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Tuesday, 11 August 2009

A woman's naked body isn't hard to come by these days. You don't have to actively seek one out in order to view one. I can walk through a shopping mall and be unexpectedly blasted with a larger than life poster of a sensuous woman in fancy underwear outside a La Senza store. Even if you purposely try to avoid such things by not watching TV or movies, restricting your internet websites, or surrounding yourself with respectable friends, you will still be ambushed with images or the real thing itself while doing every -day necessities or tasks like driving to work, checking out in a grocery line, reading a newspaper, or, shockingly enough, sitting in church! I'm serious. I am so sick and tired of seeing half-dressed women crawling around throughout my week, that the very LAST place I would EVER expect to see so much skin is Sunday morning...yet... it's happening.

In our search for a home church in Fort McMurray, we have encountered all types craziness. Differences in denominations, I can understand; what I cannot understand are the half dressed women with their breasts falling out of their shirts or at least prominently displayed in front of them, their bra straps over their shoulders as accessories, shorts no longer than their underwear, or this newfangled strapless shirt trend that makes the wearer look completely naked when she's sitting in a pew in front of me because the whole top half of her is indeed naked. I cannot fathom how this is acceptable dress ANY day of the week for a Christian let alone proper attire for Sunday service. Every woman has her own "standards" when it comes to how she is going to dress and what clothing items she will allow herself to wear, but I fear those standards are not being based on the Bible and what God would desire from us, rather, they are being generated by popular trends in relevance to what the world around us finds acceptable, or for the very reason they can justify it by saying, “it's hot outside”.

There is one church in particular that we have visited here in Fort McMurray where a skimpy standard of dress is not only practiced regularly in the weeks we attended, but is encouraged. On their website, under the "What To Expect" when attending a service section, they have a Q&A with the following words of advice:

"What should I wear?

We are a casual church and whatever attire is comfortable for you is welcome here."

That right there explains everything and has got to be one of the most dangerous positions to publicly state, because they can never hope to exercise church discipline in the matter or seek to teach wisdom in modesty and humility to their groups of women for as long as they continue allowing them to dress like this.

When Adam and Eve first sinned, they sensed they were naked and tried to hide and cover up. They were supposedly the only two people in the world at this point, and they were considered one flesh as man and wife. We are given proper contexts for being naked, because in marital love and intimacy, nudity does not denote shame, rather it rejoices in wholeness and the complete giving of the self to one another in absolute surrender. So what purpose would it serve for Adam and Eve to be convicted of nudity and have God clothe them, when being naked in front of your spouse is not a sin? We can see that right from the beginning, being naked was not an issue of just showing skin or certain body parts; it was an illustration written right into the creation account of God providing the covering and clothing that would turn our shame of sin into righteousness. Right from the beginning, God showed us a picture of him taking a man and woman who were naked, ie who had just sinned, and deemed their own efforts of putting on fig leaves as not good enough to solve the problem,so he gave them animal skins to cover themselves with. This is one of the most perfect examples of foreshadowing Christ's redemption and our inability to save ourselves.

Other examples of this theme constantly show up in the Bible. Ham saw Noah naked and his son was cursed for it (Genesis 9:21-25), Isaiah prophesied in his underwear for three years to demonstrate the shame of Egypt (Isaiah 20:2-4), God commanded a people group to remove their veils and bare their thighs while walking through the water in order to expose their wrongdoings (Isaiah 47:2-3), Jerusalem had sinned so greatly they became unclean and were compared to being naked in doing so (Lamentations 1:8), Israel's straying from God by turning to idols was constantly referred to as adultery and that they would be left naked and bare to expose their sins (Ezekiel 23:28-30), Ninevah was told by God he was against them and the metaphor he used to reveal their evil was to lift their skirts over their faces to expose their shame (Nahum 3:5), and so on.

God continues with this illustration and metaphor by using the concept of nakedness to reveal and expose shame, only to later provide the healing and remedy. God describes this in Ezekiel 16:8, where he compares the giving of his covenant with mankind akin to spreading the corner of his garment over them and covering their nakedness. This was his solemn oath when entering into a covenant with them; it's how they became his people. 2 Corinthians 5:1-4 has such powerful imagery that I am going to quote the whole thing: “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” Paul expresses this idea that when we long for our eternal home, for heavenly things, for that which the Lord wants to give us and requires from us, that by putting on spiritual goodness and living in this covenant of Christ, the Lord is further clothing us.

The way we dress should be a reflection on the state of our hearts, an image of who we are and who we want to be. As "people chosen by God, holy and dearly loved," we are told to, "clothe [ourselves] with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience (Colossians 3:12)" and, "with humility toward one another, because, 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble'(1 Peter 5:5)". I realize these passages aren't talking about literal clothing, but that's my whole point. Our bodies speak of such great mysteries and truths about who we are as humans and who God is as our provider and saviour that how we dress speaks more than just showing others around us confident skin or the latest trends or the temperature outside. If our hearts and minds are to be graced in these attributes of the Spirit, then why am I able to look around a Sunday morning church service and see women dressed to be proud of and confident in their bodies without a care in the world, and no one around them seems to think anything is wrong with it? When I was in youth group years ago, I would have been sent home had I showed up in little shorts and a tube top. Now they're allowed to lead worship wearing these numbers because it's typical summer wear. There is a direct correlation between the way we dress and the people we are. If we aren't dressing modestly and portraying an image of self respect, humility, patience, and self control, then I would question our hearts and the people we are striving to be. If we set ourselves to be clothed by God in spiritual realities, then it should naturally follow that our physical clothing will be in the same manner – not flashy or calling attention to ourselves, not revealing or exposing breasts or cleavage, thongs, bra straps, vast amounts of shoulders and backs, everything on the legs up to the hips in shorts, etc. These images of little to no clothing are associated with inward sinful behaviour, of turning from God and angering him in our wickedness. Instead, we need to be shouting to the world by our clothing that God is covering us, that he has redeemed us and taken us as his own! Will someone who walks by you have that come to mind? Probably not. But there is so much at play here spiritually, and we want to reflect that in a positive and holy manner.

What I find most surprising, is that last summer I heard the principal of a local public school do a recorded interview that played on many radio stations as a commercial once the weather started warming up. He was speaking to give all students and parents reminders that spaghetti strap tank tops were not appropriate academic attire to wear to school, that that type of clothing should be reserved for the beach, and that it isn't conducive to a learning environment. He went on about how the public schools in the area have dress codes and how he expects the students to have respect for themselves in their manner of dress. If a PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM can recognize this, why is it the CHURCH cannot? If specific clothing items aren't conducive to learning environments in schools, how much worse can it be when we try to learn and worship at church? I also wonder if the same women who wear these strapless shirts that practically show off their entire backs would do a double take if a man was sitting down the row in the service with his shirt off, showing his whole back to the congregation as well. It seems to me that would surely be an outrage, yet these women I see are showing backs, fronts, and midriffs like it's no big deal to anyone. I know there are many issues that aren't going to go away with just telling women to cover up. Deep rooted issues. But the fact of the matter is, if we truly desire to be like Christ and have his will become our own, we will represent ourselves accordingly. Our bodies are not a free for all, and we shouldn't be offering a viewing of them to just anyone, because the reality is that the body is sacred and intimate, and we should want to reserve this for someone who earns it, who will give and receive in love, who will join with us as one flesh for a marital covenant. Our bodies are the temple of God, and we should be adorning his temple with grace, not with easy access that says, “I will give myself to you, and you don't even have to know me in return.”

I will leave you with a quote from John Calvin-

“Where is our gratefulness toward God for our clothing if in the sumptuousness of our apparel we both admire ourselves and despise others, if with its elegance and glitter we prepare ourselves for shameless conduct?”