Superman rubs shoulders with Captain America, Goku has a friendly chat with Mega Man, and Deadpool is running around getting into all sorts of trouble. I’m not talking about a new movie coming out, I’m talking about an average comic convention and similar events. Over the years, these bastions of strange culture have grown more and more into cosplay showrooms, where everyone from amateurs to professionals comes to showcase their latest project and rub shoulders with like minded individuals. Today I will be doing something that may sound strange, I will be examining cosplay with a biblical perspective.
Cosplay
The first thing we need to do is make sure everyone knows at least the basics of what Cosplay is. Cosplay is like dress up for adults, or Halloween extended year round. I’m aware that kids can cosplay as well, but you get the idea I’m going for. Cosplayers dress in costumes designed after their favorite characters in television, anime, comic books, and any other medium they want to pull from. The idea sounds silly to many people, but there are thousands of people worldwide who cosplay, myself included. Some people have even managed to turn cosplay into a career. They get paid to dress up as characters from established properties, or as characters from a new property that is being launched. Some of cosplayers are supported solely by the fans. They sell photo prints and other merchandise to support themselves. They do a lot of community relations work.
A biblical perspective
You’re probably asking yourself what kind of biblical perspective I can bring to the world of cosplay. I’ll start off with a sample of bible verses pertaining to clothing and adornments. Some of these may sound silly, or make you angry. Please stay until the end of the presentation.
A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.
Deuteronomy 22:5 (NIV)
Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together. Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear.
Deuteronomy 22:11-12 (NIV)
On the day of the Lord’s sacrifice I will punish the officials and the king’s sons and all those clad in foreign clothes.
Zephaniah 1:8 (NIV)
I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.
1 Timothy 2: 9-10 (NIV)
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.
1 Peter 3: 3-4 (NIV)
The first few verses there are likely to set some people on edge. Why can’t women wear men’s clothing? What’s wrong with mixed fabrics? The first thing to realize is that the verses from Deuteronomy and Zephaniah are from the Old Testament law. They are Jewish cultural law (more info on that here), and they are designed to set the Jews apart from their neighbors.
Men and women are distinct, so their culture makes a point of admitting the difference. It does not put down women, or men, in doing so.
The type of cloth used gives an indication of where the garment came from. The entire section of verses leading up to the cloth one is a warning about mixing things, thereby lessening them. The tassels are a symbol of remembrance, as well as a distinct visual representation of their people.
The last one in the Old Testament Group (Zephaniah) expresses God’s anger over diluting the people of God to look like everyone else, morally as well as in dress. This is translated into the modern thought that Christians are to be in the world, but not of it.
Now for the New Testament ones, the verses in 1 Timothy and 1 Peter.
A little bit of historical perspective gives light to the Timothy verses. The Apostle Paul wrote this in such a way that described what would be known as temple prostitutes, women on the street. Just as the Old Testament verses warn about being distinct from those around you, these verses are a warning to Christians not to present themselves in such a way that they could be mistaken for something negative. In this specific case, he is telling women not to dress like prostitutes, because they should not be mistaken as such women.
The verses in 1 Peter address similar clothing styles, but liken it to a “beauty is on the inside” type of approach. Peter is warning that what is on the outside does not make us better. Dressing rich doesn’t help if you are poor in your soul.
Is Cosplay Biblical?
I would say that the answer is a solid yes, when done in the right way. Cosplay has many redeeming qualities. Cosplayers often make all or part of their costume. This teaches them the value of working for something they want. It also keeps skills that many people in modern society would let die. Many cosplayers learn to do leather work, or they learn to work with different types of metal. Though these skills may not always be useful in broader society, they teach patience, focus, caring, discipline, and many other useful traits.
Cosplay is healthy for the mind. Many cosplayers choose to try and act as if they were their chosen avatar for the day. They typically choose people with strengths they admire, learning to imitate those strengths themselves. People that would never strike up a conversation on their own may be a social butterfly if given the right outfit to mimic. This is similar to the biblical principles of putting on grace, or righteousness, or any of the other times the bible tells us to put on something good. The traits we are suppose to aspire to are likened to a garment. We put them on intentionally, wearing them so often that the traits become part of us.
Another aspect to consider is that in creating something, in this case a costume, we are exercising our godlikeness. We are made in God’s image. Part of that image is that God is a creator. People are born to create. Some choose art, others choose stories. Cosplay is creation, an exercise of that spirit within us that tells us to make things.
Of course not everything about cosplay is great. There are a lot of highly sexualized, or violent cosplays around. These are not the majority of the bunch though. Most people are focused on making something unique and interesting, not just something to show off skin. For those who do cosplay, and are worried about this sort of thing, there is a section of verses in 1 Corinthians 8. The verses deal specifically with eating meat sacrificed to idols, but they are working off broader principles.
Concerning Food Sacrificed to Idols
Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God.
So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.
Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
The verses point out that through knowledge of God, we may find that some things we thought were important, or wrong, are simply nothing at all. We realize that with the right knowledge, the right mind, that such things are not an issue because they have no real power on their own. The warning here comes in doing these things around those who have yet to come to this knowledge.
The idea here is that we may know something is not wrong (every culture has different ideas about how much and what skin can be shown), but we should be mindful of others who may not have the same level of understanding as we do. We should not be a stumbling block for others.
For more opinions, check out the other blogs I found while looking into this subject.
About the Author:
Stephen Mayo lives in Montana with his wife, daughter, corgi, and three cats.
You can keep in touch with him on Facebook and Twitter. Find more on his podcast A Side of Mayo. If you enjoyed reading this consider buying him a coffee or supporting him on Patreon.
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