Why Don’t We Wear Hats in Church?
One of the greatest things about Prolog week at Wartburg is the conversations had between seminarians. Being a final year student, most of my friends at seminary are also in their last year. We have spent six or seven semesters thinking theologically and being deeply rooted in both Scripture and literature on pastoral leadership. As a result, our casual dinner conversations can easily get very deep. One night, we debated a simple and relatively unimportant question with some very deep implications. Should people wear hats in church?
Perhaps more precisely, should we tell people to take off their hats in church? While this isn’t true in every church, or even every part of the world, many people understand this as a basic rule of politeness. Men take off their hats in church and during prayer outside of the sanctuary. I assume the same thing would apply to women, but I must admit, I’m not entirely familiar with all the rules.
My colleagues told me stories about angry congregation members from older generations shouting at youths about their hats. They told me about the looks of horror, shame, and embarrassment, on these young faces. They feared that those kids wouldn’t come back to church after this. Why would they want to return if all that they could remember was being yelled at for wearing a hat at the wrong time or in the wrong place? We may wonder how anyone could possibly justify scaring off the youth with some outdated sense of proper dress code, especially when we all lament the lack of young people in church. There is a solid argument in favor of coming as you are, and wearing whatever you feel comfortable wearing. If you want to come to church in a suit and tie, that is excellent. If you want to come in sweats and a tank top, also great. If you want to wear a hat and loud, dangling jewelry, or roll out of bed and come to church in whatever clothes you wore partying the night before, we are simply happy that you are here. From the perspective of mission, treating the church as a place where people encounter the Gospel and are formed to be disciples, this is an excellent view point. Turn no one away from the church for wearing the wrong clothes. Each person is uniquely important for the work of God’s kingdom. From a practical perspective, this is also an excellent view point. Even if we are cynical enough to judge success by getting more people in the pews, it is still a success to have them, regardless of what they are wearing. From the perspective of incarnational theology, this is also a good view. Jesus came to be among the poor, among the working folk, not to live in a fancy palace and wear elegant clothes. People coming as they are reflects Jesus being among us, exactly as we are.
I could end this here and say that it is obviously better to let people wear whatever they want to church. Toss aside old cultural rules about politeness and let the sanctuary be filled with the mundane, the ordinary. However, we should give the other side their due. Could there actually be a theological reason for taking your hat off in church, or is it just a matter of social performance?
While my colleagues and I all agreed that we should not have angry people yelling at teens to take their hats off in church, the debate quickly drifted into the idea of sacred space and time. Is there something unique about a church sanctuary that gives it a special place in our lives? Should this space be set apart and treated with a different set of rules?
Some would say, “No.” The sanctuary is no more sacred than an aisle at your local grocery store. God is present everywhere. Jesus is with us in the most mundane parts of life. The church isn’t some uniquely magical place. If you are having a conversation with the mailman about Jesus, that is as sacred as what you do on Sunday morning. And we are called to be constantly in prayer. If we took that seriously, then there would be no difference between prayers in our waking and sleeping, meal times, casual afternoon strolls, and church. Christ dwelling within us makes all of Creation sacred. The arrival of God’s kingdom in the cross and resurrection makes all time sacred. This isn’t to say that church isn’t important, but its importance is practical. We need to gather together to encourage and learn from one another, not to be present in sacred space and time.
The other perspective says that there is something different about church. In the sanctuary, we see symbols that remind of God’s grace. We see the cross, the table, the font, signs of God’s enduring love for us and the means by which God saves us. During worship, we gather together to hear the Gospel, proclaim the good news in the Creeds, sing hymns of praise together, and offer our prayers for our communities and the world. The sanctuary is the place where we have gathered for generations on a weekly basis. In this place, we see a line of continuity with those who have come before us. While God may be present everywhere, this is the place where we have gathered again and again to meet God in word and sacrament. And while there may be many places that are sacred to me or you as individuals, the sanctuary is the place we have agreed to call sacred as a community. Such memory, such intention, must qualify the sanctuary as holy ground. That doesn’t mean it is the only sacred space, but it is undoubtedly sacred.
Wherever you fall on this issue, hopefully you could see how the sanctuary is sacred for some people. That doesn’t mean there can be no accidents in it. It doesn’t mean it must be serious all the time and laughter must be squashed. It doesn’t even mean that we must abide by one particular dress code, but it must be set apart somehow. What happens here must be different from what happens in normal life. Maybe this is a matter of clothing, maybe this is a matter of behavior, maybe this is only something that happens spiritually with no outward change. Whatever the case, if the sanctuary is sacred, it must be distinct from the profane.
In Exodus 3, the voice speaking to Moses from the burning bush commands him to take off his shoes because “the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” The presence of God, the significance of the moment, the declaration of its sacredness, makes this particular patch of earth different from all others, and Moses is expected to respond by taking off his sandals. Under these circumstances, that is the proper response to holy ground. Today, it would probably be weird for people to take off their shoes in church. We can acknowledge that cultures change over time, but whether we are taking off our shoes or our hats, there is an expectation that we treat holy ground differently. Something is special about this place.
When I arrive at church early enough to be the only one there, I will sometimes take a moment to say a prayer, thanking God for this place of gathering, asking for the promised Holy Spirit to rest upon us so that we may be enlivened by the good news that we hear that day. Maybe you take off your hat for worship. Maybe you say a prayer to acknowledge the sacredness of the place. Maybe you want to push for taking off your shoes, but I would caution you, that might not catch on well these days. Maybe we set the sanctuary apart through behavior alone. Here, we take the time to pray and listen. Here, we speak to God with one voice. Here, everyone is welcome to the table and everyone is fed regardless of their lack of resources outside of church.
We are shaped by the world we live in, and no matter our discipline and good intentions, we will fail to live according to the values of God’s kingdom. Sometimes we fail even in the holy place of the sanctuary, but if we see the sanctuary as a place set apart, if we treat it as holy, then we have a place to recover from the weight of the world. We have a place to step out of the ways of greed, hate, fear, and intolerance, and step into the ways of God’s kingdom: love, justice, and peace.
We all agree that we shouldn’t yell at kids, but there yet be ways to see the sanctuary as a sacred place, reverencing God and respecting the memories of the holy ground, giving us a place to escape the mundane and profane, and guiding us to see a new kind of normal, not the way the world works, but the way of God’s kingdom.
