Deviance Project I have been attending my church for my entire life. I was raised in this church and was married in this church. Although I only attend occasionally now, my parents are still faithful members who attend every week without fail, despite their age, my mother is seventy-five and my dad is eighty-five. To say this is a conservative congregation is an understatement, and so when I showed up one Sunday morning for Sunday school and church wearing jeans and a casual shirt, it became obvious that I was demonstrating a deviant behavior.

This is not only a conservative group of people, but an older group as well, the majority of the members being fifty years and older. There are very few young adults thus children are almost non-existent. There are no screaming or crying noises in this church. If there are, someone will very politely instruct the parents on the virtues of the "crying room" at the back of the church, in which parents can sit with their screaming child and still watch the church activities through a glass window. When Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs," he apparently was not talking about crying children disrupting a Sunday morning church service, and everyone in this church knows it (Luke 18:16).

Yes, to walk into this church is very similar to walking into a local restaurant during senior dinner discount hour. All one sees is a sea of gray hair. This is a congregation that still dresses in their "Sunday best." Women always wear "nice" dresses or pant suits, with matching shoes and bags. Some of the women still wear hats, and...

The men are always in dark suits, however a few will be daring and occasionally wear slacks and a sports jacket. Thus, any variance from this dress code is an unspoken taboo.
Those who show up dressed in anything but "Sunday best" are seen in several ways. Some of the more staunch members seem to exude nothing but disdain, and will try very hard not to find themselves in a position where they will actually have to come face-to-face and be forced to shake hands with the deviant. And a few will even try to avoid eye contact. Others are polite, but with an air of indifference, much like one has when going through a receiving line of people you do not know and will never see again. Still others look puzzled and bewildered, as if some terrible mistake has occurred and they cannot figure out how or why. Then there are those who all but shake their heads at the nerve of anyone coming to the Lord's house dressed in common street clothes. There are a couple of people, who are known to be the black sheep of their families, usually due to a divorce or some other personal scandal, who truly seem silently amused, and even a bit envious that they themselves would never have the nerve to go against the "old school" dress code.

Walking into Sunday school class dressed in jeans and a casual shirt did elicit an array of reactions. There was a lot of throat clearing, and quite a few "ahem" sounds. There were also many averted looks. Sara Keller would not look me directly at me, however I caught her several times trying to catch a quick glance here and there throughout the class. Most of the people who were near my age did not seem to…