Wearing Your Religion on Your Sleeve

By Mark Chatfield

According to style experts, an early 2005 hot seller is “religious” clothing.  Tee shirts emblazoned with “Jesus saved even me!” and similar evangelical messages are the rage with young people in certain circles. 

Should Christians buy these clothes and wear them as a way to carry the message to the world?  Should you or your children go in to business selling Christian message clothing?  How should Christians react when a friend, brother, or sister shows up in the latest “Jesus is mine!” sweatshirt?

Before we attempt to answer these questions, let’s consider a Bible-based thought process. 

As Colin Williamson points out in his class on the book, one of Paul’s deeper theological texts is his letter to the Romans.  Late in the letter, he tells his primarily Gentile Christian friends how to seek truth.  He instructs them, and us, that as we renew our minds we will need to study and reach conclusions about circumstances and potential opportunities that come to us.  As we trek through our lives he tells us that it is our responsibility to take a positive approach to truth seeking.  In short, it is not productive to try to answer the negative.  It is an exercise in frustration to try to respond to a question like, “Where does it say a Christian cannot drink a dozen beers in one night?”  Rather than engage in that kind of foolish discussion, Paul says to prove what is right. 

Romans 12:2 “And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, and ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

So, to respond to the questions in the second paragraph, we need to prove what is good and acceptable and perfect in God’s word about carrying the message to the world.  We will find that our spoken words to others, our own written letters, our modest apparel, and our demeanor are all appropriate ways to carry the message to the world.  Verses that verify this include:

2Ti 4:2 “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”

Ro 15:15 “Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind, because of the grace that is given to me of God,”

1Ti 2:9 “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;”

1Ti 4:12 “Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”

Secondly, the Bible instructs us about using Christ for personal financial gain.  Christians can spread the gospel more effectively by speaking and acting with a clear conscience using their personal knowledge of God’s word.  Making money from others by using the name of Christ is not a Bible-based activity.

1Pe 5:2 “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;”

Finally, if someone you know shows up with a pretentious jacket that says, “Ask me about Jesus,” you might suggest they think about some of the ways God specifically instructs us to advance the name of Jesus.  If you can’t bring yourself to do that, consider Paul’s words in Philippians,

Phil 1:18 “What then? only that in every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and therein I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.”