Dressed for the moment
After spending seven years in the American South swathed in Methodist and Baptist glories, I moved to London and changed my clothes. I resumed the practice of wearing a clerical collar.
Historically the collar was simply the dress of an educated man in society. Today it still tells the world you’re an educated person. When I began in ordained ministry I was in a working-class parish in the northeast of England. In my first adult confirmation class there was a firefighter who told me how much he appreciated me wearing my collar when I visited him. I was surprised; I assumed he’d think I was being stiff and formal and unfriendly. “No,” he said, “my supervisor at work often comes in to work at weekends when he doesn’t have to, and he wears his casual clothes just to show that he can. So when I see you wearing your uniform I know you’re taking me seriously.”
Compare this to an experience ten years later in an underclass neighborhood. For several years I sat on the board of a group that sought to use local initiative to renew and invigorate the area. Because meetings were scheduled at various times, I’d turn up in whatever I happened to be wearing that day. Eventually one of the other board members, who like many of the board members was a local resident, said, “Please don’t wear your collar to meetings. It feels like you’re condemning us as sinners.”
