'What clothes does Christianity wear?' - Weekly Reflection 20th October 2025

What clothes does Christianity wear?

On Sunday 12^th October Jane and I wandered into Rugby Town following our morning worship at St Oswald’s. The Town was buzzing with Diwali Celebrations. A large car park had numerous stalls and venders, there was music and dancing and costumes. It was very vibrant and very full on making a very clear statement about this Hindu Festival of Light.

Looking around at this vast array of activity I somewhat sarcastically said to Jane, “and we might sing a few carols at Christmass.”

Later I began to ponder on this coupled with some of the animosity and violence shown towards both the Jewish Community and the Muslim Community.

What is interesting is how easy people appear to be able to link what is happening in Gaza or what happened on October 7^th in Israel with everyone who embraces the faith of either Muslim or Jew.

A Jew sneezes in Israel and therefore all Jews everywhere have colds!

Further reflection led me to thinking what would a Christian Christmass Celebration look like.

Ponder on that for a moment and see what answer you might come up with.

Then consider this, would the Christian Christmass Celebration in Rugby look any different in China, or Mozambique, or Mexico, Russia or even America.

Christianity is chameleon like and has a unique ability to adapt to its surrounding culture.

Some few years CMS produced a resource called, ‘The Christ We Share’ * that included pictures of Jesus portrayed in many different cultural contexts.

Historically of course the Christian faith and a particular culture sometimes developed a symbiotic relationship. This was something that happened in the UK and  during the days of the British Empire we sought to export and plant both across the world.  

This ability to adapt, to blend and to merge is both a blessing but also bring a challenge.

Hinduism is very clearly present in the cultural expression of Diwali, it is there in the music, the clothes the food.  You can see easily that it is primarily from the Indian sub-continent.  You couldn’t mistake the dancers on this Sunday for Morris Men!

There is something very special and unique and beautiful about the Christian Faith that sets it above and beyond culture while being rooted and ground in culture, incarnate in the soil in which is it planted and takes root.

At St Oswald’s we have just begun a series look at the First Letter to the Corinthians. This morning, we explored chapters 1-4.  (However, we didn’t read all the chapters, but 1 Corinthians 1:5-18, 1:26-2:5)

This is a Church planted by Paul who stayed there before moving on to Ephesus. Despite Paul having planted and established a Christian community they had wandered away from the Faith as first delivered.   They had overly embraced the local culture and allowed that culture to infect and affect their life together as the People of God.  The very proud Greek tradition of the sophist and philosophers, the ‘pop idols’ of the day. Factions had arisen and began to gather around Christian ‘celebrities.’ It is possible to look behind the list of the celebrities noted in 1 Cor.112. (Although we shouldn’t deduce that these men looked, fostered or invited such adulation)

Apollos we know as Greek speaking and well-schooled.  

Acts 18:24 “Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures.”  Alexandria was a major centre of education and learning in Egypt. Being from there, Apollos had access to strong Jewish and Greek teachings, making him well-educated.

Cephas (Peter) could he have brought a certain traditional Jewish slant to those who sought to follow him.  And then Paul, what was the peculiarity he brought to the table?

And some saying, ‘I belong to Christ.’  That was probably a bit of ‘close down the conversation’ group, can you really top saying you follow Christ. However, reading this in context this group also seemed to have certain quarrels with others.

Paul takes them all to task and goes over once again the basics of the Gospel of Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews who look for signs and foolish to Greeks who seek wisdom. 1 Corinthians 1.23

What clothes does Christianity wear, what songs does it sing, what food does it eat?

Christianity wears a cross and a mantle of servanthood with a belt of humility.

Christianity sings out the Gospel of salvation, that in Jesus, the God of the universe, who called things into being, entered the world in the particularity of the human person we know as Jesus.

Christianity eats the bread of heaven, symbolised in the Eucharistic Feast.

How Christianity dresses, how it sings the Gospel and serves and even how it celebrates the Eucharistic Feast will vary across the world.

And currently the Church of England is struggling to ‘maintain the bond of peace in the spirit of unity’ (Ephesians 4.3-6).  Perhaps we would do well to heed the words of Richard Baxter (1615-1691). Puritan pastor Richard Baxter took an old Latin phrase and popularized it in his day, in English. It is simple, but profound: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

One further question to ponder on during this week. If you were to find yourself in a court accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? In other words, how do you wear your Christianity?

* https://youtu.be/BPOb-IM-UNY?si=3Am4-8a-1uJuacsw