Is It Necessary To Dress Up To Go To Church? Where Does Our Seventh-Day Adventist Understanding Of Dress Codes Come From?
There is no clear answer regarding what we are to do concerning dress codes in church. Naturally, some church members wish for a Bible text that clearly states whether they should or should not dress up to go to church. But unfortunately, we need to accept the fact that some issues/problems facing the church today were of no concern to the writers of Scripture. Ellen G. White would agree since, for her, “the dress question is not to be our present truth.”1
That being the case, let’s try to understand where our
dress code tradition came from. But first, let’s at least partially
deconstruct each assumption we might bring to the issue.
Where do we get the idea that we need to dress up to go to
church? There are many possibilities, but I want to focus on
at least two that I believe are quite influential:
1. The Ellen G. White writings argument. We must
remember that the writings of Ellen G. White are not exempt
from interpretation since, at one point, she advises people not
to purchase bicycles.2
Think about her words on the need for
common sense: “My mind has been greatly stirred with the
idea, ‘Why, Sister White has said so and so, and Sister White
has said so and so; and therefore we are going right up to it.’
God wants us all to have common sense, and he wants us to
reason from common sense. Circumstances alter conditions.
Circumstances change the relations of things.”3
The contextual background and circumstances of her
writings are crucial! For some, part of the “formal-dresscode-in-church”
mindset does not come primarily from a
conception of the sacredness of the church space but from
some of Mrs. White’s writings. In her day, people commonly
worked on farms and did heavy manual labor during the
week. To differentiate their time/dress in church from the time/dress of these common and secular activities, people
would dress up to show that the seventh day was different
from the other days of regular labor. This idea is found in
quotations such as this:
“All who meet upon the Sabbath to worship God should,
if possible, have neat, well-fitting, comely garments to wear
in the house of worship. It is a dishonor to the Sabbath, to
God, and to his house, for those who profess to believe that
the Sabbath is the holy of the Lord, and honorable, to wear
upon that day the soiled clothing which they have worn
through the labors of the week, if they can obtain anything
more suitable.”4
Interestingly, this practice has some Jewish roots. The
weekly kabalat Shabbat (the receiving of the Sabbath) is
ideally marked in each Jewish household as family members
dress up to receive the Sabbath. So there is an element of
respect for the day that leads people to dress formally. And
this conception is not bad. But it must be counterbalanced
with texts such as this:
“On Sunday many popular churches appear more like
a theater than like a place for the worship of God. Every
fashionable dress is displayed there. Many of the poor have
not courage to enter such houses of worship. Their plain
dress, though it may be neat, is in marked contrast with that
of their more wealthy sisters, and this difference causes
them to feel embarrassed.”5
So, based on these preliminary thoughts, it is safe to
say that part of the formal dress-code mindset stems from
a narrow view of some of Ellen G. White’s writings. If we
take time to read her insights on this issue, the key word that
surfaces again and again is simplicity.
2. The church/sanctuary argument. Along with the issue
of formal dress codes, many other practical issues that the
church struggles with also stem from a misconception of
what the church is. Why is this so? Because the assumption
in many churches is that today’s church is the modernday
equivalent of the Old Testament sanctuary. Even the
architecture of most churches around the world reflects
this idea. Whether we realize it or not, the architecture of
our churches expresses a way of thinking; that is, a church
building says a lot about our conception of what ministry
and mission are by the way it is set up. Think about this!
The majority of our churches have a common area (pews),
a holy place (pulpit/platform), and a most holy place (pulpit/
baptismal tank). This sanctuary structure is also seen with
some variation in Protestant and Catholic churches and
especially in Greek-Orthodox churches.
The church/sanctuary mindset not only impacts the
architecture of our church but also informs part of how
many church actions occur: church discipline (the sinner is
excluded/cut off from the courts of the temple/church); music
(we use texts that talk about temple music in the Old Testament
to support what music is appropriate for the church); and
other activities I could mention that reflect this idea.
Although church discipline and appropriate music are
important ecclesiological elements, our mindset in going
about these activities can be affected by thinking that the
church is a sanctuary. For example, instead of viewing
church discipline as a brutal/divisive practice (which follows
the church/sanctuary mindset of cutting off and sending
away), we should view it as the redemptive activity the Bible
intends it to be.
The formal dress-code mindset could fall under the same
misconception of church/sanctuary. The rationale is: We are
going to church/sanctuary, and our “external” appearance
must conform to the fact that we are going to God’s house.
This church/sanctuary mindset is problematic on many
levels. We need to understand that today’s church is not
equivalent to the Old Testament sanctuary. The church is
not a modification of the synagogue. The church today is
not even a proper reflection of the New Testament ekklesia
(where the church was tied to the reality of its members
and not to a particular place). Jesus Himself shifted His
attention from sacred space to a sacred attitude when He
spoke to the Samaritan woman in John 4. Jesus said that
the day would come when common geographical markers
would be irrelevant! What matters is our attitude, and true
worship is marked in spirit and in truth. A new attitude, a
new geography. This does not mean we should not gather
in a building, but it highlights an important question: Is there
a difference between how we meet God in church and how
we meet Him during the week? If there is no difference,
then the argument that we dress because we are meeting
the Almighty God in His house collapses. Once we think of
divine presence being tied to a particular building, we are
thinking within the lines of what the Samaritan woman was
thinking: that worship and God were tied to a place (the basis
of Catholic ecclesiology and mission). We must not go back
to a form of worship that Jesus Himself undid.
So why do we have formal dress codes in church
worship today? I’ve explored two possibilities, but there are
many more. This response was not written as an answer to
this question; it was written to further clarify the complexity
of the question itself and to provide talking points for dialogue
in your local church.
1 Ellen G. White, Manuscript 167, 1897.
2 ———, Testimonies to Ministers, 398.
3 ———, Selected Messages, 215, 217.
4 ———, Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 86.
5
Ibid., 85.
This question was answered by Tiago Arrais. He is a PhD candidate
at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews
University.
