My friend Tim and I have been going back and forth lately on why clergy should wear clericals.
Clothing conveys a message. A business suit says, "Money!" A police uniform says, "Law!" A tuxedo says, "Wedding!" Casual clothing says, "Me!" Clericals say, "Church!" Any of those messages might be valid in different contexts, so you have to make sure you are wearing the right clothes for the occasion. If you wear a business suit in a department store, people will mistake you for the manager. If you wear a tuxedo to a ball game, they won’t ask you to play. If you wear a jogging outfit to a fancy restaurant, your clothing says, "I wandered in here by mistake," and the staff will treat you accordingly.
The word clericals refers to the special clothing that clergy wear outside of worship services, usually consisting of a white collar on a black shirt (for male clergy) or on a black blouse (for female clergy), combined with other clothing that is either black or grey.
If you're a pastor and you think you are aggrandizing yourself when you wear clericals, you'll be disappointed. The congregation quickly gets used to the clericals and they see them as badges of service, not honor. Clericals put you in the same functional category as bellhops, waiters, police officers, airline pilots, and so on. We don't dress to please ourselves, or anyone else for that matter; our manner of dress facilitates our service. It makes our function obvious to strangers. It makes our duties inescapable, and it constrains our personal conduct, because we can't disappear into the crowd when we are wearing clericals. Clericals mean that visitors don’t have to ask, "Where is the pastor?" They know just by looking.
Clericals also have other advantages. They communicate to the congregation that you are not a proxy child, a potential date, a worldly expert, or a bosom buddy. It allows you to focus on the job of pastoring, without slipping and sliding into those role conflicts and boundary issues your mentors keep warning you about.
Some years ago, I wore my clericals on a flight. On the airplane, I heard a confession, reassured a frightened traveler, and calmed a terrified child. I was delighted that a routine air flight had turned into pastoral ministry. If you're clergy and you've never worn a clergy shirt to visit people in the hospital, you should try it. The clergy shirt means you don't have to explain who you are or why you're there. The staff extends you all necessary courtesies, and even delirious patients know right off what you are. You can get in after visiting hours and quite often you don't have to pay for parking, even if you've never been to that particular hospital before. Of course the catch is, you have to be on your best ministerial behavior the entire time you are there, so this is not something you should try if your self-discipline is weak.
If I called the police because of a burglary in my house, I would not be reassured if the police showed up driving a sports car with his kids in the back, and wearing jeans and loafers. If I'm in distress because of a crime, I want the police to arrive in a police car and I want them to be wearing freshly pressed uniforms. If I have just been through a burglary, I don't need a buddy, I don't need a narcissist expressing himself in his clothing, I need a policeman. I need a policeman who will carry out the law, not his self-expression. I couldn't care less about who he is personally; I called him as a representative of a greater force. Similarly, if I am on my deathbed, facing the greatest spiritual crisis in my life, I don't want a buddy to come express himself. I want a properly uniformed and equipped minister of God who subordinates himself to his ministry, and who confidently and authoritatively represents God.
Our parishioners deserve nothing less.
This is a real question.
Some years ago I served a church with a vibrant prison ministry. When you visit people in jail, what sort of message do you convey with your clothing? If you show up in casual clothes, you are trying to say, "I'm just one of the gang", but they hear the message, "I'm not taking this seriously". If you show up in a business suit, you are trying to say, "I'm a well-dressed capable person", but they hear the message, "I'm a man of the world".
I know this to be true.
My friend Tim recently preached a funeral. While he was with the family at the graveside, the funeral director, in a suit, in that holy moment, did a sales pitch for a grave marker. Had Tim been in a suit, he'd have been of the same dress as this guy. What does that say about pastoral ministry, to match the dress of the sales person?
I know there are objections. But I don't think they hold water.
How does a black shirt represent Jesus? He didn't wear distinctive clothing.
Actually, he did. In many places, people walked up to him and addressed him as teacher -- out of the blue. Without knowing who He was (that is, Jesus), they knew what He was (that is, a rabbi), because they asked him to do rabbinical things: To heal the sick, cast out demons, settle disputes, probate wills, and decide religious issues. So we have to ask: How could they know he was a rabbi in one circumstance, but not in another? Why were people surprised by his expertise at the Feast in John 7.10-15, when they took it for granted in situations such as Mark 10.17? The only explanation is that they knew by the way he was dressed. When they addressed him as a rabbi, he must have been dressed like a rabbi; the surprise was not that he was a rabbi, but how he handled their requests. In John 7, they did not recognize him as a rabbi, so they were surprised that he knew rabbinical things. He must not have been dressed as a rabbi. The only way he could attend the Feast "in secret" was to go without wearing rabbinical clothes.
While Jesus definitely did not wear a black shirt with a white collar, he obviously wore the first-century equivalent. So clergy who wear clericals are imitating Christ. I think the clergy who don't wear clericals -- and instead opt for suit and tie -- have the more difficult position to defend.
But people will react negatively (whatever that means).
Conflict-avoidant people raise this objection, but there are two problems with letting other people's phobias dictate your wardrobe. The first is that you are not solving their problem by changing your clothes, you are only letting it fester unresolved. The second is that if you are driven by your own fears of what other people will think of you, you're on a slippery slope to second-guessing yourself into total ineffectiveness as the Rev. Milquetoast. If someone has a problem with clerical dress, at least this exposes it so you can help them overcome it. I observe, however, that this problem is more apprehension than substance.
It'll make our pastor look Catholic.
First, that's not true -- lots of Christian traditions wear clericals. Second, this betrays a anti-Catholic strain that isn't biblical. Think John 17.
The lesson I want my clergy friends to take away: If you dress like a minister, people will think you are one.
Now, I know clericalism is very bad. Clericalism is the idea that we clergy are the "professional" Christians. That we're special. And clericalism is the opposite of what I'm articulating here.
Clericals rarely -- in my experience that should be never! -- give people reason to think I'm looking for special treatment. I'm not holier, or a better Christian, because I wear this shirt.
So if you're holding me to that standard, you've misunderstood what I've been saying. Try again.
Clericalism is a Very. Bad. Thing.
Being a servant leader of the people of God is not that. It's being a servant.
But the take away here, again, is something Tim and I have both concluded: If you dress like a minister, people will think you are one.