Yep, I´m getting old

The rebel look just doesn’t float for Paraguayan ACers. Tattoos in general and long hair along with pierced ears for guys specifically are complete taboo. Church discipline often-times requires that interior spiritual change be accompanied by very physical outward changes in appearance, too. In order to become a member, you’ve got to cut your hair like everyone else and stop being a wannabe radical by taking out your earrings. I suspect there are now at least two Christian youth in the church who have yet to be baptized and become members because they don’t want to bend their knees to the pastors’ authority. They like long hair and pony tails and tattoos and piercings.

Although I’ve never had any part of my body pierced (except for one time when a pair of pruning shears fell on my right foot and left me with a permanent stigmata-looking mark), I have indeed grown out my hair pretty long before and tattoos… well, I’ll leave that one up to your imagination. The point is, though, that the church here condemns many things that are accepted by me and what you might call more culturally progressive churches in North America. It seems as if the congregation in Ansuncion is about ten years behind the trends of my home church in Akron, Ohio, where today nearly everything modest in outward appearance is acceptable. There, about a decade ago, several folks very strongly condemned a young man – my middle school Bible study leader and mentor at the time- for the scandal of his shiny earring. Since that time ten years ago, though, a lot has changed. Today, for example, the church has a head pastor who used to have very long hair in his public ministry and also has a leader on the missionary board with a tattoo.

So, which church system is right? They represent two very different standards of outward appearance and conformity to church discipline: the one requires a somewhat strict, legal code of dress and style, while the other permits very many culturally-popular and what are sometimes-perceived as rebellious fashions.

Part of me (the wrong, sinful man) wants to condemn the Paraguayan Church leadership for its legalism and focus on outward appearance. How can the pastors be so backwards as to only be concerned with exterior looks? How can they let their youth, who are foregoing real commitment and real service to the body of Christ, slip right through their hands because of the rules some old fuddy-duddies have made up? In my own experience, after all, I’ve known believers who sometimes looked strange or dressed funny to the world, but were actually far-better suited in their hearts for service to God: people who, although they didn’t look like they had everything together on the outside with their well-worn sweat pants and dirty hoodies and crappy shoes, had everything together on the inside with divine creativity and passion for the truth and the warmth of God’s own love.

On the other hand, though, I have also known people who looked good on the outside to the church (even myself sometimes with a short haircut, plaid, khakis, and Bible in hand), but on the inside were all messed up by many hidden sins (even myself sometimes with lust and pride and selfishness). Our Savior knew the hypocrites when he saw them, too, saying that the Pharisees were like white-washed tombs: nice-looking and clean in appearance before men, but ultimately lost with hearts full of stagnant death before God. Hence, we can see for sure from both scripture and experience that outward appearance matters nothing to God.

The truth of the matter, though, is far more complex. We must also take into account why Paraguayan youth, or perhaps any youth, dress so strangely in the first place. Where are they coming from, and is it possible that they might be sinning in the way they present themselves?
The answer, I think, is a strong “yes.” This is not, though, because I believe there is something inherently wrong with masculine pony tales or shiny metal adornments or permament unnatural body markings or anything else in outward appearance. Christian scriptures, after all, can be interpreted in many ways to defend any particular viewpoint on style and dress; even, I might add, to defend progressive, culturally-edgy styles (for example, I’ve heard tattoo proponents say that Christian tattoos are all right because Jesus has one on his thigh when he returns in glory – Rev. 19:16). No, there certainly are no biblical Christian mandates or certainties regarding cultural norms of dress. Instead, I think outward appearance ultimately is a matter of the heart and can be an important reflection of inward spiritual realities. Why, we must ask ourselves and others, do people (or perhaps we ourselves) want to look different from the rest of society?

In the church community here, rebellious dress is one very big and important way for someone to say, “No, I will not submit myself to your authority, and I will not go by your rules. I shall dress and adorn myself as I please, no matter how goofy or perhaps socially defiant I may seem.” Outward appearance can be the most practical and perhaps simplest form of disobedience to parents and society. I think of the ease with which a youth can pierce his own ear in the back of the bus to surprise and offend his loved ones, or how quickly and easy (although certainly not painless) a trip to the tattoo parlor can be to receive some permanent form of society-forsaking self-expression. The outgrowths of these simple actions, though, when stemming from the roots of rebellion in the heart, are definitively wrong. When a culture of parents and pastors with authority given from God Himself tells us that we need to dress or appear more conservatively, then we had best better do it if we want to live good Christian lives of obedience. We must submit ourselves to the norms of culture and outward appearance when those into whose care we’ve been entrusted require it. We must give ourselves wholly over to God and forsake entirely our own rebellion and independence, even if it means looking like a Mormon or a Baptist or even a Paraguayan Apostolic.

So, which church and mode of outward appearance is ultimately right? I’m afraid I’ve got to conclude in a terrible post-modern way and say that both can be healthy and good systems to dress by. In the end it is all a matter of the heart: in a culture where looking like a rebel doesn’t buck church or parental authority, go for it—dress like James Dean or Fabio or even Ozzi Osbourne. On the other hand, where God-ordained systems of authority say that a Leave-it-to-Beaver look is more appropriate, then by all means, put on your brown corduroy pants, spin-top hat, and button-up shirt. Cut your hair and take out your earring, cover up your tattoos and put a smile on your face. You might feel and look goofy, but in the end you’ll learn humility and obedience and, finally, how to be more like Jesus, too.