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One aspect of the church that has crept up to bother me is the push towards homogeneity in dress. This has bugged me for several reasons and wanted to hear thoughts on it. My issues with it are several: 1.
It makes us look like a cult. One of the hallmarks of a modern cult is uniformity in dress. I can’t get over the images of those poor misguided souls laying dead with their black Levi’s and Velcro Nikes waiting to hook a ride on a comet every time I walk into the chapel and every single man in thereis wearing the same shirt. 2.
It’s lazy. Imagine two guys sitting in EQ. One is wearing a pair of frayed cargo pants, Doc Martens boots, a greying short-sleeved “white” shirt, and a Bart Simpson tie. The other guy is wearing a hand-tailored dark two-button suit, a pair of wing-tip black leather shoes, a pale blue shirt and a red power tie. One of them is wearing “the uniform,” and the other isn’t. One of them is truly wearing his Sunday best, and one isn’t. Why is it that the guy in the Bart tie could pass the sacrament and the other couldn’t? I’m baffled by the pharisiacalism. 3.
It’s exclusive. It creates another physical “in” or “out” identifier, just at a time when I thought the church was trying to be more inclusive and welcoming. Anyway, I could go on and on. Thoughts?
As I understand it there is no official way you are supposed to dress. The exception is if you are officiating in a priesthood ordinance or in the bishopric. So, for example, when passing the sacrament I believe it is a church wide thing that you should wear a white shirt. With that said there is definitely as stigma and essentially peer pressure that you should wear a white shirt and arguably a full suit. I know of at least two bishops where I would attend ward council and they were very focused on what people wore – they equated how someone dressed with their spiritual standing.
The most extreme of I’ve heard of was the stake president’s wife in my brother & sister in laws stake in CA. She was the self-appointed apparel & grooming police. She would make comments to strangers in the church hall regularly if she didn’t think they were dressed or groomed appropriately. She gave my brother in law who was EQP at the time a super hard time about his goatee.
On the other hand when I was EQP for a couple years I had a goatee the entire time and no one ever bothered me about it – if anything I would get compliments that people like it.
So I think culturally dress is a big deal but official policy is different. I suspect that culture varies from ward to ward and stake to stake. I always wear a black or blue shirt when I attend now – I suppose to some degree to be a bit rebellious. My wife likes the colored shirts though and thinks I look good in them so she doesn’t seem to think it is rebellious. So it works great – I get to make a bit of a statement without annoying my wife.
Thanks for the reply. I reference Elder Oaks from Oct 2008 conference where he quotes Elder Holland that the AP should wear white shirts and ties when administering the sacrament as a symbol of the purity of baptism. Of course, there is absolutely no doctrinal basis for this. In my own ward just a couple weeks ago my bishop told the EQP during Ward Council to speak to one of his counsellors about his shirt color at Sunday meetings. Drives me batty.
Yep. When I was EQP I had a counselor who usually wore a colored shirt – happily no one ever said anything. He was the best counselor ever too – great with people, responsible, etc. I’m totally with you on this one. The book of Mormon in Alma 32 expressly talks about how bad it is to “throw out” people because of the courseness of their apparel. Yet somehow the CHI or just culture and GA statements have eclipsed docrtine. See my post on teaching HP group in jeans and a flowered shirt last Sunday. That was precisely why I did it — to help everyone see their judgmental attitudes in a hard-hitting way. I’m not a huge fan either, but in a church that is fairly light on symbolism, having the boys wear white shirts when administering the sacrament is a pretty simple symbol. Beyond that ordinance, I agree it seems a bit Pharisaical and judgmental. But in sociology, dressing alike does create a sense of belonging. To your 3 points: Quote:1. It makes us look like a cult. One of the hallmarks of a modern cult is uniformity in dress.
Certainly not all cults. Many cults just choose to wear castoff clothing that’s free. I also don’t think people in uniform look like they are in a cult. Nor do women wearing dresses and big frilly bonnets on Easter Sunday, but that’s what you usually see at Protestant churches. Social groups have norms of dress. Are Catholic priests in a cult? Are Buddhist monks? Are people who work in an office building (which is what Mormons typically dress like)? Are sports teams?
Quote:2. It’s lazy.
I assume by this you mean it’s a misguided attempt to figure out who is good and who is bad, who’s one of us and who is not. I would agree with this. Jesus warned against these types of judgments. But then it’s kind of the same thing as your point #3.
Quote:3. It’s exclusive. It creates another physical “in” or “out” identifier, just at a time when I thought the church was trying to be more inclusive and welcoming.
People who don’t like this (including myself, BTW) imagine that people will feel left out – we suppose there are victims of this dress code. Just who are these victims? We typically think they are new members, visitors, and the poor. I agree that we shouldn’t judge people based on their dress, but I would add that the actual new converts I see find comfort in the dress code. I think the real haters are people like you & me who are long-timers and feel it stifles our personal expression and is uniformity without a higher purpose.
Like I said, I can go so far as the sacrament table. Beyond that, I think we’re not just creating hedges about the law but also making the church feel more bland and business-like. Of course, as a woman, I have a lot more choice in what to wear, but there are plenty of women who dislike the “pants police” in their wards.
This has been one issue I’ve seen brought up or mentioned from time to time that has definitely puzzled me. I’ve lived in over ten different wards over the course of my life and I can only recall one where the wearing of a white shirt was brought up (and this was several years ago). This is definitely a practice that varies from ward to ward. I generally don’t wear a white shirt to Church and I rarely wear a suit (mainly because I’ve put on some pounds recently and my suit doesn’t fit anymore!) But I’ve never received any indications that what I wear is inappropriate. I also see men in beards, goatees, mustaches on a regular basis. They do ask the Aaronic priesthood to pass the sacrament in a white shirt but one time my son wore a maroon shirt to pass in and no one said anything about it. I guess I’m fortunate to be in a ward where such things are not emphasized. It’s also dated. I took some investigators to church once, and one of the daughters said, “it’s like Men in Black”.
On the other hand, I think it’s very disappointing how many people do not dress properly for secular occasions such as court appearances and funerals.
Quote:I can only recall one where the wearing of a white shirt was brought up (and this was several years ago).
I was told off for it years ago. The same guy who told me off was wearing a striped shirt years ago.
A couple of sundays ago though, I couldn’t find my tie. I felt guilty all the way through. I stood back though, and wondered to myself why I was getting so bothered by it. I was a witness to a baptism later on, so had to borrow a tie off someone.
Quote:Anyway, I could go on and on. Thoughts?
Women don’t really have much of a dress code other than modesty and skirts.
I support the idea of school uniforms. The reason is that if children and teenagers start wearing their own clothes class divisions creep in, and also tribes (emo kids vs rap kids etc). Maybe church is the same… suits break down some of the class divisions and stop people wearing clothes that make them more “tribal”.
Never understood the prejudice against beards, although thankfully we don’t have it here.
Amen to the OP. Every word of it. I think it is a big problem, and I think it does make the church look …. you know.
In my world, the only group of people who collectively still wear white shirts are politicians and lawyers and some federal government agencies.
And mormon leadership. Sure, it may not be in the manual, but it is a commandment – the unwritten order of things. When was the last time you saw a bishop, SP, GA or prophet in anything other than a white shirt?
If you understand the history of the white shirt policy, it’s really just another example of the church getting lost in correlation and never evolveing like the rest of society. Sure, we call it symbolism now, but that is just something we made up to justify it, kind of like my story of the white cloth over the sacrament. It had nothing to do with symbolism when it started, it was just put there to keep the flies off the sacrament.
We basically are still stuck first half of the 20th century when the “common man” wore a white shirt to work and town and around the house. We should not be surprised. I think our leaders have been trying to keep us in the 50’s for the last 60 years, because that is the era when most of them would relate to and they see it as the “good ol days.” Unfortunately, to me the good ol days weren’t as “good” and “ol” my father and grandfather’s generation would like us to think they are.
Of course this is all just my opinion.
I feel like going out to buy a nice shirt or two with color – just to mix it up now and then. Thanks, all. I’ve enjoyed reading the various takes on this. I do agree to a certain extent that it’s a regional thing. When I lived in a college town in Virginia, my ward was a bit further left than your typical US ward, and you’d see a smattering of non-white shirts (and non-white people, too). My biggest issue with this subject is the “mission creep.” It started with the GAs and the missionaries – between the black nametag and the white shirt, it made the missionaries easily identifiable. Not a bad thing to “brand” the missionaries. A clean-cut look. Then it crept onto the pulpit in the bishopric and the presidencies. Then it crept to the sacrament table. And now it’s covered the pews, too. And then, it had to be justified. They can’t say “wear a white shirt because we told you to.” So they make up this symbolism bit, which sounds very reasonable and plausible, but has no basis in either doctrine or church history.
Quote:Sure, we call it symbolism now, but that is just something we made up to justify it
Exactly.
Hawkgrrrl, to your points:
1. Certainly not all cults wear a uniform, and not everyone who wears a uniform is in a cult. And there are certainly cultural norms of dress. I wear a suit to church, no matter what color my shirt is. I don’t go to work in board shorts and a tank top, either (although I wish I had a job where I could wear boardies). But to my eye, an
enforceduniform does make us seem a bit … you know (a nod to cwald here). 2. When I say it’s lazy, I mean that Brother Jabba (to steal from another thread on the WoW) can slap on a ratty pair of cargo pants, his Ugg boots, a short-sleeved white shirt left over from his mission 12 years ago, and the most garish tie he’s got, and he’s somehow seen as more properly dressed for Sunday meetings than the guy who looks like a million dollars with a blue/pink/yellow shirt. I actually don’t have a problem with either of those modes of dress … but don’t tell me Brother Jabba is more squared away than Brother Corporate Lawyer.
3. I agree that there are a certain segment of converts who take comfort in instantly fitting in by wearing a blue suit and white shirt – it’s the equivalent of getting the fraternity tattoo. I’ve got non-member friends, though, who have commented on it to me, and never in a positive way. I guess this kind of goes back to point one on the uniformity/cultishness of it.
Thanks again for the thoughts. Very interesting.
Quote:one of the daughters said, “it’s like Men in Black”.
This points to the generational divide a bit. In the 1950s, wearing business dress was a sign of being part of the successful “establishment.” In the 1960s, it became a stark symbol of being definitely “in” the mainstream, not a free love hippie. In the 1970s, suits seemed to get a little more watered down – polyester, leisure suits, short sleeved suits, ascots instead of ties, etc. There was some infiltration of the mainstream by the subculture and some merging. In the 1980s, the corporate look was a sign of financial success and status. In the 1990s, people started to care more about free expression and more social acceptance. In the 2000s, diversity really came forward – that dress norms are arbitrary social constructs – and especially since 2009, the corporate uniform suddenly has all sorts of negative baggage – being cold-hearted and calculating, greed, and shades of dishonesty. I’m not saying the brethren are insensitive to that, but those norms shift quite a bit. Here in Asia, wearing a suit is still pretty much the norm, and a white or blue shirt is much more “professional” than a metrosexual look. Something stylish is more for nightclubbing, not the office. Why do we want to look like corporate raiders? It’s a far cry from the Kirtland Bank Scandal I guess!
I LOVE the idea of making the sacrament more tied to baptism in a visual way, so I have NO problem with the desire to have the young men who administer the sacrament dress in white (and only a shirt is less restrictive than fully white attire). Quote:Of course, there is absolutely no doctrinal basis for this.
Sure there is – established in the talk you referenced and explained extremely well. The doctrinal basis is obvious to anyone who accepts the possibility of continuing revelation, changing symbolism and/or apostolic/leadership authority to make a doctrinal basis for new practices. You might not agree with the doctrinal basis, but there absolutely is one – and a very solid one in this case.
Having said all of that, I really dislike the idea that there is a “uniform of the Priesthood”.That is the height of a modern Mormon Pharisee mentality, and it’s wrong, imo. Linking the sacrament and baptism through visual symbolism is awesome; extending and distorting that link by applying it to everything imaginable (even simple church attendance) is planting so many hedges that the principle gets obscured completely – and, given how few members even remember the apostolic injunction AGAINST extending it to other things and NOT making it mandatory even for the sacrament, I would argue the “uniform of the Priesthood” angle actually has killed the original beauty of the General Conference explanation of why white shirts should be worn to administer the sacrament. I was in the Army, wore a uniform, had my head shaved and had all personal identity stripped for a time period (while in training). It makes a powerful point. It creates a strong psychological sense of unity. I’m not so sure I like that applied to the priesthood in the LDS Church, or mixed with religion in general.
Brian Johnston wrote:I was in the Army, wore a uniform, had my head shaved and had all personal identity stripped for a time period (while in training). It makes a powerful point. It creates a strong psychological sense of unity.
I’m not so sure I like that applied to the priesthood in the LDS Church, or mixed with religion in general.
Well said.
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