There are, as it turns out, lots of things I don't understand, but something is nagging at me right now. Turn to any of the current TV sitcoms, movies, whatever, and you'll find out that the main goal of every man on the planet is to have sex with girls. Now, of course, this is a product of an exaggerated media bias toward sexual immorality, but, still, who doesn't know that, at least with young males, between hormones and culture they are heavily pushed in that direction? Certainly most young men know it. And older men who were once young men know it. Mothers ought to know it. It isn't a state secret or anything. It seems rather clear and unambiguous.
So why is it that so many Christian young girls are dressed to attract males to lust? I'm not talking about the non-Christians. They will do what they will do without guidance. But it seems as if Christians, especially in a Christian home, shouldn't be doing this. It isn't kind. It isn't loving. It isn't conducive to relationships not centered on sex. It doesn't highlight their modesty and discretion (1 Tim 2:9), their good works and godliness (1 Tim 2:10).
Now, it may be because their examples are often dressing the same. Certainly their cultural examples are, but clothing that accentuates the sexual to the exclusion of the character is not uncommon in Christian homes on Christian wives and mothers or even in church. Just as in politics where character no longer counts, it seems as if Christians don't think it counts among believers, either.
Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica,
Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. (1 Thess 4:1-7)The object was "how you ought to walk." The overall goal was "sanctification". And Paul explains that first in this way: "that you abstain from sexual immorality." To fail to "possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion" was called defrauding. When we encourage "lustful passion", whether in ourselves or in others, it is fraud.
It isn't that the Scriptures are unclear. And in the text the warning is "The Lord is the avenger in all these things." It isn't a small thing. And yet, here we are, in a world where the worst kept secret is male hormones and general lust. Here we are where Christian girls ignore the biblical injunctions to modesty and character and parents apparently don't see it or don't care. So why is this the case? I just don't understand.
Sorry. End of rant.
4 comments:
I've been told that it is impossible to buy clothing which is modest. Of course that is balderdash -- you just have to look harder.
And I've been told that they don't want to stand out as "squares" or "dorks," etc, as if standing one's ground for modesty should be shameful.
I've been told that everyone wears that stuff so it doesn't matter. And, yes, my response is usually about everyone jumping off a cliff.
I don't really understand it either, except that Christian girls who do dress immodestly haven't had proper guidance from their parents, or even proper teaching in their Sunday School classes, let alone messages about modesty from the pulpit.
Let's see if I can generalize the responses you've had. "They don't make modest clothes." "Don't want to be different." "Everyone is doing it." I'm baffled. This kind of thinking says, "I don't care what God says. We need to be like everyone else." Or, in the oxymoronic words of Peter, "No, Lord."
I'm becoming more and more painfully aware of the serious lack of teaching of the Word in American Christianity.
Two things, perhaps a bit off topic:
1. This question of dress leads to the consequences for dressing in a particular manner. Some would have us believe that a woman can dress in as erotic a manner possible yet insist that men treat her as if her manner shouldn't invite unwanted attention of an erotic bent. It's truly a "you shall reap what you sow" situation that is not respected.
2. I recently listed at least a dozen TV shows of various kinds that I have enjoyed over recent years. Each one contained regular or semi-regular pro-LGBT characters. Each of the shows are really high quality in terms of writing, but not a one of them was enhanced in any way by the unnecessary inclusion of these characters. They were, at best, distractions. I feel this way about hetero sex scenes in TV and movies. Never...ever...have I seen one that made the presentation great or would have made the movie worse by its absence. That is to say, they are all gratuitous (especially on cable where it seems the attitude is "since we can, we must" with regard to sexual content).
In each of these two points we know that it impacts cultural perceptions on sexual behavior.
Something I was taught when I was young. "Life is choices and consequences." Today's women (and today's gay rights advocates who, by one study I read, have homosexual characters in 80% of current shows) don't understand that their choice of dress (for instance) does have consequences that can't be denied by simply ignoring them.
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