Polyester Piety

Stop the presses! Call the pope! The atheists discovered the "polyester clause"!

Twice in the last few days I've watched internet videos from people seeking to discredit Christianity by pointing at polyester-wearing believers and crying "hypocrisy!" Let me see if I can put this to bed.

The issue here is with the Old Testament verse of Leviticus 19:19 which says, "Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material." The YouTubers I watched read that verse and surmised that any Christian who wore clothing made of mixed materials was a raging hypocrite and therefore disqualified to speak on any other religious topic.

We'll get to some basic Bible interpretation in a minute, but let's start with the most obvious problems with these tirades. Does anyone really think that Christians would hesitate to rid their closets of polyester if they believed the Bible forbade it? Really? So Christians are willing to forgo sex, drink, gambling, and rated R movies. They're willing to be shunned and made fun of. Some in other countries are even willing to be beaten or martyred, but DON'T ask them to part with those polyester pants! Trust me, if an honest reading of the Bible even remotely hinted that wearing polyester was sinful, there would be churches and rallies and prayer vigils and all manner of crusading against such fabric evils.

Clearly, there is more going on here. That brings me to my second point. It's insulting to presume that someone's first reading of this verse could unearth a centuries long scandal in the church. Assuming Christians aren't just flippantly disregarding the word of God (Christians aren't good at a lot of things, but we're world-class at taking God seriously.) Then such a view assumes one of two things.

1. Christians have known about the polyester clause for lo these many centuries and have covered it up via Da Vinci Code conspiracies in a rebellious, Templar-supervised, campaign to keep hold of our wide-collar polyester shirts. 
2. Christians don't read their Bibles and don't know how ridiculous some of its content is. Again, hardly believable. What do you think we do in those churches every week? Trust me: Christians read their Bibles. We've been doing it for a looooong time. Some of the greatest minds in the history of the world (I am not exaggerating here) have spent their lives in pursuit of studying the Christian scriptures. Literally millions of scholars have poured over Leviticus down through the ages. We are not surprised by polyester. 

So what's up with Leviticus 19:19? If you're interested enough to have read this far, you must really want to know, so here goes. In the Old Testament, God gave the nation of Israel a LOT of laws. Really, it's staggering. There were laws about what to eat, what to wear, when to work and rest, what to sacrifice, when to sacrifice it, how to sacrifice it, what to call the sacrifice, yadda, yadda. In many cases, the Bible is clear about the reasons for the laws. Some laws are given for health reasons and the Bible says as much. (Ancient Israelites may not have known about E. coli, but God did and he protected them from it in the cradle of civilization; much like parents protect their kids.) Some laws were given for ceremonial purposes, so that Israelites would always be reminded of the greatness or holiness or mercy of God. And some laws were given on moral basis: don't kill. Killing is bad. (As an aside, the laws given on moral basis reflect some character of God. Killing is bad - life if good - God is life. Lying is bad - truth-telling is good - God is truth. Hate is bad - love is good - God is love.)

Many Christians and Jews alike believe that many of the health-related laws were meant for a certain time in Israel's history either as protection during a time of primitive health care and food storage, or as a testimony to surrounding nations about Israel's special status.

Christians also believe that ceremonial laws no longer apply because of the sacrificial death of Jesus. We don't kill lambs at church to atone for our sins because Jesus, the Lamb of God, serves as the once-and-for-all sacrifice.

But both Christians and Jews agree that moral laws still apply because they appeal to unchanging moral realities.

Now, here comes the tricky part: which laws are purely ceremonial and which are seriously moral? The Bible isn't always clear. Some cases (like murder and polyester) are easy. Others are murky. That's why intelligent minds have argued these issues for centuries and will continue to do so.

And that's the most important lesson in all this: the Bible isn't a rule book or a series of math formulas. It's a story: an epic, cosmic, fantastic tale of beauty and loss and deception and pain and redemption and joy. It's not meant to be easy to obey or even understand. If God wanted to give us a rule book and make us sit down, eat our broccoli and behave, he could have. Instead, he wants to woo us. He wants us to see him for all his grandeur and goodness. He wants us to fall in love.

And you don't do that by niggling over polyester.