Maybe dressing down is effective outreach for audiences unaccustomed to church formality. But most in these same audiences probably still dress up for weddings, funerals, graduations and events they regard as significant. Evidently worship no longer counts as that significant to merit respectful dress. It once was a redeeming quality for traditional once Mainline Protestant churches that, whatever their other deficiencies, they offered a respectful, traditional worship atmosphere, with clergy and parishioners dressed formally. Increasingly this seriousness is less and less common….

This blog is NOT about the plagiarism charges against Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll whose impressive effectiveness as teacher and evangelist for orthodox Christianity especially among young people in a very secular region deserves admiration and replication. His Mars Hill Church’s recent acquisition of a majestic former Methodist sanctuary in Seattle, a congregation that had liberalized and withered, having previously sold their stately 1300 seat church to a developer, vividly illustrates how counter cultural faith is far more dynamic than the cultural conformity of dying once Mainline Protestantism.

But this blog is about the photo that has accompanied some stories about the plagiarism charges. Why is an intelligent, serious pastor and spiritual leader of a multiple congregational movement appearing in a sanctuary wearing ripped jeans?! Why is his shirt not tucked in?! Where is his tie? Why does a pastor want to look almost like a vagrant?

In fairness to Driscoll, his pastoral dress is not entirely unusual in the evangelical world, although I have not seen many preachers in church with holes in their jeans. Maybe dressing down is effective outreach for audiences unaccustomed to church formality. But most in these same audiences probably still dress up for weddings, funerals, graduations and events they regard as significant. Evidently worship no longer counts as that significant to merit respectful dress.

It once was a redeeming quality for traditional once Mainline Protestant churches that, whatever their other deficiencies, they offered a respectful, traditional worship atmosphere, with clergy and parishioners dressed formally. Increasingly this seriousness is less and less common, and I sometimes see worshippers dressed similar to Driscoll in this photo. Usually I see only a handful wearing a coat and tie at my own church and other Methodist churches where I attend, a big shift from just a few years ago. Recently I was asked to be an usher at a church I visited, my only apparent virtue as a stranger apparently being that I was among the very few in a suit.

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