Comments on: Christian stringency

By: Christopher Robert

Christopher Robert — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:30:22 +0000

The small number of rules is precisely why I enjoy Dutchess Community College so much.

By: Noman

Noman — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:28:45 +0000

Typically those who adamantly support dressing up for church think that God will be badly represented if they go to church badly dressed.
where does this reasoning come from? I speculated about that in my above post, but it doesn’t really matter.
It’s bad reasoning really.
How could you possibly hurt the image of an ominipotent God?
If he is omnipotent then it would seem logical that he can take care of his own image right?
The whole dressing up deal is a man made tradition. A man should be able to walk naked into a church if he needs to.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 05 May 2009 06:23:50 +0000

Well, no matter what way you look at it, culture certainly had a lot to do with it. In the early 1900s, people dressed up every time they walked outside, came to the dinner table, family gatherings, etc. Ever see pictures of city streets at earlier times in American history or any post-renaissance civilization (with the exception of the east)? Suits and ties were the norm, and it’s no surprise that dressing up in church was just the decent thing to do. However, our culture has moved past that. We no longer dress prominently for basic social occasions. Dressing up to go to work is seen as something that brings pride to the company, and that is understandable. Dressing up for a date or wedding is just as understandable because it complements the individual. But what about dressing up to go to church? Who does that bring pride to or complement? People tend to think that it is the church members, not God. Granted, people don’t actually think that way; the effect is more subliminal than not. People don’t actually think that Christians are being prideful by dressing up. The mind is simply shaped to think that way because of recurrent observations it has made of clothing preferences in our current culture.

By: Noman

Noman — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:12:08 +0000

After reading this post the first question that comes to my mind is: when and why did the tradition of dressing nice for church begin?
If you could answer that you would prbly be in a better position to question the tradition’s value.
Speculation: I suspect this tradition had it’s origins long before the church came on the scene. Ironically this dress nice business prbly started in pagan ritual. Wear your nice robe when you go worship Ra ’cause hes going to be pissed if you show up in your loincloth. The next question would then be why would Ra require a nice robe? The answer to which is obvious… Ra doesn’t exist so his worshipers came up with the nice robe rule. What would make them come up with the nice robe rule?
Typically nice clothes are associated with wealth/power/status, so it would seem logical to a Ra worshiper to dress nice when going to worship. If Ra’s worshipers dress nice, then Ra must be pretty powerful because he has granted them vast wealth and prestige. He wouldn’t be a very powerful god if he let his worshipers become impoverished and badly clothed would he?
Of course this reasoning doesn’t make much sense nowadays but to an illiterate society alot of idiocy makes sense.
Anyways just my speculation, it would really need to be researched.