Never leave a good conundrum alone.

Randall recently posted this thread about someone he heard and was impressed by. My immediate reaction was "if he's so hot, why's he wearing a dog collar".

Erm, not the most tactful.

Sometimes I'm honest without fore-thought.

For me, the whole 'man of the cloth' thing is about pretence and control, rather than about righteousness or Godly living. I really don't feel happy about this area, and am instinctively suspicious of those that wear such things. Some of it is because I see this as part of the desire for men to control other men, part of it the desire for humans to replace God. I doubt many wearers feel this consciously, but I see this as all wrapped up in a tradition that was man's attempted usurpation of God in the church that dates back to the heresy of creating a clergy and a laity.

In new testament times this was the antithesis of those who lead and were faithful. Paul and Barnabus rushed into the crowds when pagan priests came to sacrifice to them. Their cry? "We are only men like yourselves". In a slightly different context, Paul calls Peter a hypocrite for refusing to be associated with 'ordinary' believers, instead holding back to appear somehow different. With some proper digging I believe I could find more scriptures to support this view without adjusting their original meaning or context.

While the dog collar may be accepted by society as the mark of someone who fits a particular religious pigeon hole, to me it's the mark of compromise with the world.