Sermonette
notes, 6-9-01, Ann Arbor, MI, UCG Eric
Snow
Let’s
consider the broader implications of an utterly trivial incident. 15-year-old girl crosses street in front of
my stopped car at streetlight in Hamtramck.
Wears long but slitted dress in the side, get full view of legs as
crosses street in front of me. The
fashion does “work,” for her, since tall and then, since one can see the
appeal. Paris/New York elite dress
designers traditionally men, does catch a man’s attention since unsteady,
unpredictable what is seen when, unlike a miniskirt. One author, apparently a Jewish woman, named Wendy Shalit
recently wrote a book called “A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue.”
She mentioned in one presentation at Hillsdale College summarized in
their free magazine Imprimis commented about the same fashions: “We can observe it [natural modesty] on any
windy day when women wearing slit skirts hobble about comically to avoid
showing their legs—the very legs those fashionable skirts are designed to
reveal. Despite trying to keep up with
the fashions, these women have a natural instinct for modesty.”
Should
a Christian woman wear such a fashionable dress? So what does it mean to be modest? What are the implications of attempting to avoid showing it too
much, or showing off?
S.P.S. Christians should aspire to practicing the
virtue of modesty in their personal lives, instead of merely giving it
lip-service.
I
Tim. 2:9
The
hazards of specifics. This is what gets
people excited. It’s easy to say, “Yes,
Paul is right.” It’s quite another to
go against something that’s appealing in the world’s culture that looks good. Yet we naturally tend to go along with the
flow, and bring the world into the church.
We live in the world, and see what our neighbors, friends, and
co-workers do, and naturally tend to take it for granted. Worse yet, those accepting things from the
world who are Christians in the church could exert pressure on others in the
church to go along with what actually may be questionable or even clearly
prohibited by God’s word.
SDA
example, Joe Crews, “Reaping the Whirlwind.”
SDA’s see themselves as Laodicea, more humble approach the more
spiritually productive. Since we
traditionally saw ourselves as Philadelphia and said Laodicea went into the
tribulation, tended to point at someone else.
“At
one recent [c. 1985] camp meeting, a beautiful Christian mother shared her
concern for her teenage daughter who wandered the grounds dressed in very, very
tight jeans. The mother was a recent
convert and her husband was a communist who did not even believe in God. Yet he objected violently to his daughter’s
provocative attire. Our convert was
puzzled that the spiritual leaders of her new church did not seem to recognize
a violation of modesty which her atheist husband could see clearly. What a commentary on the blindness produced
by exposure to the world! And we become
more blind as we adjust to a toleration of that which we know to be
wrong.” (p. 30).
Lemmings
after fashion. The
Galbraith/Veblen/Croly liberal critique of fashion. Why must we so arbitrarily follow what these people in Paris and
New York decree?
Consider
now one specific I’m going to pounce on:
Are bikinis for swimwear really acceptable? Would Paul think a Christian woman could wear a miniskirt
“modestly and discreetly”? Such
questions need to be asked, even if the answers produced are uncomfortable
because they may cause us to admit we bought clothing we shouldn’t have, in
which we would look good in.
[Doug’s]
criticism of low-cut dresses at spring dance(s) years ago. Surprised they would be worn. Women can be assured men’s eyes will find
that crucial spot when such outfits are worn.
Matt.
5:27-28
Use
Daumier lithograph here. Age doesn’t matter,
or stop the male imagination, even when the woman is fully clothed. Universal characteristic.
Naturally,
the main duty here falls on the man to avert his eyes and change his
thoughts. Need to avoid being
conspicuous in doing so, might be thought self-righteous or a prude by the
woman if noticed. The Jew who wouldn’t
talk to a middle-aged woman in the church when seated on a flight next to each
other: overkill.
The
Muslims have a point, headscarves and loose clothing and veils and all, but an
overkill. Similar thing with Samuele
Bacchiocchi’s book “Christian Dress and Adornment,” prohibition on jewelry,
even wedding rings. (Anti-dancing,
theater-going, drinking, etc. tradition there). Should avoid going from one extreme to the other, one ditch
across the middle of the road to the other.
Use
examples at work: [Darlene vs. Lisa,
don’t say actual names!] dowdy, same 4 blouses, vs. sharp, professional, but
sometimes too revealing.
Some
women not aware necessarily of male attention:
use example of [Lauren], one girl whose boyfriend saw men looking at her
all the time in public settings, but she was oblivious. Most apparently not so naïve. Feminist “sex object” criticism largely
justified. Singles activities
characterized as “meat markets” in the church due to way single men would look
at single women.
Unfair
burden involved, but . . . My sister’s
criticism, disliked being judged by appearance as to her character or
availability when too casually dressed.
Problem of male vs. female ways of being attracted to one another, not
same, women have to keep in mind the differences.
Problem
of intentions: Men judge by
appearance. Know how prostitutes will
dress when plying their trade, know women will calculatingly dress in a way to
catch their attention when want it. QD
shift manager’s comment that women wanted men to look at her on woman in very
low cut outfit in store to me when I said I avoided trying to look, etc., while
waiting on her. Yet problem of often no intention involved with too-casual/revealing
clothing (my sister’s complaint), but still get “hit on” or judged or eyed
anyway when dress casually to (say) grab the newspaper outside or mail or go to
store nearby or while running, etc.
Men
not totally exempt, despite differences in female psychology: Diet Pepsi commercial, construction worker
outside lusted after by women in office.
*If
a woman attracts a man on this basis, can backfire since the physical put out
front, not the spiritual, intellectual, or emotional, as the means of
attraction. As Wendy Shalit commented,
many secular women are reembracing modesty because immodesty didn’t work: “In short, they weren’t successful [in]
finding the right men.”
*The
more precious something is, the more it needs to conceal itself, protect
itself. Why nudism not natural since
move to privacy key aspect of civilization, to not be stared at in public by
others in the “tribe.” When cover up
the external or superficial, the physical we all have in common, “we send a
message that what is most important are our singular hearts and minds. This separates us from the animals, and
always did, long before the Victorian era.”
Warning,
commandment to priests given, not obsolete today in its implications for us:
Ex.
20:26: “And you shall not go up by
steps to my altar, that your nakedness may not be exposed on it.”