When I first made my entrance into the teen years my family had moved from Salt Lake City, Utah to Modesto, California. No longer surrounded by Latter Day Saints I now was cradled in the Big Valley and the home of fruits and nuts… of which not all grew on trees. I’m not sure if it was the cultural shift or puberty prodding but I suddenly became aware of what I was wearing. I didn’t just throw things on… I carefully selected the coolest threads available to me. Since their cool factor was some where in the barely showing on the scale I begin to save what little funds I had available to me to purchase a pair of button down 501 Levi jeans and a pair Converse sneakers. I lucked out in time to find both items on sale for $4.00 each. It was a considerable fortune for me but I hooked and crooked it out until my threads finally made the mark on the cool meter! Fashion is, after all, what life is about –right?
Recently, I heard someone talking about True Religion jeans. My curiosity was peaked because of the name but I was flabbergasted (a term appropriate considering the cost of gas) when I heard they cost from $200 to $350 a pair! Who pays that kind of money for jeans! The answer is quite a few and not many of them have Beverly Hills addresses. The hook and crook stakes are much higher than my 1960’s ensemble but the idea is the same. People want to be cool! Their “true religion” is for everyone to be envious of their cool threads. Now, before you go shaking your head at such shallow adolescent validation first be informed that many of the purchases are by adults and that status buying crosses all age barriers. Trying to look cool is as old as the fig leaf craze of the Garden of Eden.
On the label for these overpriced, over-hyped, only the cool celebrities wear them jeans is a picture of the Buddha holding a guitar and making the thumbs up sign. You see these postmodern/post-Christian era symbols are not just about fashion or status, they reflect the “true religion” of our times… anything goes! The Buddha never wore jeans or played guitar but in this “new” religion the cool factor is not about reality but the reality we make! Can a Christian wear these jeans? The answer I think leads us to “pure religion” (James 1:27) –Why would one want to? Cool is not in threads, or golden calves, or outward appearance but rather in the heart (1 Peter 3:3, 4). True Religion is not about us but about our God! -DAN
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