one brought up the old Roman Catholic tradition of women having to have their heads covered at all times while in church. It seems ludicrous now to think we would bobby-pin kleenex to our hair if we wanted to stop in church on our way home from school. Abdnd heaven forbid girls should show up in pants (!) or sleeveless dresses or patent leather shoes (really). Even if we were just playing in the neighborhood, it was not looked upon kindly if a girl would stop in if she was not dressed in a dress. Much of that has changed (I think the hierarchy is grateful people are showing up, with or without head coverings!), but there's still a great deal of work to be done to make people comfortable as part of the Body of Christ. (I'd start by saying "particularly women", but then this would have to go to net.flame.) From the parochial childhood of Mary Ann Zeszutko ihnp4!ihuxf!features
alan@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Alan Algustyniak) (09/29/84)
>I'm surprised that no one brought up the old Roman Catholic tradition >of women having to have their heads covered at all times while in >church. >And heaven forbid girls should show up in pants (!) or sleeveless dresses > >Much of that has changed... >but there's still a great deal of work to be done... > As of 1979, when i was there, there was a sign in front of the Vatican to the effect that women wearing inappropriate clothing were not welcome. It gave an example or two of such clothing, but i forgot them. sdcrdcf!alan