Izdaari said:
No dress up. My church is pretty casual. In the summer, I normally wear shorts, a tank top and sandals to church.
No, I don't know the history.
The clergy started wearing special clothes in the 4th century when Constantine wanted to elevate them above the laity. There's a long history of changes that led to today's clerical vestments, which now vary from church to church and denomination to denomination. But none of it is Biblical. Very late in the process, some people justified the practice by pointing back to the Jewish priest's vestments.
The laity wore everyday clothes until about the 19th century when a large middle-class emerged, and they wanted to differentiate themselves from the lower class by wearing better clothes. Many Methodist churches actually rejected the idea and refused to allow a "dressed-up" person into the service.
But as time passed, the practice of dressing up for the occasion became acceptable, and eventually became expected in some churches, even though the origin was to show off your economic status. These days, many, if not most churches allow people to attend without dressing up. But the clergy still has its pagan outfits and vestments.
