Chris Scott

Recently I have been battling a series of rules set by the administration of Liberty University that have made me rather bitter and indignant. This is the same institution that I have come to love over the years for providing for me a sanctuary from the world at a very sensitive time in my life.

I will avoid the mistake of accusing the administration of legalism; it’s not legalism nor is it a fall from grace. Legalism is an attempt to get to heaven by doing good works; these people know better than that. The difficulty I have with some of the rules is that they do not fulfill their purpose. Some of the very rules that were commissioned to help the students end up only hurting them. Hurting them by consuming their thoughts, will and time, and giving them a great burden to carry at a time in their life that is already very full of burdens.

These rules do not represent the institution well on a whole, which, ultimately seeks to provide many young Christians with the things necessary for Christ centered lives. It is because of this that I have concluded that people who make rules must be very, very intelligent people.

My recently developed peevishness towards the university and administration left me with an altered view of what I believe to be their true intentions. I cannot speak on behalf of all of the staff at Liberty University, but my conviction is that the majority of them have the same earnesty to know God and make him know, as I do.

If left unchecked, my views can become permanent and form a bitterness in me that is not befitting a follower of Jesus Christ. So that is something I certainly have to deal with as this semester comes to and end.

But my recent reflections on rules in general have brought to the front of my mind an issue that has long been floating at the back of it. The issue is in regard to the church, and the sort of peevishness that is developed in the hearts and minds of those who are outside of it. Many times outside resentments are not in reaction to church doctrine or the behavior of its congregation, but in reaction to extremely petty things. A prime example of this (and perhaps the most foreboding example) is the typical reaction to the sort of clothing church members are inclined to wear every Sunday.

I remember watching “Chuck and Larry,” a movie about two New Yorkers who decide to live together and pretend to be gay for marital benefits. The movie clearly sympathizes with the gay community, and during one scene, a group of Christians approaches a group of gays exiting a homosexual party. The Christians are yelling things like “we don’t hate you, we are concerned for your salvation!”, and they are doing so in such an obtrusive way, as to make a few of the gays hold each other and cry. I remember the scene quite well. The Christians were all holding signs and wearing button up shirts, ties and formal clothing; the sort of clothing that is typical in a modern church.

I could not help but to think: the credibility of the Christians depicted in that film was severely crippled by their physical appearances. The content of their message was not malicious in nature and, were it not for external circumstances, may even have been taken as a genuine concern. Those external circumstances, clothing being the primary, greatly shifted the emotion of the viewer to a point of being sympathetic for the group of homosexuals.

OK—some homosexuals may not accept the true message of the gospel no matter what the messenger is wearing. But that does not change the fact that the Christians were hurting their message by appearing in that particular manner.

The people who made that movie created that scene to sympathize with the gays on the subject of religious oppression. They drew out from their minds all of the negative stereotypes they had stored up of Christians, and created a scene that would reflect this in their favor. Clothing was one of the negative stereotypes.

I think the scene in that movie greatly illustrates that outsiders tend to misconceive the intentions of those people who dress their best on Sunday as something in reverence to God. They often see dressing up as something done to promote one’s self, much like the way celebrities and politicians ornately cloth themselves for their own glory. Even normal people, who may have no particular requirement for formalities, take the time every once in a while to put aside their comfort and dress up so that others will perceive them better. In light of that, who can blame the typical church passerby for their misconceptions?

Objectively, the idea of sorting out personal appearance in reverence to God is a biblically shallow one, if biblically implicit at all. You show me the verse that says we somehow give God glory by dressing ourselves up and I will show you an account of the life of a man whom God esteemed more highly than any other. This is the man who wore camel skins, ate locusts and wild honey; his name was John the Baptist.

On top of that, who was it that said “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”? … OH YEAH! It was GOD himself in 1 Samuel 16:7.

But even further, I will show you the account of a man of greater importance than John the Baptist who, in no biblical reference, made an attempt to prune his physical appearance as an act of reverence to God. Jesus Christ set examples for us to love and pray; had appearance been such an essential thing, wouldn’t he have set at least one example for us?

We may be treating particular forms of clothing as ‘essential things’ if we put them on every time we go to worship God on Sunday. And we certainly treat them as ‘essential things’ if we continue using them despite the fact that they compromise the way we are received by this world. Paul said “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some,” 1 Corinthians 9:22.

As a matter of fact, Jesus Christ spoke only out of condemnation concerning any attention given to the superficial. This is the same man (err, it’s too bad the English language does not have a word for “man-God”) that constantly warned against the practices of the Pharisees—the spiritual leaders of that day who attempted to change men from the outside.

Mathew 23

1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. 5 “Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6 they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’ 8 “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. 13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices–mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law–justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. 25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. 27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

With all of my heart and mind I believe that Jesus Christ was not only addressing Pharisees when he said these things. He was addressing the current religious leaders of that time and the ones that were to come. So the question that must be asked is: who are the current religious leaders of our time? Do believers many times act like the Pharisees and “shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces,” as it says in verse 13? These are all things that Christians must be sensitive of.

Now, I am not saying that dressing up in reverence to God is an evil thing, but I will make the assertion that it may very well be a foolish thing. The enemy has long reaped the benefits of an institutionalized church which is many times engrained in the minds of unbelievers as something other than it truly is. When they think of church, they do not think of God; they think of clip-on ties, collars and suit jackets. They think of fitting in with people that claim truth rather than becoming fitted with the truth.

Of course there is the common approach that we must not compromise ourselves by conforming to the world. In their defense, Christians who refute change in parochial preferences like to use verses like Romans 12:2, which says “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” But I cannot help to think what a foolish notion, and clumsy misuse of scripture that truly is! The very fact that the verse talks about the renewal of mind establishes that Paul was not talking about conformity in the realm of physical preferences, but in the realm of principles and ideas. The church has a responsibility to nonconformity in regard to absolute truth, correct doctrine and biblical interpretation; the same application cannot be used for the sort of clothes that should be worn! If the sort of clothes church members wear undermines the church’s ultimate purpose, then the church has a responsibility to make necessary adjustments for the good of those people it was built for!

One might say that my motives for being against the idea of going to church in casual dress is a way of giving in to ‘personal comfort’. If ‘personal comfort’ is the issue, than I assure you, If I were to go to my church in my casual clothing, then I would certainly be discomforted by the pressing eyes of those members who somehow think I am being ‘ungodly’ by wearing what I would every other day of the week. I imagine this is the same pressure outsiders feel when they enter many church buildings.

Yes, we must honor God in all things, and when women dress promiscuously in church they are not doing so. But that is a completely separate issue; women can dress promiscuously in the context of formal or casual wear. Irrelevant.

The people of this world who perceive us negatively based on our appearance are completely lost and blind according to our own doctrine. If this it true, then shouldn’t we make every effort to reach these people; even if it means throwing aside our petty persistences and culture-shaped tenacities? The idea of dressing up during fellowship with other believers was no doubt an idea shaped by culture. I find it hard to imagine Peter (the man God ordained as the church’s foundation) or the apostle Paul pruning themselves or putting on excellent clothing before having fellowship with other believers. These men were authentic before God and men, and fine tuning their outside appearance was not one of their concerns. If it was, they would have made it known to us in scripture.

Church is a place to lay yourself bear—as you are—in utmost transparency. Clothing might seem like such a trivial thing, but it holds inordinate value from the perspective of many unbelievers. Because of this, Christians must re-examine the way they dress themselves. The tradition of dressing up to glorify God was at first a likable sentiment, but it was, and always has been nothing more than a ‘tradition’. Sometimes tradition can destroy principle. And which is truly the greater of the two?

Now I am sure you are wondering: how does all of this relate to the Liberty rules I talked about? The common factors are ‘stupidity’ and ‘views gone askew’. My experience with Liberty’s rules was a sort of less sophisticated representation of the Church’s ordeal. I developed a distorted view of Liberty University because of petty things, and people develop distorted views of Church because of petty things. A strangely simple analogy if you think about it.