No Christian T-Shirt = Denying Christ?

A reader writes:

I am in a bit of a quandary, and I hope you can spare a few minutes to give
me your thoughts, eithe r in your blog or privately.

As Christmas gift, I was given a shirt with an imprint of the figure of the
Divine Mercy Jesus

Something like this, but in bright yellow:

http://www.cafepress.com/ctso.38480255

I do not want to wear it because:

– my personality and clothing style does not suit these types of shirts
– I am honestly embarassed to wear blatantly religious clothes (although not
embarassed to be Catholic).
– I’m not really a devotee of the Divine Mercy

My concern is, is my embarassment and reluctance to wearing these clothes
tantamount to denying Christ?  Because, frankly speaking, one of the reasons
I do not want to wear it is because I am embarassed to appear "too
religious".  Am I acting like St. Peter when he denied Christ?

(I don’t think I will have qualms about wearing tasteful ones though, like
the "Decided" or "Family Circus" shirts that Catholic Answers sell).

Let’s star with that "denying Christ" means. When Scripture uses this phrase it means something specific: Issuing a denial that has Christ as its object. This could mean denying that Jesus is the Christ or it could mean denying that you are an adherent of the Christian faith.

But one thing it does not mean is simply keeping your mouth shut. In order to deny Christ you have to open your mouth (or use sign language or e-mail or some other form of interpersonal communication) to specifically issue a denial.

Now: If you put on a shirt that had a picture of Jesus with a big circle around him and a slash through the image then THAT could be a denial of Christ in the form of a T-shirt, but merely not wearing a religious T-shirt is not a denial of Christ.

If it were then the Church would be telling us that we are all obliged under pain of mortal sin to go out and buy religious T-shirts, because to deny Christ knowingly and deliberately is a mortal sin. (Scripture is real clear on that point.)

The Church is not telling us that. The Church has never told us that. Therefore, it isn’t. There’s just a difference between not witnessing for Christ on every possible occasion and DENYING Christ. The latter is a sin; the former is not.

We simply aren’t obliged to take every possible opportunity to witness. Witnessing is a good thing, but if you try to do it on every single occasion where it’s physically possible for you to do so then you’ll actually DAMAGE the cause of Christ because you’ll be ramming the Christian message down people’s throats. You’ll also end up taking time away from your family that you should be spending on them. You’ll fail to study for things you should study for. You’ll fail to do a whole bunch of things that you should do and end up looking like a nut to non-Christians (as well as fellow Christians) if you try to implement a witness-every-single-moment method.

And they’ll be RIGHT to regard you as a nut, because you’ll drive yourself nuts doing this.

God didn’t design humans to operate in that manner. He created us to live lives in which we attend to many different things (our families, our work, ourselves) in addition to witnessing to our faith. He didn’t just create us to be witnessing machines.

We are meant to live what Catholic theology terms in modo humano or "in a human manner." This means devoting adequate attention to all of our duties, including our duty (when it is appropriate) to witness to our faith.

There is thus, as Ecclesiastes might say, a time to witness and a time to refrain.

Over the centuries the Church has thought a good bit about when it is a time to refrain. The era of persecutions forced that on us. A conclusion that was reached was that there are situations in which the prudent thing to do is to refrain from witnessing–for one’s own sake (there are also situations where it is prudent to refrain from witnessing for the sake of the person you’re trying to help; e.g., if doing it at this moment would push him away from Christ instead of drawing him closer).

After all, Jesus himself told us:

When they  persecute you in one town, flee to the next (Matthew 10:23).

So there can be reasons not to witness in a particular set of circumstances.

This means that, unless you are in some REALLY strange circumstances (like the Roman emperor has declared that failure to wear a religious T-shirt will be construed as a denial of the Christian faith), failing to wear a religious T-shirt is NOT denying Christ.

If you don’t want to wear the T-shirt, you don’t have to. You do have to witness to your Christian faith in SOME circumstances in SOME way, when it’s appropriate and productive, but you don’t have to witness to your Christian faith in THIS way.

That being said, I don’t know that being embarrassed about wearing overtly religious clothes is a spiritually healthy impulse. If society were more hostile to Christianity than it is (e.g., if we were living in Stalinist Russia) then this would be understandable. But in much of the developed world we aren’t (yet) in that situation, and we have some duty to do what we can to keep Christianity visible in the public square. Wearing religious clothing is ONE WAY to do that (though not the only way).

Even though it would not be a sin to refrain from wearing this T-shirt or any other religious article of clothing, I’d still counsel you to take your feeling of embarrassment as an occasion of sanctification–something you can work on to grow in holiness by learning to be more comfortable testifying to your religious identity through what you wear.

That doesn’t mean I’m counselling you to wear this shirt. I haven’t seen it, and it may be hideous–or radically contrary to your personal style or conveying an impression that you are a devotee of a particular devotion that you aren’t a devotee or whatever.

But I would think about maybe wearing–on occasion, when it’s appropriate–something that would help you eat away at the feeling of embarrassment that you presently feel and so grow in holiness.