Can I wear dreadlocks as a Christian guy? Can a Christian lady wear jeans and trousers? These and much more were my questions for inquiry in this edition of Ponder.
I'm increasingly getting fed up with the discourse on Christianity and our limitations. And for the purposes of this conversation, I'd want to go with our limitations on an issue like how we dress.
I am of the opinion that how we dress has not necessarily been set in stone. I don't believe that there's a clear definition of things like what we can wear, what hairstyles are allowed and much more.
But to answer my initial questions, we need to first understand some context. Humans are innately social beings. We are wired to interact with other humans as an assurance of belonging and in some cases - security.
Our social nature means that we tend to rely on cooperation in order to survive and thrive. Without this, we might have failed terribly as a species.
But then again, to co-operate with each other, we needed to first have a sense of whom to co-operate with. It is madness, and largely unsustainable to co-operate with everyone and everything. It would have been quite detrimental to our progress as a species.
Usually, the people we tended to co-operate with were people we were largely familiar with. Unless you've had a huge disappointment before, family is usually the first place you go if you need anything done. It's not rocket science, it's logic. Why? Because family is familiar.
Family is familiar!
And like I've been saying, in a societal context, we tend to accept things we are familiar with. If you're in the context of a Rastafari, you'd have to be a Rastafari or fit into their context to build trust and sell whatever message you have to them.
Conversely, cannot carry deadlocks to the Otumfuor's Palace and cry foul if you are sacked or your message is rejected. It's madness and childish behaviour - dare I say. In the same way, it would have been largely impossible to have a black (in the days of racist America) sell a message to a white man. For the where?! Their contexts were largely far apart.
So again, to answer that question of what a Christian can wear, it is based on context. You cannot force anyone to accept you if you are not familiar or fit into their context. Unless you are a supernatural being, you will be rejected.
Remember, Jesus had to become a man and fit into our context to sell the message of salvation and God's abundant love to us. The appearance of God as a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day did very little to convince humans about the presence of God. But God came in a context we are familiar with and that worked like magic! For 2000 years and counting, people have believed in the man who was born a child and yet a king.
Now, I know that the extremists among us would bring up extremist examples. Eg. Does it mean that we can wear things like bikinis if our context is a bikini community? Well, it largely depends.
As Christians, we are called to stand out. We are salt to the earth and a light to the world. The beautiful thing about Christianity is the fact that it picks you out of whatever context you find yourself in and refines you. Christianity makes you better. It makes you the standard.
Christianity takes you through the fire and refines you. That refinement burns all chaff in (and out of) you and makes you excellent. That excellence makes you more disciplined and you tend to stand out. You tend to become much more decent. Decency is a keyword here.
The dictionary defines decency as "conforming with generally accepted standards of respectable or moral behaviour".
It then defines standing out as "to be much better than other similar things or people". The key phrase here is similar things or people. You have to be similar if you'd want to stand out.
As Christians, we're similar to the people around us, but have to stand out!
We can look at Apostle Paul and observe how he had to balance his different nationalities and occupations to fit in at different points in his life. To have the opportunity to stand out, he had to fit in in a way, he had to find common ground.
If piercings and rasta make you stand out and fit perfectly into the context within which you find yourself, brilliant. It's a good sign. We would have salvation reaching the bounds of people who might have ordinarily been left out.
And honestly, with the bikini question, you can't wear a long “kaba and slit” to share the gospel at the beach. You'd be looked at awkwardly. You'd do a much better job if you fit in to stand out.
It is not a good idea to bash people who look or dress differently from you. You're probably not their target audience. You are not in their context.
In the same vein, you do not bash people who reject you based on the fact that they're not familiar with your context. You cannot sell (or appeal) to everyone. Find your target audience, stand out with decency, and appeal to them!
As such, I'm pleased to announce that I'd be doing rasta soon. And that I'd need a place to sleep. I can't do rasta at my mother's house. 😂🤣💔
