Clergy Protests In Sackcloth And Ashes

Hi dolls,
We have arrived at Advent, thank God. Advent is about every BODY, and we can dig deep into the damaging separation of the spiritual and the incarnate and dismantle that nonsense. Do it, Church!!
Jesus had a post-menopausal pregnant auntie. His mom wasn’t sexually active. That’s plain language I used in the pulpit yesterday.

Side note: I also used the word “messy” to describe humanity, breaking my own rule not to employ irritating trendy terms. God, I am so tired of that word. Also: “broken.” “Broken” is so trendy it should be a drinking game. Take a shot every time the minister says “broken!” There are different Types of DUI Charges in Florida that one can look into in case there is a problem.

Today I want to take a look at effective sackcloth-wearing among protesting clergy, but before we do that, let’s talk about some images we’ve seen in the news lately of clergy who did not use sackcloth effectively and looked silly while trying to do important work.

For a symbol to be effective, it has to be employed artistically, with aesthetic consideration.
Slapping a wrinkly length of canvass around one’s neck, on top of a wrinkly chaplain’s stole over a dingy outfit just looks like maybe there’s something wrong with that person — like maybe they were burlap-wrapping a small azalea in their garden for the winter and wandered into a protest by accident.

I can’t find the image that prompted this reaction and it’s probably a good thing that I can’t, as I hate insulting well-meaning religious leaders. But really — it does not help anyone’s cause for justice and equity when advocaates appear on their behalf looking confused and possibly deranged.

The fact that the Trump Regime is making all of us feel deranged is not a persuasive argument for ambling around in public looking silly while trying to save lives. YOUR APPEARANCE AT A PROTEST IS A PHOTO OP, AND EVERY PHOTO OP IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO WIN OR LOSE AN ARGUMENT IN SECONDS WITH EVERY PERSON WHO SEES THAT PHOTO.

I’ll stop yelling now, but remember that the general public was not at the protest to hear the stirring pronouncements that the clergy spokespersons carefully prepared. They JUST SAW THE IMAGE.
They saw the image before they read the article with the stirring quotes, and in a split second they unconsciously decided whether or not the people in that photo had any real authority or moral credibility. That is how images work: bam, right to the viscera.

The clergy who appeared recently in Washington with big sheets of burlap around their shoulders did not put enough thought or effort into how to convey the sackcloth symbol. They should have partnered with artists to strategize how to make the burlap fall the right way, and how to move and coordinate their affect to make a powerful impact. What I saw instead was a few calm, resolved faces and a lot of sheepish self-consciousness.

Clergy are people of the Word. We need help in designing effective non-verbal communications.

Click on the images to enlarge and let’s have a look at some sackcloth protest moments that did work:

Rev. Barbara Williams-Skinner speaks during a demonstration by Christian leaders opposing President Trump’s proposed budget at the U.S. Capitol on March 29, 2017.  RNS photo by Lauren Markoe
Rev. Barbara Williams-Skinner speaks during a demonstration by Christian leaders opposing President Trump’s proposed budget at the U.S. Capitol on March 29, 2017. RNS photo by Lauren Markoe
Photo by Lauren Markoe

Here is the Rev. Barbara Williams-Skinner at the Capitol on March 29, 2017 with other religious leaders protesting Trump’s proposed budget cuts.

We all know what is happening right now with the tax bill, which I have described as a legislative pogrom. It is definitely a time for sackcloth, and these clergy are employing the symbol in a way that highlights, rather than undermines, their leadership charism. They made an artistic decision to cut the sackcloth in proportion to their attire, which makes clear that they are using the sackcloth AS a symbol, not pretending to actually don sackcloth in the ancient lamentation ritual. They are not confused about what they are doing and saying, and so it is much easier to trust them.

This next image, taken at the same event, conveys authority within a context of anger, moral disgust, and lamentation. These religious leaders have not traded away their own dignity in order to make a point and to create a visual and moral resonance between the time of the prophets and our own time. Well done.

Christian leaders protest the federal budget cuts President Trump has proposed during a demonstration outside the U.S. Capitol on March 29, 2017.  Photo courtesy of Joseph Molieri/Bread for the World
Christian leaders protest the federal budget cuts President Trump has proposed during a demonstration outside the U.S. Capitol on March 29, 2017. Photo courtesy of Joseph Molieri/Bread for the World

Photo by Joseph Molieri

If anyone has a photo of the use of sackcloth in public protests, I’d love to see them. Bang me back through the Contact form.

Clergy In The Headlines

Study these images (If you click them, they get bigger).
These are our colleagues out on the front lines, witnessing for justice. RIGHT ON, clergy!
Who do you want to follow? This is an urgent question right now.

Who looks like they have integrity, authority, a compelling presence that you, if you were undecided about whose voice to heed, might lend your ear and your trust? I feel stirrings of pride in almost all of these images but I’m a minister! It’s easy for me to cheer for the team. What I find challenging is to regard these images as the average, skeptical American might. What do these people look like to them?

clergy bad

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Clergy leaders who were not arrested continue a protest against the Republican health care bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on July 13, 2017.  RNS photo by Madeiline Buckley
Clergy leaders who were not arrested continue a protest against the Republican health care bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on July 13, 2017. RNS photo by Madeiline Buckley

Who isn’t thinking through their attire and their public image? I see a few bloopers.
I also find that, in general, there are too many colors and patterns for my eye to follow, and I think to the average viewer that might look a little cray-cray. I’m not sure, though. Do you think most people seeing these images know what a stole even is? I find that I respond well to a simple suit and collar, or to a white or black robe or outfit under a stole.

Who is assuming a clergy privilege that no longer exists in America, and presuming that they can get away with dressing like a slob and still be taken seriously?
You see it, right? Not good. Really insulting.

Remember that these images are seen by millions more people than will ever hear even one of our well-crafted sermons or even a sentence. Our face, our bearing, our sign, our body language, our gestures in photos or short videos are the only means of communication we have to reach this divided nation. We must be savvy about how we use them.

Blessings on all those who show up.

Pussy Hats And Clericals

It’s decision time, pigeons, and this furious pussycat needs your input.

I have a pussy hat, courtesy of my Music Director who knitted it and gave it right to me as soon as she saw my eyes light up with glee at the sight of it. She said she made it with the intention of giving it away, so that was that. Yay!!

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I will march on Saturday in Boston with other furious women and our allies — disgusted by Trump/Pence and their casual misogyny and vile, medieval obsession with controlling our bodies. May obstruction foil their every hateful effort. So may it be, God help us.

I will be wearing clericals because I want to identify as a religious leader.
I don’t think PeaceBang would approve at all of my wearing the pussy hat with the clericals, but I am undecided.

I understand that the hat lacks gravitas. It is not at all appropriate for a liturgical setting, obvs.

And yet, my experience as a woman is not separate from my experience as a minister. In fact, the most serious and enraging violation of my body (after a lifetime of manageable violations: having to fight horny guys off on dates, being catcalled on the street, having a breast grabbed in a crowd, being stalked while touring Amsterdam on my own, being expected to sleep with the hotel manager in Brussels who let himself into my room with his key and thought that was romantic or sexy rather than terrifying, being called a pig and worse by guys who just moments previously were trying to flirt with me, being referred to as a bitch more times than I would bother to try to count, being harassed by a deranged cyber stalker who can’t stop obsessing about my making a joke about sodomy on a blog over a decade ago [who also comments constantly on my body], being told that I’m too stridently feminist for requesting that the church furnish a FAX machine for my home office [there was no church office!], being asked at a candidating weekend if I’m pregnant because I declined a glass of wine, being messaged by a male youth in my denomination asking if I got laid that weekend…. SHALL I GO ON?) was committed by a wolf in sheep’s clothing who groomed me for assault precisely by manipulating my pastoral empathy.

I march as a woman and for women and as a woman in ministry. If women have decided to fly a middle finger to Trump and his congressional cronies by means of a cute pointy-eared pink hat, I want to be visually counted among them. You may grab us but you can’t touch us.

But do I wear the clericals AND the hat?
What do you think? What are you doing? And what signs are you carrying?

Under consideration:
For God’s sake, RESPECT WOMEN.

For Christ’s sake, TRY RESPECTING WOMEN.

YOU MAY GRAB US BUT YOU CAN’T TOUCH US.

LISTEN TO WOMEN

Christian Century Clergy Attire Blog Post: PeaceBang Review

Oh, Christ. I mean Jesus Christ. As in, the actual Jesus Christ.
Jesus, could you please join me on stage here for a moment while we talk about the problem with this “I’m discovering my clergy identity and am so happy I can wear cool sweaters and not suits” article at The Christian Century?

It’s here.

Jesus and I are going to stand up here and just look at at our audience of ministers for awhile. Jesus is looking at his watch, because he has way more important things to do than to hang around a conversation about clergy image but I asked him to be here for moral support.

Jesus, I am really, really tired of people invoking You when they talk about how they make their decisions about how to dress themselves OVER TWO THOUSAND YEARS AFTER you walked among us in bodily form. Could you please hold my hand? You don’t have to say anything.

Jesus, you’re wearing a tunic and beat up sandals. You have never taken a shower in your life. You have never owned deodorant or had a professional haircut. You do not shave. You have never owned a tissue. Can you please explain to your people that they should STOP looking to you for guidance on attire? Like, can you PLEASE tell them that all your spiritual teachings are SPIRITUAL and that they should stop pretending we live in anything even remotely resembling the world you lived in?

You’re not going to say anything? You’re just going to stand there patiently in your tunic and let me say it?

Fine, then, I will. Yes, go get some coffee. It’s over there against the wall. No, I don’t want any, thank you. Don’t trip on the mic wires.

Katherine Willis Pershey starts her essay by describing her first years in ministry, when she wore an ugly, unflattering black suit and frumpy clothing that didn’t feel like her.
Yes, many of us can relate.
I can certainly relate!
It takes time to grow into our clergy identities and to develop a look that works for the multi-faceted work that we do.

However, my frustration with this article — and the many almost exactly like it — is that it stops at “Wow, I’m not someone who looks good in traditional suits” and concludes with what is actually a lazy analysis of how we should dress : namely, to express ourselves.
Jesus, can you please hit that buzzer? WRONG!
Dressing professionally for clergy isn’t merely a matter of individual comfort and preference and what makes us “feel like a million bucks.” Our responsibility as those who represent the Church and the ministry is dual: to our work first and to ourselves a very close second.

This means that we have to try harder and go deeper. First, where are we spending our time on any given day, and what do we need to communicate non-verbally while we’re there?
“I feel great” is not enough. “I am creative and interesting and fun” is fine to communicate if FIRST you have met your obligation to represent the church and the ministry appropriately.

Priorities, people. We have a fascist on the verge of becoming president of the United States. We have a man in the running for the highest office in the land who brags about committing sexual assault and getting away with it because of his celebrity. We have a potential Groper In Chief ascending to power — even if he is not elected, this cat is out of the bag — who is a proudly white supremacist, xenophobic aspirational dictator. He calls women pigs and commits wage theft against workers and brags about evading taxes and is generally contemptible, and PEOPLE LOVE HIM.

Some of them are in your congregations.

So seriously, you’re going to get dressed in the morning with no higher goal than to look like a cool, creative person?

No. Not acceptable. Find a suit that suits you. How dare any of us put our comfort before the necessity of looking like people whose perspective and moral authority matter in this nation?

Oh, and by the way? The guy who owns Anthropologie is a fundamentalist Christian who gives lots of money to causes that restrict our freedoms as women. Yea, their clothes are really cool, but he’s using our desire to look like a beautiful Bohemian soul to fund rightwing initiatives and policies that hurt people. You could say that most companies exploit humans in some way, but Anthropologie is so heavily marketed to liberal chicks, I like to inform them where their hard-earned money is going when they purchase those gorgeous peasant blouses and tough-sexy cowgirl prairie skirts.

Not owning a suit is nothing to brag about. What is says is that one willfully rejects the idea that she will be called upon to make a serious statement in the halls of power or anywhere where important people gather and do their business. It is irresponsible and self-marginalizing.

And we wonder why people smile indulgently at members of the clergy, shake our hands, use our titles with more respect for our former, rather than current, status in society, and promptly ignore our recommendations or admonitions.

Jesus, I’ve changed my mind. I’d like a cup of coffee after all. But could you turn it into wine?
Actually, could you turn it into bourbon?

Comment Of The Day: Wearing Clericals Does Not Equate Dressing Professionally

Someone who would Rather Not Say who they are commented thusly in response to the Polo Shirts post:

We had to wear red polos. A little better than lime green but not much. This is sad thing, though. For a lot of these folks, polo shirts IS dressing up. People don’t dress up for church conferences anymore. And you get made fun of if you wear a collar.

Dear Rather Not Say,

It’s time for a revolution, then.
If you get made fun of for wearing a collar, for wearing a dress, for wearing a suit, for wearing a shirt that needs to be ironed then something is very wrong with the Church’s self-understanding.

It simply GALLS PeaceBang that a group of well-meaning, supposedly faithful Christians will gather at a conference during which one of the inevitable subjects will be “How Do We Grow” or “How To Stay Relevant In These Times” and not realize that part of why we seem irrelevant is that we look we’re doing nothing more important in the world than mowing the lawn.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: lay people can wear whatever they want to any aspect of church life. If they are ushering or participating in the service, it is important that they spruce up as well as they can, but not everyone has the means to do so. This is a very different matter from not wanting to do this, or embracing an ethos of extreme informality under the mistaken impression that this makes the church more “accessible.” No, it does not. It makes the church seem like the people there don’t take seriously what it is, does, and stands for in the world.

Clergy, however, are leaders! Leaders do not remain quiet or go home resigned when someone — lay or ordained — laughs at them for wearing a collar or in some other way indicating that they find the occasion important. Clergy must signal in every possible way that they take seriously what the Church is, does, and stands for.

But let’s be clear: simply wearing clericals does not signal anything beyond, “Hi, I’m a priest,” and if the rest of the clergyperson’s attire and grooming are sloppy, the collar does not redeem that. In fact, if you’re not going to look professionally put together, the collar can be off-putting and confusing: “Who is that guy with the fungus toes and stained Tshirt ambling around in a priest’s collar? Is that really the priest? Yuck!” Or, “Why is that woman in the frumpy sundress wearing a priest’s collar? That is such a weird outfit, it just looks dumb.”

Yes, people judge that way. I know I do, and I think “If that clergyperson can’t even dress themselves appropriately for a social occasion at their church, I question their judgment on many things.” Because I judge, and I make no apologies for it. We all need to know what people are really thinking and stop relying on hundreds of years of societal status and respect to carry us on into the future. Because if you ain’t noticed yet, kids, that societal status is on the wane. If you want to communicate relevance, wrinkled chinos and fungus toe sandals isn’t the way to go.

People of the cloth, we need to get our conference looks together. We need to get our festival looks together. We need to get our “accessible and informal” look together. We should be as thoughtful about those outfits as we are about weddings and funerals.

If anyone laughs at you for being overdressed, tell them that you don’t think the steady decline of interest in churches in America is a laughing matter. Then just stand there and smile at them. After some uncomfortable silence, ask them if they think the work of the church is important. Ask them if the presence of the Church is important. When they respond yes, tell them that you agree, and that you are committed to looking like it is.