Have you ever considered that our clothing and manners are expressions of love for God and our neighbors?

In this episode, we discuss why the broader culture has shifted toward casual, irreverent attire and how this shift correlates with a hyper-individualistic secular worldview.

Randy Booth, a longtime pastor known for his courageous preaching on cultural and theological issues, shares insights on modesty, the glorification of beauty, the dangers of both legalism and licentiousness, and practical ways we can embrace our position as God’s image-bearers.

Along with this episode, we encourage you to explore Pastor Booth’s article, Defacing Beauty.

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode.

Introduction

Marlin Detweiler:
Hello again and welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us a dear friend for decades a pastor from Texas, Randy Booth. Randy, welcome.

Randy Booth:
Thank you. Glad to be here.

Marlin Detweiler:
We're going to talk a little bit about an article that you posted on Facebook. I initially thought you had written it and reached out to you to discuss. It's called Feminine Priestliness, and it covers a broad category of things beyond the nature of women. But before we do that, tell us a little bit about yourself, your family, your education and your career.

Randy Booth:
Sure. I've been married coming up on 52 years in August and we have three children, 19 grandchildren, just had our first great grandchild about a month ago and another due in August. So we've got quite the carpool. And then I've been pastoring for 42 years. I've been in Nacogdoches, Texas at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church for 27 years and we love it here in East Texas.

I went to Oklahoma Baptist University right out of high school and then later got married young and then went back and finished degree in history and psychology at branch of Texas A&M and then done graduate studies. Didn't finish graduate school because I was already pastoring at a Reformed Baptist church. Later wrote a book on infant baptism which you can't do that and be a Reformed Baptist.

Marlin Detweiler:
But it depends what you're whether or not you're defending infant baptism or believer's baptism, doesn't it?

Randy Booth:
So that book is still in print after over 30 years. It’s called Children of the Promise. I've been involved with classical Christian schools and education, both homeschool as well as I was the chairman of the board of two classical schools, including one in Nacogdoches. That's a school. And then I've been on the board for New Saint Andrew's College. I'm currently on the board for Reformed Evangelical Seminary. So that's a flyover.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Wonderful. Well, I still remember when you were becoming a Pedo Baptist and writing that book. We were in conversation. If you'd asked me how long ago it was, I would not have guessed 30 years. A lot of things have happened.

Randy Booth:
I was at your house in Lancaster when you were starting Veritas, your first catalog. Your house was covered in stacks of books, I remember that.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, it's that would have been 1998. The business started in 96 but the first real catalog was 98. Yeah. Well, let's talk about this article, Feminine Priestliness. What had a very provocative picture of a woman dressed in three different ways and striding together? It's available on your Facebook page.

Randy Booth:
Yeah, it's also available on my Substack which is which is called the Feast of Booths.

Marlin Detweiler:
Okay. Very good. And I imagine just putting in such a title into Google search would help somebody find it. What was it that caused you to post that article? What were you after?

The Glorious Priestliness of Women

Randy Booth:
Well, first of all, I like Robert Capon as a quote from Robert Capon. If anybody if you haven't read him either. Fantastic writer, deceased now but Anglican priest wrote a lot of books about cooking but also theology. And he just witty and this was witty. So he basically just said, all women are priestly, they are glorious.

And so this was not a put down of women at all. But then he says how they dress can change that. So some are frumpy, he says, some are tomatoes. That was his clever term for the one who's flashy and perhaps trying to show off her body in a way that he says actually takes away from her priestliness.

The woman is like she doesn't care about it. And then there are real women, he says, who dress in a way. And he says, it doesn't matter whether you're poor or rich. That's not the factor. But it's a matter of presenting yourself and really adorning that priestliness and emphasizing the real value that's there and making it lovely. And so part of it is, I think our culture is has become so casual and so individualistic and self-oriented that we have forgotten that God made us in his image to reflect his glory and he made us in community. So we have obligations to other people, not just ourselves.

Loving Others Through Good Manners & Dress

Marlin Detweiler:
I was impressed with something in our involvements in schools and classical Christian education. We've hired some people to help with training in manners and in things that are sometimes called protocol. But the whole idea of what's appropriate in given circumstances and the thing that captured my imagination there, I think, relates here, and that is that good manners are not a way of showing that you belong in high society or want to aspire to high society or some other thing that sometimes gets attributed that way.

But good manners, or simply stated, intended and have been from their beginning as a way of making others feel comfortable in our presence which is an outgrowth or is an expression of how we love our neighbor.

Randy Booth:
That's right. We have an obligation to one another. We love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength so we should dress accordingly. We should dress in modest ways and appropriate ways. And we love God also by loving our neighbor which means I have obligations to them not just to myself. So. So, for example, if I'm just dressing from my comfort, that's fine around the house.

But when I go out and again, I want to draw a distinction between I'm not talking about dressing in a fancy way. There are formal occasions but even in informal occasions I still have obligations to not call attention to myself or to be in the face of someone or to just be a slob and had a head out to Walmart with I don't care what anybody thinks, that's a selfish and self-centered attitude.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, that's I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Randy Booth:
No, it just makes the world ugly.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. I saw a meme of a dog with a thought bubble saying that they were afraid that they were going to be left alone because mom was dressing up today, right? And wasn't dressed like her typical homeless self, knowing that she would be staying at home with that.

Randy Booth:
That's right. Well, I think go ahead.

Marlin Detweiler:
No, I was going to move into another question. Please continue.

Dressing To Suit Our Value as God’s Image Bearers

Randy Booth:
No, I was going to say I was going to go to another question, too. I think another area is to recognize the value, our own value as image bearers of God. God made us glorious. We are already glorious. We're broken because of sin and, in that sense, defaced. Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed.

Yeah. And so, with perfect bodies in the perfect place without sin, that was glorious. But after sin, God clothed Adam and Eve as a way of covering that shame. But that clothing is also then to adorn us and to make us more glorious, to take what is already glorious a woman, a man, and to adorn them in a way that we go, that's attractive, that's lovely, that's glorious.

And I've got a few illustrations of that, but I think that is what we're really hinting at or getting to here.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. We've got two areas on the table. One is the Nature of Women which comes out of that article specifically and how they dress how affects what they're communicating about themselves and maybe about their husbands and families as well. The other is what I would call the impact of the move over the last couple decades to a more casual dress code in the public square.

Yes. Let's address them separately. I don't I certainly don't mind the overlap, but tell me, let's talk a little bit about how you counsel, how you preach, how you write, how you speak to a woman and the image that she presents herself by how she dresses.

Randy Booth:
Well, I think that it's interesting. In The Song of Solomon there's a passage that talks about the brothers of Shulameth and they are preparing her. I've got it here, he says. We have a little sister and she has no breast. What shall we do for our sister in the day when she's spoken? For? If she is a wall we will build upon her battlement of silver and if she's a door we will enclose her with boards of cedar.

So in Hebrew poetry what they're saying is we're going to look at her assets and liabilities as our sister and we're going to help dress her. We're going to adorn her to accentuate her assets in a in a good way or to tamp down if she has too many assets. And I'm a little bit of humor here involved, but to say not everybody can wear the same thing and still be lovely.

And so the idea is again to accentuate beauty and to enhance areas where there might be deficits and to not call attention to that. And so again to look at the canvas that we've been given and to say, you know, I can't fix everything that's wrong with me, but I can enhance I can look better than I do than I might in other situations.

And again with women what we're trying to say is women are incredibly valuable. They're made in the image of God. They're glorious in and of themselves because they're women. The same same with men. I'm not distinguishing that. But we but to say we can now deface that potentially, you know, if you took a beautiful painting and then you take spray paint and spray on it, it's no longer a beautiful painting.

It's been defaced. You can make it gaudy too. You can go the other direction and cover it up with other things that distract from the actual beauty of the woman. And so this is a wisdom issue and we can talk later about the difference between legalism and licentiousness here. Those are kind of the twin ditches that you can fall into here. And that's not, you know not what I'm advocating for at all.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well, it's it's an interesting study to me because frankly I think the Christian church is afraid of the topic or has not connected it right to a biblical understanding of who we are.

Randy Booth:
Right? So, for example in preaching I've addressed this this way. Look, we accept you however you come. Somebody walks in the door. Whatever they are wearing we're going to love them and greet them. If they become a part of the community. As I say this is not just true of our dress. This is true of everything, right?

You get to come as you are. You don't get to stay as you are. You have to mature and grow. So for example in the area of dress, I preached a sermon when I moved here 27 years ago called give of your best to the master.

First let's dress for God. What is he giving you? You don't have to be fancy. You don't have to wear a tuxedo. You don't have to. You know if you. All you have is jeans and a t shirt. Wear a clean one and give the best that you can. And as you do better, you can do better.

You can do better. So that's one thing. And then loving God and loving our neighbor which are the two greatest commandments means that I also dress in light of how this might impact someone else. Is it distracting? Is it immodest? Is it tempting? Is it is it is it? What am I what am I saying and what is anybody saying when they put on clothes?

There's what they're saying is here's what I think of myself. Here's what I think of you. Here's what I think of God. Here's what I think of the occasion. Yeah. So if we walk into church dressed like it's a picnic as opposed to let's say is a is a worship service more like a picnic or a wedding? I think it's far more like a wedding.

Marlin Detweiler:
Absolutely.

Randy Booth:
We should know the difference. So there's a time and a place for a picnic and a time and a place for a wedding. And I should think about that and know the difference. So we can talk about in a minute some rule. How do we make those judgments? But one illustration I usually do this when I do wedding rehearsals just to point out this woman whoever she is, the bride is glorious all by herself.

But on her wedding day there's a reason she has attendance. There's a reason she has a wedding dress and those attendents. For some reason. It takes hours and hours, but they come together and they help her with her makeup and her hair and her dress and everything.

Marlin Detweiler:
To mention the fact that she took months to consider a dress and spent a fortune to get it.

Randy Booth:
That's right. So all the planning all the money all the time all the attendance for what? That moment when the back doors of the church opened and mom stands and everyone stands and they behold a glorified, a woman who's already glorious, but now she's glorified. To be glorified means to magnify, to call attention, to shift the focus, to say, look at her now, this is in a good way, in a lovely way, not in a distracting gaudy way; that's something else that's sending a different message.

But here is a glorified woman because of her dress, because of her appearance, because she's taken what she had and it's been enhanced in a way that would go, you know, maybe she's at her the most lovely she will ever be in her life. And all eyes are upon her. Why? Well, this now glorifies Christ because she and the church, she represents the church. She's the bride of Christ. And so there's a lot of theology going on there in that image.

Why Has Culture Become So Casual?

Marlin Detweiler:
But tell me what, from what you've observed, you and I are about the same age; you have watched culture. I'll say it this way digress. In terms of acceptable dress. Yes. Acceptable to go on an airplane. Acceptable to go to church. Acceptable to, frankly, go to a baseball game. Yes, it has changed in our lifetime. It has become far more casual, far more irreverent, if I may.

What do you suppose? What's your theory? What's your belief on why that happened?

Randy Booth:
I remember my dad going on this first airplane flight and wearing a sports coat, a tie and a hat, and we have a picture. And everybody getting on the plane was dressed to go somewhere. What I think is happening is we're so individualistic. We have no sense. We've lost our sense of community and communion.

I believe God, the Triune God, is Father, son and Holy Spirit is an eternal communion of love. And when he when the when God made man and woman, he made them to be one, to expand that communion of love. And then as they have children that expands that to fill the earth with this giant communion, the sense of connectedness both to God and to one another.

And I think once we abandon God in any sense that we owe him reverence and honor, and then we start this idea that, oh, well, again, what's the problem? I want to be God. I'll decide what I'm going to wear. Nobody's going to tell me what I can't wear. And if I wear something gaudy or immodest, then you better not judge me for it.

Either that you stay in your lane. I tell you what I want judge you and you don't judge me. We can all be God and do our own thing. So I do think it's still the desire to be autonomous and to be our own gods.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Well, let's. I do agree with that. And I it has been disturbing to me to see this move and I haven't been fully able to really grasp what's causing it. It's an interesting thing to think about. I think that's more thought that it's autonomy that it's I'm my own boss. I'm for myself, and you don't matter, which is clearly flying in the face of the second greatest commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Do you have thoughts on what we do to reverse the trend or the problem?

Randy Booth:
Well, I think things like this you know speaking out on it the church needs to speak out more on a lot of topics that it's either ironically been overly prudish and thinks we can't address such issues because somebody will get offended. I am really blessed to be in a place where maybe it's because of my age and time that you finally get.

I think Seinfeld said. Once there's an age where when you're backing up you just say, I'm old and I'm coming back. And I think that I feel that way. I'm blessed to be in a church where I can address any issue, sexuality all those things that the church has been silent on. I think out of fear not. We've lacked courage to say what the Word of God says and to call people to a higher standard because we're afraid we're going to run people off or offend them.

And I think Paul's admonition to Timothy is to be in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering as he preaches. The word is not a reference to Timothy's personal ups and downs. It's a reference to cultural ups and downs. So whether the culture is paying attention or unhappy with what you're saying our obligation is to speak the word at the very least where it needs to be spoken.

Not over here where everybody's where it doesn't bother anybody. So we're not trying to be deliberately offensive. But sometimes the word offends sometimes the word corrects and it addresses a problem and it says no.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. I was in conversation yesterday about a completely unrelated topic. So I'm not even going to mention the topic. But what was critical in the conversation was I asked the person who was in a position of authority and should have known the answer to this question, but we had a disagreement on something and I asked them why they thought something was the way that it was.

They couldn't answer the question. When I answered it for them they started to see why we had a difference and why what I was saying was worth considering. I think we have a problem here with understanding why the whole nature of casual dress, T-shirts, torn jeans in the category of some of the worst is simply following the world and a worldview that goes along with it.

That's far more significant. And we haven't asked the question, why do we do this? And why do we do the other? And you've started answering that here and thought thinking about it from a standpoint of how the pulpit addresses it. What other thoughts do you have on the category of why we got where we did?

Randy Booth:
Well, I think let's go the other side, pop culture. I've thought about this a good bit and I'm going to really date myself here. We could pick any number of pop singers. But I thought about this many years ago with Madonna. I believe that certain pop figures go out there and push the envelope both in terms of their dress, their language.

And what happens is initially the culture may not be willing to go all the way there but there's an admiration for those that are willing to play near the edge and to push the envelope away from God. He wrote a book called The Politics of Pornography. It's a great book. But he pointed out that the Marquis deSade where we get our term sadism, was a French philosopher of sort but a sadist.

That's where we get our term sadism. Basically his view was if God said to do it I'm against it and I find pleasure in being a bad boy, I find pleasure in doing the opposite of what I've been told to do because this is a way I can be God and express my autonomy. And even when I might not be willing to go that far, I can admire someone who is. And I think a lot of culture is that way. And so they're the preachers on the other side. They're the ones presenting a liturgy a liturgy if you will that says look at me I'm the model. And then of course there's irony in this. I remember in the 60s was the motto was do your own thing. And everybody who was doing their own thing looked just alike.

Marlin Detweiler:
Did it together. Yep.

Randy Booth:
Bob Dylan has a line in one of his songs. I don't know what's worth, doing your own thing or being cool. So I think it's a I think doing things together. So everybody's casual. I'm going to one up your casual. I'm going to be more casual than you. I'm going to wear my pajama pants and slippers to Walmart.

Yeah. Well I'm going to raise you one. And so in the effort to be individual we end up all looking alike because I think community because God made us that way is it's an inescapable concept. And the more we try to escape it the more it chases us down.

Marlin Detweiler:
I have a couple theories. Let me run them past you. You're you're willing to do some things that I suspect some pastors may not be comfortable doing yet, and that is preaching from the pulpit. It may be because they're not fully able to articulate what needs to be articulated. That's a matter of study. It may be that they need to have some steps in.

I really think that the greatest answer to any societal problem can be resolved mostly from good preaching. But I thought as I as I sit in churches that adopt or accept an extraordinary casualness, men wearing hats in worship, jeans and T-shirts, and a lack of what I would call respectful dress. Sometimes we call it business attire.

If you're going to a party and they tell you business attire you know what that is? And it's not jeans and T-shirts, right? But and for some reason we've gotten out of in many settings a mindset of how we dress matters which is the whole topic of what we're talking about. But it dawned on me that a simple solution.

And so I'm saying this to you to see if you if you agree or maybe you want to add to it or even object to it. But a simple solution is for first the pastor to dress appropriately. He's preaching then maybe encourage the leadership to do so. And it's my gut that if that happens it will be permeate.

It'll permeate the congregation that it will start to become the norm. Now there's a problem with it though and this is where you might have some things to add to. And that is people still need to know why. Not just what, but why.

Randy Booth:
All right. So when I first moved to Nacogdoches, we were a small mission church. 34 people counting children. We're about 280 now. But I along with some other pastors not not going to agree with this but it fits. Fits the model of what you're saying. I think there are different ways to do this. I think I think there is a range of acceptable appropriate dress that isn't identical.

The way I do it at my church might not be exactly the way you do it. And certainly if we went to other cultures, what would be considered.

Marlin Detweiler:
Is absolutely cultural context for what we're talking about. There is not a one-size-fits-all.

Dressing Appropriately For The Time and Place

Randy Booth:
So in the year 2000 when I came to Nacogdoches the trend in many even reformed but evangelical churches was casual for the pastor more and more to in some. In some cases I thought extreme. And that was when I self consciously along with some other pastors made the decision to start wearing a collar and to start wearing a robe for the worship service judges, where robes policemen wear uniforms, there's it's a way of really covering the man not trying to be fancy but to say again this is more like a wedding than it is a picnic.

And to and teach on that to say here's why we're doing what we're doing is to set to give of our best to the master to say this is special. This is set apart. This is not ordinary like you know out in the backyard. This is a special occasion. We have special furniture. We have special liturgy that we follow.

We have a form. And now formalism is can be a sin right? But not God loves form but he hates formalism. We don't want to worship the form. We don't want the form to substitute substance. But form matters. Form points us in a direction. We're coming. If we were going to you know come before some high dignitary we would dress up for that.

We're coming before God in worship. And so I agree as our deacons and elders are serving communion and leading, they dress up. It might look a little different in East Texas than it does where you are or somewhere else in the even in our country. But again, the idea is not to make this a litmus test for everybody in every way.

Give people room to grow. And I watch families come in and I watch them little by little move in the direction you're talking about because they saw it. So I would say to other people look around you pay attention to what's going on if you're the only one dressed that way. And on the other hand we have the discussion recently about people more commonly wearing hats in church.

And so we actually are about to I was just tasked at our last session meeting. That's our group of elders to add a line at the bottom of our bulletin about no hats in worship. Just as a reminder. I'm in Texas we have a lot of cowboy hats. And if you if you go out if you go out in the foyer now generally not wearing those insides for baseball caps but on top of a bookshelf we have the whole row of cowboy hats that have been taken off and set up there when they came into the building.

Marlin Detweiler:
That's great. That's great. Well, there are cultural differences. You've pointed out East Texas, I can tell you that Miami would be different than Lancaster which would be different than New York which would be different than Chicago which would be different than Omaha which are different than Los Angeles. But the fact of the matter is you've really nailed it by saying the idea of thinking that how we dress is a way of being autonomous and saying I'm going to do whatever I please is not in keeping with biblical community in biblical worldview.

Randy Booth:
That's right. I would like to say something about knowing the different. Like what? How the rules work. I don't want fashion police. I'm not as a pastor.

Marlin Detweiler:
And I don't want to be misinterpreted that way either. Thanks for bringing it up.

Randy Booth:
Yeah I'm not going to stand at the door with a ruler. And you know now I will say this. I have been overseeing a youth camp for years with 200 kids and I'll get sometimes some of the ladies in particular may have to address someone who's immodest or whatever. We get kids a couple hundred kids from all over.

Sure I say every teenage girl thinks she wears a small T-shirt, and not all of them do. So that's another story. And by the way what one person can wear another person might not be able to. So there's an individual dimension to this. So I would say this self-government is the goal always under God.

If we're Christians and we're under the lordship of Jesus the first the main place this happens is when you're getting dressed and looking in the mirror. I think masculine and feminine are still good categories to think about. I think modest not to not too short not too low not too tight. Those are good guidelines. And then my other one is when you look in the mirror and you have a doubt then don't bother.

Ask someone who loves you who will be honest with you and tell you whether this is fitting or not. And I'm using that in a double sense. Is it fitting? Does it fit and is it appropriate for what I'm about to do. And how about and how about a mom and a dad particularly a dad who loves his daughter. And I used to do this with my daughters.

We'd be like let's say at Walmart always call Walmart the public petri dish. So here we see all kinds of things. And sometimes I would see a young girl that was really immodest or addressed inappropriately. And I might say to my young girls they were little girls. And this I'm sure this will be controversial but that's that's okay. I would say to them her daddy doesn't love her.

Marlin Detweiler:
Wow.

Randy Booth:
And then as my little girls got a little older then they would make that comment sometimes not as quietly as I made it.

Her daddy doesn't love her. So one other thing that'll happen here is dads tells a daughter you know you know you can't wear that. You can't wear that. Yeah. And she breaks into tears. And sometimes mom comes along and you know dad's a fashion nitwit. And so you don't understand and all that. Well what he does understand is he understands a man's perspective in that situation.

His job is to guard his daughter. He can have a conversation. I'm not saying in any way he should be tyrannical about this. He should love his daughter love his wife. But he has a responsibility here. He shouldn't be relegated to the corner. Yeah. A friend made the observation. You know a lot of times universities will have a mother-daughter weekend.

And he said you know when that happens the mothers come up for the weekend and dress like the daughters. And he said it's a bunch of day-old donuts trying to look like their daughters. I and I'll just while I'm getting myself in trouble I heard a joke. It said three things that don't lie. Young children drunks and yoga pants.

Marlin Detweiler:
That's great. Well we we have reached a cultural low point as it relates to acceptable dress code. And when I say cultural low point I'm not meaning to say that it can't get worse. Because it can. But we have got to think biblically about everything. And that includes how we present ourselves publicly. Thank you. Randy.

Randy Booth:
You're welcome.

Marlin Detweiler:
Thank you. And folks thank you for joining us on this episode of Veritas Vox. We hope to see you next time.