Dog Collars

Maggi Dawn has an interesting discussion going about whether clergy should wear clerical attire in public. This is my response, just (belatedly) posted:

Well, here come some untidy musings from a Methodist minister who was once described as 'not so much low church, more like subterranean'. Perhaps we've treated clergy attire wrongly as a univalent sign when really it's a multivalent (maybe even ambivalent) symbol. To one, it is the helpful symbol of a uniform, and someone wanting an opportunity to talk about spiritual matters approaches (I resisted saying 'collars') someone in a clerical shirt. To another, the association with uniform is as unhelpful as the association with power, as often in pomo culture (notwithstanding pomo desires for mystery).

I've found that a dog collar opens certain doors, but maybe less so than it used to when I began in ministry thirteen years ago. On the other hand, I remember visiting a young couple who had lost their toddler to a brain tumour. The undertaker had contacted me, asking to conduct the funeral. When I arrived, I said, 'I'm sorry I'm not in my dog collar tonight: my clerical shirts are in the wash.' At the end of the evening they told me they were relieved I had come dressed like them. They were afraid of what it would mean to meet 'the priest'. So maybe that was a bit of accidental incarnation.

While I see that wearing the attire does make certain people feel they can approach us, I wonder what that also says about other 'non-ordained' Christians in the same arena. Is their faith invisible to their hurting friends? Is it all too visible but judgmental? Or has the institutional church disempowered them because they aren't 'Revs'?