The men look like everybody else

Were you wondering about Kim Davis’s fashion choices and religious affiliation? Sojourners provides some background.

Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Ky., clerk jailed for five days for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, identifies as an Apostolic Christian and attends Solid Rock Apostolic Church in Morehead, Ky.

What’s an Apostolic Christian?

Pentecostalism is a Christian movement that emphasizes a personal experience of God, including the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. The movement grew out of the 1906 Azusa Street Revival in California and takes its name from Pentecost, when early Christians first received the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as the ability to heal and prophesy.

Apostolic Pentecostals then split from the rest of the movement in 1916 over a disagreement about the nature of the Trinity.

Does any of that matter? No.

Q: OK, well, what’s with the long hair and skirts?

A: Apostolic Pentecostals are the strictest of all the Pentecostal groups, according to Synan. Like most Pentecostals, they do not use alcohol or tobacco. They generally don’t watch TV or movies either. Women who are Apostolic Pentecostals also wear long dresses, and they don’t cut their hair or wear makeup. It’s called “external holiness,” he said, and it’s meant to separate its followers from the rest of the world in the way they look and act — although, he noted, men who are Apostolic Pentecostals look “like everybody else.”

That’s familiar. The men can wear jeans and T shirts, but the women have to dress like some kind of parody Pioneer Lady Trudging Through The Plains. Jesus said so.

And the same-sex marriage thing?

The general superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church International, the largest and most influential Apostolic Pentecostal denomination, issued a statement earlier this year in response to the Supreme Court decision recognizing same-sex marriages. In his statement, he defines God’s plan for marriage as “the union of one man and one woman who make a lifelong commitment,” and encourages Christians to “defend the freedoms of speech, press, association, and religion.”

In other words, it’s Some Guy. It’s not baby Jesus, it’s not the bible, it’s Some Guy.

And because Some Guy issued a statement, a county clerk thinks she gets to ignore a Supreme Court ruling. It makes me tired.

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