What a pastor wears is a public statement and is open to public comment. Much of what a pastor does is open to public comment, in fact. This isn’t even public commenting. It’s simply public documentation. Pretty amazing.
All I know is that you’re on the 'gram wearing a $2,000 pair of boots. I can’t reconcile it. I can’t think of a meaningful explanation as to why you would feel 100% okay with wearing a pair of boots that probably the majority of your congregation could never afford. I am just here to say ‘Whoa, homie’s wearing $800 track pants.’ Y’all do with that what you want, you know?
Particularly perverse though, is this sad nugget:
I had a Dallas-based pastor reach out to me and ask to be featured on the page yesterday.
“If I walk into a place and I’m wearing something that makes people go, ‘that’s a cool outfit,’ I am working with an advantage, rather than a disadvantage of like, ‘man, those are really whack sneakers.’”
I wonder whether in two years “whack sneakers” will be a compliment.
I literally can’t imagine wearing clothes that expensive. The article mentions stewardship as “Christianese” for how church leaders spend money, but its really something for all believers.
I guess I don’t know exactly where the line is, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be a number but more of a way of thinking. Wisdom and leadership don’t follow protocols. There’s something about working out your salvation with fear and trembling in that dusty old Book somewhere…
The whole concept of these guys wearing these clothes reminds me of something I read about the concept of “cool” in the church. I think singer/songwriter Andrew Peterson said it… Basically we want to make Jesus and his church “cool” to a world that worships coolness. And that ain’t right.
It sounds like the first disadvantage he’s working with is being surrounded by hearers who evaluate him by the “coolness” of his clothing. The second disadvantage is that he thinks pandering to their idiosyncratic tastes will actually get them to listen to him.
I thought preaching against consumerism was supposed to be trendy these days. This would actually be an area where excoriating such lavishness–and the gross vanity that feeds it–would be called for.
That was confusing. It made it seem as though the ones running the Instagram account were the ones that wrote the article a couple of years ago gushing about the pastors’ fashion. I see now it’s some fashion blog that ran that article a couple years ago and now ran an article on this Instagram guy who’s calling the pastors out for it.
People usually think of women in discussions of modesty, which is appropriate since that’s usually the context of the Biblical texts on modesty. The general thrust of biblical texts on modesty is in regards to ostentatious displays of clothing, dressing to draw attention to yourself. This is generally a more pressing problem with women, which is why the Bible speaks to them on this issue. When men draw attention to themselves in such an ostentatious manner, it is both immodest and effeminate. Immodest by definition, and effeminate because they are giving into womanly temptations.
Also, when the pastor is obviously the most wealthiest dressed man in church, I’m pretty sure you’re violating, at least in principle, James’s prohibition on giving the wealthy the best seat in church.
