(Along with a number of others, I answer questions posted to the OPC's website, a gig I fell into through Mrs. Curmudgeon's maternal grandfather. Last week, I was asked to reply to a person lamenting the casual dress so often seen at worship services these days and, to my surprise, pulled off a fairly decent response.)
This matter does not lend itself to a quick or simple answer, although I hope to be relatively straightforward. I should reveal something of my own prejudices from the outset by revealing I wear a white Genevan gown when leading worship, and I have (at least once that I can recall) talked about dress in worship in a sermon.
First, I should note that we live in a culture which is tending toward greater informality in dress for all occasions. This becomes remarkably evident when one compares a picture of a ballgame from the 1950s to one today. Regional variations are also important. In Chicago a couple years ago, I was struck by how many more suits I saw on the streets there than in the business districts of Denver. To be wildly imprecise, it seems the informality common on the beaches of California a generation ago has now migrated across the country even as far as Boston.
This being the case, many Americans simply have no sense of how formality varies with occasion nor how this might impact dress, and this is reflected by their wardrobes. Especially given the casual way in which worship services are conducted in many evangelical congregations, I think it would never occur to many of our countrymen and coreligionists that they should have a "Sunday best."
You suggest the Scriptures are not silent on this matter. Well, yes and no. I'd be astonished if anyone could draw a straight line from a Biblical passage to "gentlemen should wear ties on Sunday morning" without violating every hermeneutical and homiletical principle known to the reformed. Thus, to the best of my knowledge, the OPC as a body has never spoken to this question. At the same time, I've noticed the Scriptures spend a great deal of time discussing aesthetic matters, particularly in the Law and Wisdom literature, and this discussion tends to support greater formality in dress. I ground my teaching on this matter in the Fifth Commandment: that is, dress is one way in which one shows honor to others, in this case our Lord and Creator (Shorter Catechism #63-64).
Given the extraordinary difficulty one might have trying to prove to, say, one's teenage son that God expects him to wear a coat and tie to services, I think many pastors and elders are reluctant to make too much of an issue of this. Frankly, I'm more concerned that members attend the evening service than that they wear long pants for it. The Church ought never be turning people away solely on the basis of their clothing choices, no matter how infelicitous, and a preoccupation with this matter out of proportion to the Bible's interest in it runs the risk of adding to the Law of God. I think modeling by the session and mature members of the congregation will have the greatest impact: that is, if these dress in an appropriate manner, others will follow suit (no pun intended, although that's a pretty good pun if I say so myself).
Are the clergy to blame? To the extent they are still captive to the misguided spirit of the 1960s which revered the hatless President Kennedy and eschewed formality at all costs, yes. More substantively, clergy who have treated the worship service as little more than an occasion to present a sermon are to blame. Sessions should give careful attention to the conduct of the service as a ritual shaped by Scripture in which reverence and awe in the presence of God are evident throughout. Why would people dress formally for the liturgy when the liturgist's demeanor is informal?
Reverence and awe, honor and duty. I suspect that the more we who shepherd the sheep work to cultivate these attitudes in ourselves and in them, the more we will find everyone's dress being appropriate to the occasion.
grace & peace,
the Presbyterian Curmudgeon
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