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From Amish Coats to Blue Jeans: Dressing Faith in a Modern World · Relish: a Christian podcast

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  Relish, pleasing or zestful flavor, a quantity just sufficient to flavor,
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  to be pleased or gratified by, enjoy.
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  We are hoping that what we bring to your table today might add some spice to your life.
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  Welcome back to another episode of Relish. We have a special edition for you guys here.
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  On my left is Don Patterson as always, and on my right is Marcus Miller,
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  longtime history teacher at Hillcrest Academy, soccer coach.
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  So I've been around him quite a bit. So.
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  You talked about the, uh, stock market game that, and he was the one that brought
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  that to Hillcrest at that time.
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  Right. And, uh, that's been fun. Kids enjoy that. We hear a lot of chatter about it.
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  Yeah. And, uh, that was through Marcus, dear brother Marcus.
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  So the other night I had this, this, uh, four o'clock in the morning where you
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  get up and the Lord says you ought to do something.
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  And so, Marcus, you're here by invitation because the Lord woke me up at four
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  in the morning. Does that mean a good thing or is that a bad thing?
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  I guess it's a good thing. We're going to find out, aren't we?
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  Well, I also asked Marcus to bring along these coats.
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  And one of the things that I think we often gloss over, maybe we need to make
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  more part of what we're doing is, is we come from a, a background of faith that
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  where our plainness has been,
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  our, our dress was affected,
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  what, how we did things was affected by our faith. Am I right, Marcus?
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  Yes. And so I have your great grandfather's or grandfather's?
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  My grandfather's. Grandfather's coat. It's a transition coat. Yeah.
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  This was the transition coat between being Amish and Mennonite. Yeah.
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  And back in the time, what, 60s, 70s, even the administrator at Hillcrest,
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  what was then Iowa Mennonite School, would have had to wear one of these.
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  There was sort of a, so your dad would have had to wear one of these.
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  Or you couldn't be in that position, right?
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  So what happens when we as Christians, one of the last questions in the episode
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  was doing the kind of things that reflect our faith.
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  Right. And so, what happens to us as Christians when we do or don't do those
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  things that reflect our faith?
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  I guess I'm thinking, do we follow the world so closely now that our dress isn't even addressed?
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  I mean, some of the time. When you get dressed in the morning,
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  Rowan, do you think about, okay, does this, what I'm putting on today reflect
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  my faith? Is that even on the radar?
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  No, most of the time I just grab what's on top.
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  Well, that's, that's good enough. Yeah. Yeah. You're looking sharp.
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  So should it be?
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  Marcus, tell us about the history of how things have progressed,
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  maybe just for your family, like the story behind this coat.
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  Yeah, my grandpa Miller, Dan H., for anybody that might remember him, they moved here.
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  They moved to Iowa from Holmes County originally and then Howard County, Indiana.
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  And a year or two after they moved here, they left the Amish and joined the
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  conservative Mennonite church.
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  He would have continued to wear a plain coat. If you saw my pictures of my grandmother,
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  she continued to dress much like an Amish person dressed.
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  And that was part of what it meant to be a member at, I think they went to Fairview
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  and then Sunnyside when it opened up, was wearing that uniform.
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  And then as you mentioned, that transition happened in the 60s and 70s.
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  I had an uncle who was a principal at Iowa Mennonite School then who didn't
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  wear a plain coat, but he wore a coat and no tie.
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  He couldn't wear a tie. Right. That was part of the rule. And they were members
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  at Sunnyside at that time. Yeah.
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  And then now you see very little talk about dress other than at school when
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  we talk about being modest.
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  That's true. And I remember when I was first in the Mennonite ministry going
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  to conservative churches, and I still had a tie on, and they'd say,
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  maybe if you're going to preach here, you take the tie off.
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  And so I just kept it buckled up, but didn't wear a tie. And that's 45 years.
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  So there's been a change in that period of time. Yeah.
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  Right. Yeah. So I guess I'll come back to the question. So what do you think, Marcus?
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  Should we be wearing straight coats yet or blue jeans are good in the pulpit or I'm being honoree?
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  Yeah. I grew up hearing the verses from Romans about being non-conformed to the world.
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  And that was often one interpretation of that was through how we dressed. and um and,
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  And, you know, when problem is the legalism that comes along with that or that
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  came along with that, you know, when I was a student at Iowa Mennonite School,
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  girls that were in the conservative church still had to wear their coverings to school.
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  And some of them talk about how painful that was to have to wear their covering
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  during phys ed class or at other times.
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  And for the girls, it really put a lot of attention on them because I didn't have to wear a covering.
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  I wore blue jeans and T-shirts, kinds of things. And I didn't look different as such.
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  Not wearing a tie was not a problem for me. Really? Okay.
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  In fact, I was maybe, in choir, the rule was if we attended the Mennonite church,
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  we had to wear ties for our performances if we didn't wear the robes. Okay.
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  The director just assumed I was a member of a conservative church,
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  and I didn't tell him otherwise.
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  Miller, yeah, Miller, conservative, right? And most of my relatives were members
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  of Upper or Sunnyside or Fairview, so I just didn't enlighten him.
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  Didn't wear a tie. What's not said is not a problem, right?
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  Last night I was thinking one of the, and I had no idea where this was going,
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  but I used to ask students every now and then if they've ever felt different
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  because they were Christian or if they ever felt different because they were Mennonite. And...
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  You know, when I first started teaching, if I asked that question that the kids
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  all, at least the Mennonite kids would say, yeah, we felt different because we were Mennonite.
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  Now the kids look at me and like, why would you ask a question like that? Yeah.
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  Isn't that interesting? That's not that many years. Right.
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  So the passage that you talked about is Romans 12 and it's verses one and two.
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  Verses two is the one you're thinking of that don't conform any longer to the
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  pattern of this world, but do not be conformed any longer to the pattern,
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  but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
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  Then you'll be able to test and prove what God's will is, his good,
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  pleasing, and perfect will.
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  Yeah. So are we hurting ourselves by looking so much, by conforming so much
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  to what the world around us looks like.
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  What do you think, Rowan? Should I get you a coat?
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  Maybe. Maybe I'll wear no britches. I might need a coat and then I'll have some
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  more words to speak here.
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  But I think, I don't know.
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  I don't really, I think as long as you're being modest, I don't necessarily
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  have a problem with wearing sweatpants and a hoodie or whatever.
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  But that's also all I've grown up with. So, I mean, when I was younger,
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  then sweatpants weren't really a thing. And so it was jeans.
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  Right. But for most of the time that I remember, it's just like sweatpants or.
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  And I guess I'd hate to take your generation back to where the generation before
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  ours was at and the pain that they had with that conforming.
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  The thing that I noticed, though, is as Amish walk down our sidewalks,
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  they do dress differently and they stick out.
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  Hopefully not like a sore thumb, but it does make a statement to the people who are watching.
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  So would that be easier to make a statement through dress?
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  Or is there an easier way to not conform any longer to the pattern of this world?
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  Is there an easier way than dress i mean i've always
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  said is cop out because if you dress a certain way
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  then people realize uh you're you're
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  dressing that way for a reason we'd had a conversation in our
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  minister's group the other day that nobody can really tell who a minister is
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  unless they wear a collar and so there were certain situations like prisons
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  that we thought Maybe we need to wear a collar for our safety and for some respect
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  and being set aside in a prison situation.
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  What do you think? Is there times we need to do that, dress differently?
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  I would think like dressing different is probably one of the easier ways to
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  just show that you're a believer in a, like to be different than the world.
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  Like you just make that one decision and you're in the morning of what to put
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  on and, or right before you go out.
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  But like your, your actions, you're constantly making decisions and some of
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  them are just unconscious and you're, you're not going to.
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  Be necessarily as successful or as consistent as just making the one decision in the morning.
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  And of course, actions, you said, make a difference.
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  So we don't really have accidents in this community because we have such a high
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  Christian population, right?
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  No car accidents and no road rage, right?
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  Definitely not. I was, two stories. One is from my early years teaching at Hillcrest.
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  Now, It was Iowa Mennonite at the time, and the principal,
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  or it might have been Dwight, the basketball coach, then got a phone call because
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  two guys wearing IMS letter jackets had been in a store and done some inappropriate things.
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  Ah, so they stuck out. So they called the school, and yes, and there was this
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  discussion about if you're wearing things that indicate the school you're from,
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  we expect you to act in a certain way. Right.
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  Another story, one time I dropped, I think it was a group of seniors,
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  and they were doing the...
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  Through your life thing that they sometimes did in Christian family living class.
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  And I dropped him off at the mall, Coral Ridge Mall for lunch.
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  And a lady saw the Iowa Mennonite School on the bus. So she comes running up
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  to me and she says, am I going to see some Mennonite kids in their clothing inside?
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  And I said, well, you'll see Mennonite kids in your clothing,
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  but not the clothing you expect.
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  She says, well, how will I tell who they are? And I said, well,
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  I hope you can tell by their behavior. Yeah.
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  Yeah. But it is much harder. Mm-hmm.
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  Right. Yeah. And we would hope that that would show.
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  That then brings it back to us. And how do we as Christians conduct ourselves
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  in such a different way that we don't conform to the world because we're transformed?
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  And, yeah. I like how Eugene, I think it's Eugene Peterson that did the message.
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  I like how he translates those verses where he talks it.
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  It's not about so much being different, but it talks about not being apart from
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  your culture and being, on the one hand, being aware of your culture and then
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  being apart from your culture.
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  So to me, when I think about that, it means listening to people, being respectful.
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  Uh, you know, in our culture where it's like the louder you talk,
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  um, the more you yell, the more coarse language you use, the more you get attention.
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  And to me, that's not the way a Christian should speak or act. Yeah.
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  Oh, what's interesting in this discussion, as we've had it, you know,
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  I've seen the pastors go from being very formal on Sunday morning to the Rick Warren look,
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  you know, with the Hawaiian shirt and the blue jeans, and then move more towards the polo shirts.
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  And then what I found in a recent Pew research is that Gen Z's expects that
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  their ministers show professionalism in their dress when they come to the pulpit. I thought, oh.
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  So it's sort of gone around.
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  And I saw an article recently about the number of young people,
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  young men specifically attracted to the Orthodox tradition where I believe they wear robes.
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  That's right. So are we going full circle again?
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  And it's interesting, historically, how that's often happened,
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  how you start at one spot and because of what happens in the,
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  yeah, it comes back around.
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  So I'm back to wearing ties on Sunday morning.
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  I know I've heard some people say that they like it when their pastor doesn't
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  wear like a suit coat and a tie. Yeah. Yeah.
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  We break with that once in a while. But for the most part, I haven't worn the
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  full suit for, I start that in the fall.
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  So, yeah. Can we get our head around that everything we say or do.
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  Is part of our gospel, part of what we're preaching.
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  When we, the passage you cited, Marcus, in chapter 11, it talks about all the
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  wonderful things God has done and sort of a doxology, if you will, of what God has done.
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  And it's a laundry list of the things that he's done.
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  And then it starts in verse one of chapter 12.
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  Therefore, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
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  holy and pleasing to God, which is your action, spiritual action of worship.
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  That's where verse 1 goes. Then it says, No longer conform to the pattern of
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  this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
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  Then you will be able to test like a senior in high school.
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  God's will is good, pleasing and perfect will man how can we capture that better
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  if it's not dress it's got to be action and if it's action then,
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  it's so fuzzy i don't like fuzzy things i
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  don't like things that i can't get a handle on for description right are there
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  concrete things that we can do beyond our dress beyond being modest that would
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  actually be Christian actions that grow out of our spiritual worship.
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  Marcus. Well, that book you're holding in your hand has some guidelines.
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  It does have some guidelines. Jesus tells us not to turn the other cheek.
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  Paul has all kinds of advice in Galatians and Ephesians. Yeah.
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  We've been working on the fruits of the Spirit. Right.
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  You know, a lot of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7,
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  if we actually lived at Matthew 5, 6, and 7, we would look different and act different.
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  So yeah well let's just serve an experiment see how
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  three of us work together so at what point did they
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  did our ancestors start conforming
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  i guess you could say or was us or like when how why was that so some people
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  would argue that the initial dress the amish had when they started in the 1680s
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  was the dress that they had and then they just never really changed okay but then um,
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  and the Mennonites and others continued to change and adapt with the times with some changes.
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  You know, facial hair is another one.
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  I asked my grandpa one time how long his beard got when he was an Amishman.
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  And he says, well, he kind of chuckled and he said it kept breaking off.
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  He also couldn't get married until his hair, the Amish bishop refused to marry
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  him until his hair on top was longer because it was too short. It was too short.
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  And so that's another issue now.
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  Yeah, so I think the big changes more recently were in the 60s.
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  And I think you see that reflected.
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  I'm not a theologian, but I think you see that reflected in,
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  you know, Mennonites have historically borrowed from lots of different people and media.
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  We've borrowed from lots of folks for good and bad.
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  And I don't know that we've always thought about the implications of that. It's true.
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  Yeah, that's a good answer. All right. Well, I think that about wraps it up for us.
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  So thank you, Marcus, for coming on. Yeah. Thanks for having me.
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  Yeah. Bring in the coats. Yes. I think it looks like Don enjoying that. Feeling, yeah.
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  Very patriarchal right now. Very polar, you know. Very pious. Oh, yes.
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  All right. Well, thank you guys for joining us. Hope you enjoyed it.
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