All Things Considered

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Religion & Ethics

Religious affairs programme, tackling thorny issues in a thought-provoking manner

Religious affairs programme, tackling the thornier issues of the day in a thought-provoking manner

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All Things Considered: Sunday Best

Sunday Best

BBC Radio Wales - All Things Considered, Sunday Best

Jonathan Thomas looks at the dress codes of clergy and congregations.

Jonathan Thomas looks at the complex dress codes of clergy and congregations past and present.

Until a few decades ago congregations would regularly wear their smartest outfits to church or chapel every Sunday: women might wear a frock and adorn their heads with exotic hats, and men might don a sober suit and tie, and slather their hair in fragrant hair tonic. Meanwhile, such clergy as used clerical dress - and that's by no means all - tended to restrict themselves to a restricted palette of black, white and maybe grey. Nowadays, attitudes are far more relaxed among congregations; and some clergy, particularly members of the Catholic and Anglo-Catholic traditions, rejoice in wearing some fascinating vestments, full of vibrant colour and full of symbolism. Jonathan Thomas examines the complex dress codes at work among congregations and clergy in the past, and gets a feel for attitudes towards clothing today - and even gets to try on a beautiful green chasuble!

Jonathan meets one of the premium makers of clerical vestments - Watts & Co - who have been involved in no fewer than five coronations (including the coronation of King Charles III (https://wattsandco.com/pages/royal-connection), and speaks to Bishop Mary Stallard, Bishop of Llandaff. Baptist Gethin Russell-Jones, recalls growing up under the  'Sunday Best' dress code, while Methodist minister Cathy Gale recalls the strict hat-wearing code at work when she ministered to congregations in the Caribbean. Jason Bray, vicar of St Giles church in Wrexham, explains what he wears for his very particular side-line as a 'deliverance minister'.

As Rev Dr Bray explains, the contemporary relaxed dress code among congregations reflects a movement away from 'social Christianity', where church is merely a place to be seen, to an environment in which people take their spirituality seriously.

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