Being Buried in Your Religious Raiment
Of all the New Testament’s epistles, the Book of James most conspicuously extols the earmarks of true religion. The tenets of true religion set forth by the inspired pen of our Lord’s half-brother in this magnificent epistle are apparently unknown to Jeffery Lubell, co-founder and chief executive of True Religion Apparel. Lubell’s Los Angeles company manufactures premium jeans that sell for upward of $400. Catering to the wealthy, True Religion’s frayed, faded and ripped premium denim jeans are sold only in boutiques and high-end department stores, such as Saks Fifth Avenue.
Thanks to the donning of True Religion jeans by celebrities like Cameron Diaz and Jessica Simpson, Lubell’s company took off in 2005. Projected sales for the year are expected to exceed $136 million. Amy Robinson, a 26-year-old wearer of True Religion jeans, says that they are “the cool thing.” “It’s like an iPod,” Robinson asserts. “If you’re cool, you have a $200 pair of jeans.” Well, I guess I’m not cool or ever going to be.
According to Charles Lesser, True Religion’s chief financial officer, the real reason for the company’s success is vanity. While teens may purchase the jeans to be cool, most other customers purchase them for the inward seams that give the illusion of thinner legs and the low flap pockets “designed to make the bottom look perkier.” I don’t know about you, but as far as I’m concerned having a perkier looking bottom ain’t worth forking out $400. Besides, when it comes to the size of my caboose, they’d have to lower those flap pockets to my heels to pull it off.
Whether it is his marketing strategy designed to cater to the wealthy (James 2:1-9) or his product’s demand among the worldly (James 4:4), Lubell’s label flies in the face of James’ idea of true religion. To James, true religion is visiting “the fatherless and widows in their affliction,” not a shopping spree at Bloomingdale’s; it is keeping oneself “unspotted from the world,” not spotlighted by it because of your cool jeans and perky behind (James 1:27).
After suffering the judgment of God for substituting their own fire for the divine fire, the corpses of Nadab and Abihu were carried outside the camp and buried in their priestly garments (Leviticus 10:1-5). The moral of the story of Nadab and Abihu is simple: If your religion is in your clothes, it will be buried with you.
True religion ain’t found in your jeans. It is only found in your heart. It can’t be acquired from Saks. It can only be ignited by God!
Don Walton
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