Lately I’ve seen a couple of mocking links to the Armor of Gd pajamas. Teresa Nielsen Hayden calls them daft, and it was the Cruel Site of the Day. And, yes, the site itself is poorly designed, and the pajamas are goofy-looking. But are they goofier-looking than a tallis and tefillin? And, you know, the March girls used to dress up as pilgrims and wade through the Slough of Despond. Were they daft?
In fact, there is a long and rather sweet tradition, particularly in American Protestantism, of exactly this sort of morality play dress-up. And I think it’s a pretty good way to teach the whole idea of allegory, particularly religious allegory. More than that, I think it’s not a bad way to teach Scripture and certain values.
We are, of course, talking about Ephesians 6:10ff. Paul (and yes, I have my problems with Paul, or Saul that was, but it’s clear that lots of Protestantism is Pauline, and surely that is their business) is saying that the primary struggle is not against flesh and blood but against wickedness in authority. That is, Paul does not want an army to fight with ordinary weapons. No, he says, don’t gird yourself with leather, but gird yourself with truth. Make your breastplate of righteousness. And for boots, the gospel of peace.
Now, as I say, I’m no Christian, and I have some problems with the whole (admittedly beautiful) passage, but even I would have to prefer my Perfect Non-Reader wear the breastplate of righteousness than GI Joe jammies. I mean, if we are teaching our children about (a) what the important struggles are in the world, and (2) how to fight those struggles, surely we of the left shouldn’t really be objecting when people go back to Ephesians. Yes, we need to keep in mind that there is Crusader imagery there, and that warlike Christians took Ephesians and made the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of the Lord out of steel. But the pajamas point out how wrong the Crusaders were in their interpretation of Paul. That lesson seems totally inescapable to me. Because the pajamas are made of cloth, and are only a visible sign of an invisible struggle.
Mostly, though, I want to point out that there is an instinct to mock this sort of thing, because this sort of thing is associated, at least in part, with some stuff that it is a really good idea to mock. At least. Paul has plenty to answer for. And I when we mock the good (or at least the harmless) along with the bad, we set up hostility, and legitimately lose the ear of those who might listen. So when Christians—of whatever stripe—choose to educate their children in ways that do no damage, that actually teach what their Scripture tells them to, that have a message that is on the whole positive for themselves and all of us, if it strikes you as goofy, just smile quietly to yourself and move along. Or, if such is your inclination, consider earlocks and fringes, and what constitutes true goofiness.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.
Are the Armor of God PJs flammable? Because there’s some serious smoke rising on that site’s home page.
I claim to speak for nobody else. I dislike the site because of the obnoxiousness of the following phrase on the home page: “At that moment, God gave me the idea how wonderful it would be if all children could have the opportunity to put on a pair of pajamas that symbolized the Armor of God for the same purpose…” I worry about people who credit God with giving them business ideas. And I particularly dislike the expressed desire that all children should be Christians. I don’t think that’s good or harmless — I think it ties into the core of what’s wrong with militant evangelism.
That said, I agree that these pajamas may mostly be used by parents who are trying to teach a positive message, and we should not mock that.
Must. not. mock.
I was recently staying with friends, and the husband came back from church wearing a Promise Keepers polo shirt. I’ve been trying to figure that out since then. Is the wedding band no longer enough? Is wearing the shirt a statement to oneself, to one’s friends or family, or to the world? Or is this the shirt that came to hand? I was too startled to ask, or even to sort out why it seemed so strange. His wife is ordained, their daughter reads the Bible every day, and the few square inches of embroidery struck me as over the top?
At least now I know what to send their daughter for her birthday.
I don’t think many parents really use their children’s pajamas as teaching moments. And I doubt many of the purchasers of these pajamas would go so far as to use them as exegetical exercises for Ephesians. I agree with Michael on the whole militant evangelism front; these feel to me as an outward expression of an idea of Christian might and right. I just think it’s too easy for kids to get the “fight for God” message explicitly (how could you not when the pajamas come with helmet and shield) and to miss the implicit complications of that message. Plus, they do look goofy.
Plus, they do look goofy.
Or “minus”, from the perspective of these kids’ parents a few years down the road.
“Do you remember when Dad made us wear those creepy +3 Pyjamas of Indoctrination?”
Until you called them +3 Pyjamas of Indoctrination, I was not particularly interested in seeing these things. Now that they’ve been put in their proper D&D perspective… I MUST KNOW!!