Last month, I posted a piece called Are high heels immodest? (read here) in which I concluded, among
other things, that sometimes they are. My ‘sometimes’ was predicated on
context, individual style and build, and the heart of the wearer.
But that was really more of a side issue in the article; the
main points were structured around ‘reasons Christian women who ought to know
better dress immodestly’. These reasons included ignorance, insecurity, vanity,
lack of love/ruthlessness, eyes full of the world, and yes, confusion about
context.
This piece garnered a lot of positive and constructive responses.
It also garnered a few that were somewhat less than constructive.*
All of these together have inspired this follow-up post,
which is addressed mainly to the same Christian women addressed in the last one. The subjects,
however, are different this time:
4 reasons why
unbelieving women dress immodestly
1. They are too busy
talking about feminism
Feminism as a social idea has affected the way we all
think, even (and maybe especially) in the church. Main point for a feminist:
men and women should be treated equally. They should get equal rights, equal
respect, have equal pay, and stand on level ground when it comes to the sexual
relationship.
What this translates into: men and women should be treated the same. Even when logic, nature, and
every practical consideration screams men
and women aren’t the same.
Good things about feminism: they don’t like when women are
abused and men get away with it. They don’t like when women’s bodies are sold
for profit (either in prostitution or in advertising) and they don’t like when
women get blamed for things that men do. It rightly infuriates them, for
instance, that there are women even now being circumcised right out of the
ability to feel sexual pleasure—so that they won’t be unfaithful (this is done in parts of sub-Saharan and Northeast Africa, as well as, to a lesser extent, parts of Asia and the Middle East).
Feminists hate this kind of thing (and so, incidentally, do
Christians; so, incidentally, does God, more than us and the feminists put
together).
But here are other things they hate. They hate when anybody
suggests that there are fundamental differences between men and women. They
hate when anybody suggests that maybe there are fewer female CEOs because there
are fewer women who want to be CEOs. They despise the idea that maybe there is
a real sense in which it is healthy for one man to be married to one woman, and
for that woman to intentionally and courageously follow the lead of that man.
They really, really hate the idea that maybe men are
actually lookers by nature and women are beautiful by nature, and this is the
reason (once it’s been twisted out of its good and natural purpose) why women
keep selling themselves and men keep buying.
And they have a clear understanding that men are at fault
for turning themselves into consumers of women. But they get themselves tied up
in logical knots when they conclude that, therefore, women should try to make
themselves emotionally and spiritually free to use men in the same way.
Also, in the context of modesty, they conclude that women
should be free to go around in anything (or nothing) because it’s the man’s fault if that’s a problem for
him.
2. They don’t
understand the Fall
It’s natural for the women of the World (in the Biblical
sense of the word nature) to believe
that men and women are at war. According to the flesh, that’s exactly what men and
women are at. It’s NATURAL, in fact, for men and women to be locked in a vice
grip of impasse.
Remember the curse handed down to Eve. Not only is she given
this awful (and so unfair!) task of painfully bearing children, which the man
may or may not even help raise, but she is given this doozy of a curse: “Your
desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
So her desire will be for her husband—the way a spider
desires to truss up and devour her mate. But he will rule over her—the way a
heavy handed Iranian husband controls and beats his wife.
Is this good? No. It’s sin. But we can’t deny the fact that
it is so. Women nag men and long for them and obsess over them, and men control
and abuse women. What’s special is not when you find women and men who are behaving
this way; what’s really special is when you find men and women who aren’t.
And an unbelieving woman doesn’t just think there is a
battle of the sexes going on; she KNOWS it. She sees it and feels it. She’s
going to want to win.
So she’s going to use her body, if she can, and if that
happens to be her weapon of choice. She may eventually realize, on a practical
level, that this doesn’t actually give her an advantage. By this time, however,
she’s often already played herself right into the hands of the heavy-handed
man.
But she will never, by nature, turn her heart another way
and say “how can I live in such a way that I am NOT attempting to control men with
my body?”
It will never occur to her.
3. They see no
difference between Christian men and unconverted men
Yes, Christian men are made of dust, like every other man.
But we know of another reality, invisible, living in the chests of men of faith.
The Holy Spirit.
There is a difference between the men out there who are
Christians, and the men out there who aren’t. We have no reason to tempt any
man, but we should be much more concerned about the eyes of our Christian
brothers than we are about the Eyes of the World, et al.
Why?
Because Christian men are attempting to be holy, that’s why.
They have a fighting shot. As sanctified souls, they are capable of making a
covenant with their eyes. This is why we talk about ‘causing them to stumble’.
You have to be standing upright in order to stumble.
One Christian woman responded to my post with a story about her
experience in a city where a man harassed her when she was bundled up to her
neck in the dead of winter and 8 months pregnant. She raised an excellent
point.
This is why burqas are no more a
guard against lust than bikinis, depending on the man. (You could even say that
depending on the woman, burqas could be immodest: don’t you think there are
Middle Eastern women somewhere in the world right now who are flirting,
mincing, and attempting to ‘catch’ some dude... while dressed to the nines in
full coverup?)
4. They are concerned
with ‘what are my rights?’ instead of ‘how can I bless?’
This is another issue of the Spirit. A man with the Holy
Spirit has a weapon against the bent of his flesh towards abusing, using, and cowing to
women. He is capable of serving instead of wrecking, loving instead of using, and leading
instead of controlling.
A woman with the Holy Spirit can also do things that make no
sense in the flesh.
If you are imbued with the Holy Spirit, you will be
empowered to think in those terms, just as you will be empowered to excuse
yourself from the Gender War, and empowered to see the feminist issue from more
than one side.
A non-Christian woman responds to statements about dressing
modestly by saying “why do I have to be the one to change? It’s their sin!” It
makes sense that she would. This is how three year old children respond when
they’re told to share. “Why do I have to be the one? It’s my toy!” It would
take a superhuman effort for the average child to do something so unnatural as
to yield to unfairness.
Superhuman—or, in other words—Spirit inspired.
I mentioned the bikini in that last post, and perhaps I
shouldn’t have mentioned specific items of clothing at all—in a way, it may
have distracted from the major point being made. I don’t like them, no. But I
have no clear cut biblical warrant for saying that my one piece is more
justifiable than another woman’s bikini. What I can say is that we, as
Christian women, ought not to let ourselves off the hook easily.
We are responsible to be stewards of these wonderful curvy
bodies that God has seen fit to put us in. Responsible in a way that an unbelieving woman cannot even begin to understand.
Let’s take it seriously, and dress as we do all things—unto the
Lord. Remember, we seek to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
----------------------
Footnote:
*Examples—Constructive feedback: “let’s talk about the fact
that modesty practices are going to look different depending on culture and
context, and certain rules shouldn’t be applied to every woman, at every time,
in every place.”
Not so constructive: “Nude beaches in Europe are a good
illustration of how healthy nudity can be for people, if you don’t make a big
deal about it.... also, remember this— JESUS hung naked on the cross!”
I’m sorry, what? ‘Jesus hung naked on the cross’, as an
argument for why public nudity should be embraced? Are you familiar with the
historical practice of crucifixion? Surely, if you thought about this for even
a second you’d remember that people were
crucified naked because they were being shamed. Jesus did not hang naked in
order to liberate the nude beaches in the south of France.
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