Once in a while, you realise you've been missing something simple. As I was approached this week by a grinning man wearing a cap with the words "Jesus Loves You" emblazoned in big gold letters, I had such an epiphany. Surely in the search for a new evangelistic frontier, the average Christian has overlooked the humble hat? Thankfully, not everyone is in need of a moment of realisation like mine; as the manufacturers of these Christian-themed caps prove, many people are already a-head of the game. Sorry. Here are just ten of the many available, showcasing some of the categories Christian headgear tends to fall into (and these are just the baseball caps. Hillsong even have their own secret hat design; for another time)...
1. The standard message
The vanilla of the Christian cap world, there are plenty of straightforward designs carrying a simple message of encouragement. This one tells you to 'Trust Jesus', which must be especially helpful if you meet the wearer in a poorly-lit alleyway.
2. The reworked brand
As in the wild and wacky world of Christian t-shirts, this is a favourite approach: taking a familiar brand and subverting it into a pun-based Christian message. This example uses the Harley Davidson motorcycle logo, and brilliantly changes it to Heavenly Devotedson. You can see what they've done there. Probably not all that popular among bikers, apart from the ones on that Duck Dynasty programme.
3. Standard 3:16 cap
Show your support for Jesus and former WWE wrestler 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin at the same time with a cap simply bearing the numerical reference of the most famous verse in the Bible. I sometimes wonder whether people with zero biblical literacy see this and assume the person is wearing a hand-woven digital clock which is only correct once a day. They probably don't assume that.
4. Let hats be hats
There's quite a slew of pink-themed hats, including some quite extraordinary "princess" designs which talk about the wearer being a "daughter of the King". This one references Proverbs 31 (obvs) and declares that this person is a "woman of faith". Strangely I can't find a male equivalent, although if they made one, I'm sure it'd come splattered with blood and covered in wood shavings.
5. Too much going on
Sometimes a graphic designer just has too many good ideas. That's perhaps what happened in the case of this wonderfully-complex cap, which includes three bent crosses, a call to "unleash the faith, spread it around", the name of Jesus, a random mention of the word "eternity" AND half the design repeated again as a sort of shadow. Any of the above probably would have sufficed; I suppose this is great if you have a lot to say, but can only afford one hat.
6. 1992 album cover
I don't know exactly what a Praise Break is. It could be a band; it could be a kind of dance; it could be a sort of lower-calorie version of stopping for a KitKat. Whatever the answer, it definitely belongs in the early 90s according to this design and its rad choice of font.
7. Bling me your cap
What better way than to share your faith in the humble servant King who had no place to lay his head than by wearing this glorious jewel-encrusted number? Not only will you helpfully sanitise people's perceptions of the ancient instrument of torture and execution that was the cross, they might also think you're a famous rapper.
8. Slightly more effort needed
I mean, I'm sure it had been a long day and they just needed to get this one off to print. I'm not quite sure, however, that the messaging on this hat quite matches up with the design. Perhaps if they'd gone all the way and used Comic Sans it might have seemed deliberate; as it is, this one looks a little too first draft, especially when placed on a shelf next to the "unleash the faith, spread it around" Jesus / eternity / crosses / shadow hat.
9. Denominational niche
As you might imagine in a world of imperfect church unity, you can buy a hat that pledges your allegiance to virtually any tribe of Christianity. Most are along more territorial lines, like "Proud to be a Baptist", "Methodism: we've got at least 40 years left" and so on. This one is a bit more ambitious, changing the old "wake up and smell the coffee" line to refer to Eastern Orthodoxy and its use of swinging incense. You could be really clever and attach a tiny incense-swinging-thingy to the front, but that might impair visibility.
10. Er...
A fairly new innovation one would assume, there's a wide range of hats available bearing the arabic 'nazarene' symbol which has been popularised as Christians support their persecuted brethren around the world. For me though, this variant is a bit of a mis-step; it shows the same symbol cut out of the US flag. Whether it's suggesting American support for Christians overseas, or that the US church is facing persecution is unclear; either way it feels about as culturally sensitive as a box of Freedom Fries.
So there you have it. Christian hats are a bigger business than you ever imagined; I'll leave it to you to decide whether they're a brilliant way of sharing and declaring faith, or a fashion faux pas of the lowest order. As for me, I'm off to make me a visceral "man of faith" hat to wear on my next Praise Break.
Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. You can follow him on Twitter: @martinsaunders
