In this interview, Dennis Prager asks Matt Walsh whether God cares about what congregants wear to church. Walsh argues that, except for the truly poor, believers should dress respectfully for worship, just as they would for a wedding or banquet, because dressing up honors God. Prager expands the discussion to note that conservative Catholics, Protestants, and Jews share more common ground than their liberal counterparts, emphasizing shared belief in a higher purpose, objective morality, and a God to obey. The conversation then shifts to Walsh’s personal experience as a conservative Catholic dealing with Pope Francis, whom he feels dismissive of large families and traditional Catholic doctrine, leading to confusion and mixed messages from the Vatican. Both hosts praise the virtue of large families among religious groups and criticize the perceived obfuscation from church leadership. The interview concludes with a promotion of Walsh’s book, “Church of Cowards: A Wake‑Up Call to Complacent Christians,” positioning it as a challenge to Christians to stop being complacent.
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I don't know even if you'll agree with me, but I will tell you that on a few occasions in my broadcast career, I have raised the question of what you wear to church. And I have been surprised at how many devout and even conservative Christians have said God doesn't care what you wear to church, which I don't agree with at all, at all. I'm 100% in disagreement with it. What is your take?
Yeah, I agree with you. Uh, I think that, uh, now if you're going to tell me that you're very poor, you can't afford any other clothes, all you have is tattered rags, and that's all, then yes, go to church in your tattered rags. But that's not the case for almost any of us. We do have nicer formal attire. All you have to do is ask yourself, you know, if you're going to, uh, someone to honor someone's, uh, you know, the retirement or something at a banquet, or if you're going to a wedding, I mean, Everybody agrees that you dress up for that. Why do you do it? Out of respect for the person that you're there to honor. Well, if you dress up to respect a person and honor a person, then why wouldn't you dress up to honor God? It doesn't— that's just— the logic doesn't make any sense.
You know, that's exactly the argument that I give. Exactly. I just ask people, if you got a ticket to the Academy Awards, would you dress up better than you do going to church? What does that say? God doesn't care what you wear to church, but God does care what you wear to the Academy Awards. I, I just— or even worse, uh, God doesn't care, but people care. But so people care what you wear to the Academy Awards but not to church. There's just been a cheapening. But what I'm thinking when I'm listening to you is, I, I realized this so many years ago, that conservative Catholics, Protestants, and Jews have so much more in common than they have that separate them, just like liberal Catholics, liberal Protestants, and liberal Jews have so much more in common than what separates them. You agree with that?
Yeah, I do, I do. That's why I think that there— I see a little bit of this, this unity among conservative religious people in the culture And I think there's a lot of reason for it. Now, I guess sometimes people get squeamish about it because they don't want to act as though the theological differences are irrelevant. Of course they're not irrelevant, they're important. But we, as conservative religious people, what's our main unifying principle? Well, we believe that there's a greater meaning to life. There is a God who we submit ourselves to, who we are obedient to. There's an objective moral order to things, we don't just make it up as we go along. These are some really strong foundational things that we agree on, and that I think should bring us together at least to fight these cultural battles.
Yes, which is what we are. That's why you and I are allies. That's exactly right. I'm curious, how do you, as a Catholic, how do you deal with the Pope? The current Pope theologically and emotionally?
Well, emotionally, honestly, it is difficult as a conservative Catholic. One, because I think many conservative Catholics, we get the distinct impression that he's not big fans of us, and we get these snide comments from the Pope, even things like the comment he made a few years ago about Catholics who have a lot of kids, and you know, we don't have to be like rabbits having a lot of kids. Well, The thing is, that's— and I, you know, I've got 4 kids, I'm young, and so we're just starting out, but, uh, but that's, that, those are the kinds of comments we hear from everybody else in the culture. We don't want to hear from them.
I didn't know. I didn't know he said that. That is, that is mind-blowing to me.
Yeah. Yeah.
It is one of the great virtues of religious Jews, Catholics, Mormons, Protestants, that they have a lot of kids.
Exactly. And that's, and it makes us feel like You know, we have— one of the reasons we have a lot of kids is because we take the doctrines of Catholicism seriously and we believe them and we follow them. So what are you telling us as the Pope? Are you telling us we're silly, we're ridiculous for taking these things seriously? Should we not be? So it's— and that's, I guess, the main thing is just confusion. There's a lot of confusion we get from the Vatican now. Things are said and then they back away from it. We don't know exactly what we need in the culture. There's so much fog of confusion. What we need from our church leaders, religious leaders, is a light, you know, a lighthouse on the shore showing us which way to go. And, uh, but we get, we get the exact opposite. We get obvious obfuscation and we get just more, more fog and confusion.
You, uh, you have an important book here, Matt. Church of Cowards: A Wake-Up Call to Complacent Christians. Been great to talk to you. Good luck with the book.
