Faith, Fashion, and Fabric

When topics of religious preference and secularization are discussed, fashion metaphors predominate. Some observe that religious taste has become fashion -- changeable according to the season or to the whims of personal taste. Others argue that lack of fashion sense is the problem, especially given the drab social garb preferred by many Protestant and Catholic denominations. Yet others hear all this dithering about wardrobe and wryly simile as they contemplate the prospect of religion finally being undressed.

Fashion, of course, is a mark of identity. In a context where everything seems to be changing, there is an undeniable appeal to creating a wearable garment from the clear patterns of a singular religious identity. For example, Catholicism has placed great emphasis upon its tradition as a total and totalizing framework for bringing meaning to human existence: it is complete and seamless. During certain times in my life, I eagerly donned this identity, imagining it to be a kind of Catholic suit, ecclesiastically and doctrinally correct down to the cuff links and the garters holding up my socks.

But Catholic identity does not provide a ready-made pattern for the clothes we wear, however much some earnest Catholic tailors might wish it otherwise. Catholicism has often adapted to and used the surrounding culture, a self-evident and inevitable process that goes by high sounding theological term "chresis." Whether from "pagan" Europe to contemporary America, or from Africa to India, Catholicism has always been shaped by its engagement with culture, even as it has often sought to challenge and thus transform the cultures in which it took root. But the metaphor here is not fashion in the simplistic sense of Catholicism, or any other religious tradition, reflexively assuming a culturally specific costume. The issue is not fashion, but fabric.

The fear is now that our social fabric of faith is so deeply torn that nothing can be made from it. The temptation then is to hold on to the salvageable pieces in the hope of providing at least some sort of covering and semblance of dignity. But to do so would ignore how a single piece of fabric can be joined to others in new and unexpected ways. Thinking of religion as a kind of quilt or patchwork might seem to be a way of renouncing claims to truth and coherence through the use of a not too clever metaphor. Quilts and patchworks, of course, were not really fashion "choices," but responses to necessity. Yet from this necessity comes something not only beautiful but usable, as long as care is taken to arrange the seams so that all the discrete parts connect to form a larger whole. My concern is that, in so focusing on fashion, many us who call ourselves Christian have failed to see creative ways of stitching together the undeniably tattered fabric of contemporary American life.

By Mathew N. Schmalz  |  March 17, 2009; 12:23 PM ET
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