A vestment issue. . .

Over the years I have chronicled some of the vestment ideas gone bad -- from crocheted stoles to every other oddity I have encountered.  There was once a guilty pleasure of a blog called Bad Vestments that has, sadly, now gone dormant.  Maybe I should revive it -- except that after a while it is sad and makes me angry.  While I am tempted to give the failed good intentions of a seamstress or knitter off easy, I am not so inclined to let off those who make vestments into political statements.  I hate that.  It is an affront to God and to the faith.

The image is from eBay and it offers a political statement on the stole of what should point to the Lord or at least the calling to the minister of the Lord who wears it to preach faithfully the Lord's Word.  Instead this is the political statement everyone recognizes for what it is.  It promotes the alphabet agenda of sexual desires and gender identities with its rainbow and its not quite Scriptural statement to side with love.  Apparently this gives new meaning to the passage that says love covers a multitude of sins.  In any case, the point here is not to echo anything from Scripture but to promote a political agenda under the guise of religion.  How sad!  Of all the things that could have been put on a stole from bad artistic design to bad taste, the use of a symbol designed to promote sexual liberation in conflict with the Biblical ethic and order is one of the worst you can do.  Now, to be fair, I am not a fan of camo fabric used for vestments either.  I do not even like those children of the world tapestry orphreys.  I would rather not have any symbols that point to us as people or our views and leave the sacred real estate of vestments to the Lord alone.  I think history is on my side.  So even if you think this is exactly where you stand politically, do us all and the Lord a favor and leave the subject of vestments to art which honors the Lord for His steadfast love revealed most especially upon the cross.  Yes, that is the problem.  A heart is not the cross.  The way the Lord sides with us in love is through the cross.