By Clem Oluwole
(First published on May 15, 2014).
I was going to keep an appointment at Apo, a location in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, penultimate Tuesday, when I ran into an arsenal of folks I had concluded were returning from a late morning disco jump. But on a closer look, I saw that some of them, especially the men, bore Bibles in their hands. That was when I figured out that the troops were returning from a church programme. You must be wondering why I jumped into conclusions that the brethren that I saw were disco crabs before I sighted their Bibles. I was relying on the Holy Writ which tells me that by their fruits we shall know them. I did not expect people who go by the name Christian to dress the way most of the ladies in their midst turned out that morning… and in heavy make-ups.
I have been a campaigner for the enforcement of dress codes for church-goers, especially the female members in the Pentecostal family. Only two ministries in the Pentecostal milieu are known to have dress codes for their members – Deeper Life Bible Church and Mountain of Fire and Miracles (MFM) where holiness is their mantra. At the MFM, female worshippers are not allowed into the church premises dressed like disco crabs. They are also encouraged to be good ambassadors of the church by their appearances anywhere they go.
But the same cannot be said of other members of the Pentecostal confraternity. I have fellowshipped in many Pentecostal churches. And I had cause to moralise on the way most female members, especially the unmarried ones, dress to the church. Let me recall an unforgettable experience I had in one of the churches in the mid-90s.
The arrangement on the elevated altar was such that the choir members sat facing the congregation. The dress code for the choir girls was white blouses set upon dark skirts that were designed to hover above the knees. For a very long time, I had noticed that some of the short-skirted girls were becoming too careless with the way they sat at the altar. And no one appeared to bother about the spectacle. Not even the pastor.
One Sunday morning, I could not rein in my disgust. So, I nudged a male member who sat next to me and asked whether he could also see the Technicolor cinema playing out at the altar. Some of the choir girls had lowered their guards while the pastor was delivering his long homily, revealing pants of many colours. It was as if some scales fell off the eyes of the member and he burst into laughter at the mention of Technicolor movie. The next thing I saw was that his false tooth flew out of his mouth and disappeared into the “onilegogoro” head gear of a female worshipper sitting two or so pews ahead of us.
After the service, he accosted the lady to inform her that her skyscraper headgear was harbouring his false tooth. He bared his teeth to show her the gap and explained the circumstances that led to its flight into her custody.
I raised the issue of the free cinema at the meeting of the men’s fellowship of which I was the president. My living witness also attended the meeting and he told them how I caused his false tooth to fly out of his mouth only to disappear into a member’s headgear. They all had a good laugh. I was then mandated along with two other exco members to take up the matter with the pastor. We did. He assured us that he was going to address the dress code issue or reposition the choir. But to our greatest shock, he merely advised the ladies to be more conscious of the way they sat at the altar because “the eyes of the president of the men’s fellowship and his ilk can no longer stay in one place.”
A couple of years later, I moved to another church where I had another encounter. One Sunday morning, we were already hymning praises to God when a young lady sauntered into the auditorium and squeezed her way to the pew in front of me. She wore a spaghetti blouse on top of tight-fitting jeans trousers. Her make-ups were extraordinary and the environment was charged with her heavy perfume. She soon keyed into the praise session, vibrating like someone monkeying with live wire. From the way her boobs and bumbum were pistoning, she could not be ignored. Some worshippers were capturing the unfolding drama. And from the way the Adam’s apple of one of them was rolling up and down, I was afraid he might lose his impulse control. But thank God; he never did!
I have never hidden my revulsion at worldly and seductive dressing of most Christian female worshippers. They are the crowd pullers that often cause their pastors to fall into adultery and fornication. Some pastors’ spouses are also guilty of worldliness. There is an urgent need for the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) to come up with dress codes for its affiliate churches. This is not the first time I am making the call. I have done that severally in the past. Most women and girls look forward to appearing for Sunday services not because they want to worship God but to see the latest in fashion and hairstyles with a view to replicating them in the coming Sunday.
Aside from the prosperity mentality that has held the Pentecostal family captive, the PFN should seek more relevance by waging a war on immoral dressing to the presence of God.
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