Dr John Coulter: Bring back the dog collar and robes for all clergy?


In the Sixties and Seventies, it was virtually unthinkable for many Christian clerics to step into the pulpit without their clerical collars and robes.
However, for many clerics and lay preachers in 2025, the fashion dress code seems to be one of anything goes - even Hawaiian shirts in some cases during the summer!
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Hide AdPerhaps it’s time for the Christian Churches to take a leaf out of Speaker Poots’ dress code manual and spruce up how some clerics appear in the pulpit or the lectern.
Ironically, the words of Speaker Poots could also apply to everyone who attends worship in churches and halls.
He said: “While there is no exact dress code, it is entirely appropriate that Members should dress in away which demonstrates respect for the House and the job we are here to do on behalf of the people the Assembly represents. That should be smart and professional business attire.”
Thinking back to 2020, if there was one advantage that the Covid lockdown brought the Christian Churches, it was that people could dress casually in their homes whilst watching the online Sunday worship and daily Bible studies which many religious groups were posting from around the globe.
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Hide AdEven before the lockdown, which closed places of worships, many Christian churches had already adopted relaxed or casual dress codes for attending Sunday worship.
Some of the more fundamentalist and traditional congregations still adhered strictly to the dress codes that men must wear their ‘Sunday best suits’ and the women must have their heads covered with hats.
The challenge to the Christian Churches is whether they will relax their dress codes for attendance at church now that many fellowships are experiencing an online boom in attendances. Even for churches which live streamed their services prior to the lockdown, in some cases, they have seen their online attendances rocket.
As a snap-shot, one rural Pentecostal church which would have an average Sunday morning attendance of around 100 people in the pews enjoyed a Sunday online audience of around 3,000 viewers during lockdown.
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Hide AdWhile I certainly did not sit in my ‘Sunday best’ watching our online services, the relaxed dress code reminded me of the battles I personally have faced as a minister’s son over dress codes.
In the Sixties and Seventies, there really was a myth among some in Presbyterianism that the minister’s son should wear his ‘Sunday best’ at all times! But then I’m a rebel preacher’s kid so challenging the establishment has always been in my nature.
This rebellious streak in terms of the minister’s son’s dress code began in my primary school era. Each June was a traditional Presbyterian Children’s Day at church. The Sunday school students made up the choir that day. All the girls would wear white dresses; the lads would be dressed in dark trousers or shorts, white shirts and red ties.
After the morning service, there was also the traditional church photo of the Sunday school choir on the front steps of the building. But in my mind, if all us lads were dressed the same, how would folk recognise me?
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Hide AdI had a brainwave! Myself and my best chum were among the smallest that year in the 1960s, so I told him that rather than stand to attention for the photo, both of us would stand with legs crossed in the front row!
Seconds before the church photographer yelled ‘smile’ I crossed my legs, but my chum bottled it. Needless to say, I got a severe telling off for being the only person in the photo who was standing differently from the others!
Perhaps it was that incident which brought about the wrath of criticism about what the minister’s son should and should not wear, especially when in the House of God.
As I moved into secondary education in the early Seventies, it was a time when my chums started wearing colourful suits, ties and jackets. But there was no such colour for me - especially when the rumours began ‘I hope the minister’s son doesn’t appear dressed like that!’
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Hide AdI so deeply wanted to dress like my chums, but I realised if I did, the ‘tut-tut brigade’ would heap their verbal flak on me. There was only one solution - I would have to wear my grammar school uniform to church!
While my schoolboy nickname was Budgie Coulter, because of the schoolboy image at church, I also got the nickname ‘Plain John’.
During term time for about 18 months, I would wear my Ballymena Academy uniform seven days a week - Monday to Friday in school for lessons; on Saturdays representing the school at cross-country and athletics events, and on Sunday at all the church activities.
Then an elder’s wife took pity on me, noticing how I looked so plain in my school uniform while all my chums were in fancy suits. She bought me two fancy shirts and matching ties.
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Hide AdThe next Sunday, I turned up at church wearing one of the shirts and a colourful matching tie. It was like a red flag to a bull in terms of the ‘tut-tut brigade’.
They were having a field day criticising me until one of the ‘brigade’ made the mistake of mouthing off about me and my new dress code in front of this kind elder’s wife.
A real row erupted between the elder’s wife and one of the ‘tut-tut brigade’. But it had the desired effect. I could wear jackets and even French Flair trousers and the ‘tut-tut brigade’ couldn’t mutter a word because they didn’t know who had bought the outfit!
But I could use the symbols of dress code to emphasise that I was a rebel. I did at one Boys’ Brigade annual display. The BB being a Christian uniformed organisation, there was a specific dress code for church parades and annual company displays in the church hall.
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Hide Ad]It was a dark suit, white shirt and black tie along with the traditional BB regalia. In the early Seventies, I decided to make a point. Instead of the black tie, I quickly donned my red and blue Ballymena Academy school tie for the inspection parade by the guest inspecting officer.
It, too, had the desired effect! The guest officer stopped with me and said: “I see you’re not wearing a black tie!” Grinning back, my retort was: “That’s because I’m the minister’s son!” Speechless, the inspecting officer moved quickly on as there was nothing in the BB dress code about minister’s sons being exempt at that time from the black tie rule!
But such a rebellious protest was a ‘one-off’. In 1975, the ‘in’ piece of clothing for all my peers was a denim jacket known as a ‘Wrangler Jacket’. All my chums had one, except me. Finally, I persuaded my parents that I needed one of these Wrangler Jackets for BB camp that year at Southport.
That was okay for BB camp in England where the ‘tut-tut brigade’ could not see me, but I made the huge error of judgement that it would be okay for the minister’s son to continue wearing the Wrangler Jacket back home at the Saturday evening church youth club.
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Hide AdWhile my chums - mainly farmers’ sons - could wear such jackets to the church youth club, the reaction I got when I turned up at the same youth club sporting my Wrangler jacket took me completely by surprise.
For the ‘tut-tut brigade’, the sight of me in a Wrangler jacket sparked a level of criticism more akin to a situation if I’d tried to burn down dad’s pulpit in the main church building.
Yes, I wanted to be a rebel against the ‘tut-tut brigade’ and their Victorian image of the minister’s son, but it would come at a price. There were times, especially in my later teens, when I would simply not don the Wrangler Jacket just to get some peace and quiet.
That conformist mentality evaporated when I went to university to begin my journalist training. As I near 66, I am still a radical Presbyterian rebel. I will occasionally still wear a denim jacket to Sunday worship or the mid week Bible study, complete with sew-on patches and badges.
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Hide AdAt some mid-week Bible studies, I would wear a football top and jeans. Other chums would also wear their ‘footie’ tops, too. But one evening, I was singled out for criticism for wearing such football tops.
Perhaps I just need to learn the lesson that no matter what age I am, the ‘tut-tut brigade’ will always target me because I’m a minister’s son. But I wonder what Speaker Poots would say about the dress code of some clergy of 2025?
Dr John Coulter has been a journalist since 1978.