The Christian Abandonment of Feminine Modesty
Copyright, The Brooklyn Museum, used by permission.
The Abandonment of Feminine Modesty by the 20th Century Christian Church.
The Christian Abandonment of Feminine Modesty
Charles Church
There is a “Fairy Tale” written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen in the mid 1800’s, entitled: “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. The story line goes like this. There was a land where the emperor was inclined to finery of attire who was approached by two foreign tailors who claimed that they could weave a garment of such exquisite quality and brilliance that there was no comparison to it upon earth. Further they claimed that this clothing had the benefit that while the wise and intelligent would see its sumptuous quality, yet it would be invisible to the dunce and the dullard. And so for a large sum they were commissioned to produce an outfit which they labored upon for some time. And at last the time came to present the finished wonder, except that no one could see it. But the courtiers and gentry dare not appear as dunces and so praised it’s beauty profusely. Until a young child on the street asked, Why is the Emperor walking about naked? And then the gig was up.
Certainly many worthy applications of this tale can be made in regard to man’s weakness of character that gets carried headlong by his pusillanimous cowardice that worships repute, and makes itself the willing slave of cultural dictates and expectations, before it will suffer anything for the truth. But try this application on for size. The tailors are the fashion industry and they weave out of a special thread that only a lecher can’t see. The Emperor is our feminine class. The gentry are the men. And the child is the historical church. Ladies… you’re walking around 7/8ths naked. The men are telling you you’re clothed because they don’t want to be called a lecher, and … because they appreciate the opportunity to indulge. (You had no idea! Facepalm)
Those who tell you the truth and seek to spare themselves and culture of your indecency you deem indecent while you manifestly strain every nerve to evoke the very response you next condemn should you succeed, imagining that your hypocrisy and lewdness is hidden from public view. What you are pretending to deny is what is denied by none in any other circumstance. That the normal male response to your NUDITY is fixation of gaze and profusion of desire. But you had no idea. Except that you do. Nature has empowered you keenly to understand this. But you posture with your special thread that only a lecher can’t see.
But suppose that your husband is on his way home from work and you are preparing to go out to eat together when he calls you and tells you he has no house keys and you will have to let him in and he’ll be there in just a couple of minutes. So you hear a knock at the door and go fling it open wearing only your underclothing and…. it’s your neighbor not your husband. He’s got your UPS delivery that was dropped off at his house by mistake. And there you stand … wearing nothing but a brazier and panties. And of course you shriek, slam the door and turn autumn colors for embarrassment and shame for having so exposed yourself. And then the next day strut around on the beach in what is maybe half that. Because it’s made of special thread that only the impure can’t see. And you then imagine that this extreme folly, madness, lewdness, and hypocrisy is hidden. Nobody sees your nakedness either. Like the guy at the front door did. Or like you did when you hid for shame.
It will take honest men to end your fairy tale. And honest women. And while the modern church definitely has a contingent that is waking up to the disgrace of our “priesthood”, having made us “naked unto our shame among our enemies”, (Ex.32:25), yet your average person may have to consult those of other generations to find them. Recently the New York Times ran an article[1] mocking the “Christian Right” for a “Right Wing” calendar featuring a photo of a bikini-clad popular conservative woman for each month. While one wonders why they don’t rejoice when they win someone over to their principles like we do, yet their mockery should make that verse ring in our ears… “made them naked, unto their shame among their enemies.”
There is a history of fashion and peculiarities of attire in various cultures and ages, and it’s interesting to see its iterations through history. But modernity has made a fatal error in its interpretation of such evolutions of dress. The fatal error is, that it simply assumes that our present age is just one more evolution in that process, and that this accounts for its radical differences. But here is the error of it: NO ONE IN HUMAN HISTORY EVER EXPOSED THEMSELVES LIKE THIS BEFORE UNLESS THEY WERE SAVAGES. Certainly no Christianized people in the history of the world did so ever. Digest that, will you? You are entirely unique and extreme. Literally no one has ever thought like you, if you believe and practice as likely 95% of the professing Christian church.
Show us the place where women wore pants, please. Show us where they wore “pants” that looked like they were applied from a spray can. Or show the “shorts” from history that basically had no legs at all. Or “yoga pants”, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination but skin tone. Or swimwear that left a woman’s entire backside exposed, and the front loins almost so. You can certainly find clothing that pushed the limits of decency. But our age is absolutely without peer in it’s utter degeneracy and indecency of feminine attire, until we compare it to demonized savages. Which is basically what we’ve become in the “Christian” West.
Such changes have had architects that have had it in view but to pollute, corrupt, and demoralize the world for Satan, and attaining the nearly unqualified sanction and defense of the Church of Jesus, this perverted agenda has advanced nearly without opposition. Rather than be the salt that preserves, we’ve become the very pollution that purtifies, in as much as we not only leave the world without witness as a restraint upon their profligacy, but rather scandalize such as arise with any shred of a remonstrance to our embrace of indecency, howsoever timid and invertebrate such protests inevitably prove themselves to be.
Will you ask yourself, why? Why are we entirely unique, unless we’re comparing ourselves to primitives eating each other and the like? In a moment of weakness, and when hard pressed by a faithless and rebellious people, Aaron once erred in this way. Ex.32:25 says that “Aaron had made them (Israelites in the wilderness) naked unto their shame among their enemies”. He had allowed, if not led, the Israelites into this sin of public nudity. Thus whom God had clothed (Gen.3:21), a wayward ministry had “made naked”, to the shame of the people of God.
And such complicity in ministers remains a salient cause of such compromises today. The corruption of education, the ubiquitous reach of television and internet, and the generational nature of such influences upon culture, are all potent causes of this revolution. But the seminary-lobotomized minister is, perhaps even above such other influences, the most potent cause of all.
Before we consider such examples of impotent ministry, let us first consider some biblical principles that weigh in on this subject.
Firstly, consider that it will be in vain to expect that the bible will provide a list of the 7,472 articles of prohibited clothing, because as I’ve said in so many other places, the bible is not written to restrain the worldling, but to inform those who love God, and sincerely desire to walk in obedience and gratefulness for His delivering them from wrath, condemnation, and righteous cursing, having been made children of God by a purely underserved favor.
The point is similar to what we might expect concerning profane speech. The bible is not going to provide us with the 37,682 profane words, from every culture, and every age, and ever language in order to inform us what is agreeable to His will. Because no Christian needs that. We all know what profane speech is, and there is not a one of us who cannot readily think of what all such words would be. Profane professors of religion simply make a case for being profane. No one disagrees on what the words are. In a similar tone, the bible simply tells us that women are commanded to dress modestly. Likewise absolutely everyone knows exactly what that is, but lewd professors of religion simply make a case for being lewd, because its what pleases them, and that’s pretty much their god.
Thus the solution isn’t best addressed by articulating the 7,472 articles of clothing that must be forbidden, (though pratical application will at length be unavoidable) but by minding the manner in which God has dealt with it, and just saying “wear modest apparel”, kindly addressing the problem on an “as needed” basis, because we all know what immodesty is. Denial is hypocrisy. The 7,472 definitions do nothing but give credence to the idea that they’re not obvious. But they are. So obvious, that the entirety of human history has not deviated from basic feminine attire. That is, until the 1930’s when women started wearing britches in the decadent de-christianized West.
So when the strumpet-scholars within the church lift their mocking voice and say, “where does the bible ever say that yoga pants are sinful”, they are assuming a bible that would be as tall as the twin towers before it could contain the degrees, forms, and varieties of indecent attire of which man has proven himself capable, and that’s just not the bible we have. It gives no such enumeration. All the verses in the bible that condemn exceeding it’s revelation, in no way implies that every possible sin has a name between its covers. That, frankly, is idiotic.
And while such personalities call you a Pharisee or legalist for proscribing such overt indecency, they in fact are the one’s fulfilling that description in as much as they will by no means be restrained but by some form of code more like to come from the lawyers guild, than from the Holy Bible, and thus something that chains them to what they hate. Because such as love the law of God can plainly see all of morality in something as limited as the 10 commandments, despite its greater enumeration in other places, which is why the Westminster theologians listed perhaps hundreds of sins and duties implied in those few ten commandments. All the law and the prophets hang upon the two commands of loving God supremely, and one’s “neighbor” as one’s self, and that is but a summary of the ten.
And we see the example of the Lord Jesus here as well, reproving the blinded Pharisaical hypocrisy that wants to fight with the fact that feasting of the eyes upon a woman’s form entails the same violation as breaking the seventh commandment. The Pharisees of today who say, “Where does the bible forbid yoga pants”, have the same spirit as those who formerly supposed the seventh commandment didn’t forbid the lustful glance, because neither was that listed to chain them, and were this not by the Lord Jesus enumerated, doubtless todays Pharisees would be here repeating their folly with conscience.
Highly germane to this point is a citation from Thomas Scott, but speaking upon the subject of the stage. “Some say there is no express prohibition of plays in scripture. There is great wisdom in this absence of express prohibition of specific practices. Religion is uniform, one, and simple. The Church follows the Church from age to age. But vice is a Proteus.[2] If a few of its forms had been mentioned, it would have assumed others, and so have escaped rebuke.”[3] Just so with matters of dress. What are we expecting? That the church of the year 33 would give us a list of appropriate garments distinguishing genders and modesty? It assumes no such necessity, in not providing one. It is a lexical impossibility to provide what they’re requiring, which is precisely why such a false measure is appealed to by such modern libertines, as the bible manifestly does not attempt to name every sin, lest the Hermeneutical Hudini imagine he’s escaped biblical domain by requiring the bible to be what it isn’t and never was.
It is not humanly possible to provide such an infinite verbal exhaustion of human wickedness, nor is it necessary nor desirable for informing those seeking understanding, and intending obedience. Those whose only motive is to live as loosely as possible and who know only verbal chains are aliens to the people of God, and wholly diverse to the “soft ground” mentioned by Jesus in the parable of the sower.[4] They are not such as will be instructed or restrained by anything, and who are therefore outside the purview of those whom God is primarily providing the bible for. As it is, it will instruct the righteous and condemn the hypocrisy of those who pretended they couldn’t tell what it meant. And that entirely fulfills its purpose.
There is the nature of the bible, but also the nature of mankind to be reckoned with. Notice the gender specifics of the command in Mat. 5. “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Pay close attention to the gender. It does not say, “Whosever looketh upon a man to lust after him, hath committed adultery with him already in her heart. Why? Because women don’t commit that sin? Certainly not. But because it’s not the wildly dominant form of temptation they face. They face this, but many others. And playing to this power over men is a dominant one. Accordingly you see much in scripture about women being temptresses. Isaiah 3 is perhaps the chief example we would think of, but its all over proverbs, and many other places.[5]
The male response to feminine exposure is, by any estimate, extreme. As has been said, “It’s the next best thing to insanity”. The man who denies this is most probably a liar, or is perhaps experiencing medical issues. Women who pretend that they are unaware of this power are patent hypocrites. Nature has made them keenly aware of it, and their temptation is to play it, as they see they indeed possess extreme power, such that they can paralyze nearly any man within eyeshot should they thus indulge their vanity. And having no other end in view but the gratification of her vanity is the exact cause of the lapse. Rather than appropriately looking for a husband to actually give herself to fully for life, to raise a family with for the glory of God, she is getting a thrill by crippling all the unwatchful doting upon her immodesty.
And what shall we make of this uncovering? There is a subjective element, but an objective one as well. Subjectively such women are typically but indulging their vanity as described above. However, objectively a woman uncovering herself is an overt invitation to unlawful union. And if you just had a seizure, you are part of the brainwashed contingent. But should a woman undress in front of any man, not a single one would see this as anything but, not just an invitation, but an exceedingly bold invitation. So is this universal understanding somehow magically altered when a woman goes ninety percent there, but in public? Only in one respect. She’s making the invite, but only to feed her vanity and not usually with any intent of fulfilling it. It’s like dangling a piece of fried chicken before a starving man, and then snatching it away. What this means, then, is that the power a woman rightly possesses over their husband, they are going to afflict the world with, and this goodly power which is rightly wielded upon her husband, is then promiscuously placed in public, for no other end than the gratification of personal pride and vanity, but playing the part of a public corrupter. As one man put it, “A woman’s private beauty should be a secret garden; not a public park”.
Isaiah 57:8 reads as follows: “Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance: for thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; thou lovedst their bed where thou sawest it.” That one line… “Thou hast discovered thyself to another than me” is a charge of adultery. Yes, it will be replied, but this is a charge of having actually committed adultery, and not merely of being too revealing. Yes, that’s entirely true, reader. But under what form of behavior is that accusation made? By uncovering. Because that is an adulterous act and the sign of acceptance of it, and need not exist in the most extenuated form possible to participate in the character of that sin.
Women will be exceedingly engaged to deflect this charge, as it exposes a character they imagined was hidden. But it never was. It was just enjoyed. And further, we (men) are the one’s who’s utter corruption is being played. It’s not lost on us (hopefully) that we’re utterly corrupt, and that no one’s throwing stones about it, but simply making an appeal to bring honor to God, that we might both be all we ought, that we might not grieve God’s Spirit, or offend His presence and blessing among us. And right there is the whole point.
Now the natural question will here arise, If there really is no explicit standard of modesty of attire, but only generalities, does this not leave us in the dark as to present duty? Not so. Be a sincere Christian lady. You know what all this is about. Stop pretending you don’t. Don’t get offended with the implication. We’re just as bad or worse, just differently, and we’ll try to do better also! But it is entirely sufficient for you to be told to dress decently without provocation. Because this is what scripture tells you, and that is sufficient, and you know perfectly what that means, practically. If you’re being honest and sincere, you may get it wrong, but doubtless not too wrong. Church rulers should kindly and humbly seek to rectify troublesome excesses, and seek to teach publicly on the subject so as to create an enlightened social conscience on the matter.
Now, while it would be ridiculous to expect that men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit would provide for us the particulars of their culture for feminine modesty, being something that would change over the ages, and people groups, though not in principle but in external particulars, yet there certainly are some principles seen in scripture that can be of assistance in enlightening the conscience of the Lord’s people. Only the first example would constitute an imperative, but there are many principles that are helpful to consider.
First, and perhaps most shocking to the modern Christian, would be the fact that dresses are commanded as an article of women’s attire. ITim.2:9 commands “that women adorn themselves in modest apparel”. And yes, you may look in any lexicon you wish, or on blueletterbible.com, or wherever. The transliterated Greek words would be “Kosmios Katastole”. Katastole very plainly means nothing less than what we would call in our day a “dress”, and “kosmios” indicating a decent one, an orderly one, perhaps even signifying a decorative one.
John Gill: “that women adorn themselves in modest apparel”. The word rendered “apparel” signifies a long robe, which reaches down to the feet; and the word translated “modest” signifies that which is clean, neat, and decent, yea, beautiful and ornamental; and the sense of the apostle is, that he would not have them to come to public worship in rags, and in dirty and filthy garments, but that their bodies should be covered with clean and decent raiment. With shamefacedness and sobriety: these are the two general rules by which dress is to be regulated; it is right and proper, when it is consistent with chastity, when it is not immodest and impudent, and more like the attire of an harlot than of a woman professing godliness; and when it is moderate as well as modest, and suitable to a person’s age and station, and is not beyond the circumstances of life in which they are. There is no religion or irreligion in dress, provided pride and luxury are guarded against, and modesty and moderation preserved.”[6]
Thus the bible gives the church a command for women to be adorned in a dress. Yes, it really does say that. And the length of the dress is even indicated, not only by the etymology of the word, but by the witness of historical art, showing both ancient Hebrew women, so attired, as well as early Christians, but also by various places of scripture, such as Is.47:1-4 where it is said that women uncovering the leg was a cause of shame. Of course, in our day, you’ll be subjected to shame if you object.
Secondly, the bible indicates that long hair is obligatory in a woman. Whatever we think of it’s teaching on the matter of the head covering, ICor.11:1-16 plainly affirms that it is a shame for a man to have long hair, but a glory for a woman thus to present herself. Verses 14 & 15 read, “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.” This is not an appeal to mind cultural expectations, but to regard nature and thereby the God who ordered it. Similarly with other commands, if they are not possible they are moot. Should a man not be able to work, he is absolved of the normative command to do so. And should a woman not be able to keep her hair long, she is likewise relieved of any obligation. But the obligation here is plain enough for any willing to hear.
Thirdly, face painting, or as we call it in modern times “make-up”, while not explicitly forbidden by imperative, is yet universally associated with whoredom in the three places it’s mentioned. IIKi.9:30, Jer.4:30, & Eze.23:40. Perhaps an argument could be made that these were examples of excessive make up, or that distracting blemishes might be covered with lawfulness. But of course in our day any talk of it’s lawfulness at all is deemed arrant legalism, and be reckoned an offense, so universal is the practice among all women.
Fourthly, there are commands in the bible regarding attire, that are routinely ignored and dismissed, such as the command against cross-dressing, principles of not wearing the attire of an harlot, and many like it from Proverbs that speak of immoral women wearing provocative clothing. But here’s the issue: They don’t define those things for you. But… they are commands of God. What exactly is the “attire of an harlot”? What exactly is it for a man to “wear that which pertaineth unto a woman”, or visa versa? Or many other places where such commands are given, but left undefined? Are they not commands of God? Does He not expect obedience, calling disobedience an abomination in Deut.22:5? But we here revisit the issue of the nature of scripture. It’s not written for the crafty, the conniving, or the time-serving humanist who but uses religion for some selfish end, but for the sincere Christian, touched of God, and always sensing the great obligation for all He has done for us in delivering us from condemnation and making us “accepted in the beloved”. The bible manifestly does not provide every detail of such things, and the reason is two-fold. One, because it would radically alter the entire nature of the bible to turn it into a lexicon of sin, and two, because everyone already knows what “the attire of an harlot” is or what “a woman wearing that which pertaineth unto a man” is. The fact that there are many who revolt at it and wish to paint their indecency in biblical colors does not alter that.
But the question arises: Was this verse obligatory in 1920 when enemies of the faith endlessly pushed the agenda of women wearing pants into the final victory that we now experience? As will be frequently pointed out, such articles of clothing had never been worn by women before in any civilized country, except as underclothing. And taking it to the next step, if it was cross-dressing then, then the only grounds upon which it would not be now, would be the sanctification of rebellion as the true standard of Christianity. Is this our true standard, reader?
So when people give you the line that “that’s not in the bible”, remember that it very well may be their own presumption and ignorance that makes that determination, (as we have seen, and will see), but further, that a practice not being named in the bible only matters if the bible is a lexicon of every sin of which humanity is capable, and under ever name men might feel agreeable to signify it. Principles are to be applied and that biblical fact takes away nothing from its authority or obligatory character. As the Westminster Confession teaches, we may determine biblical duty not only by that which is “expressly set down in Scripture”, but also by that which “by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture”.[7] And this constitutes biblical obedience as much as when the bible says something extremely explicit. God does not give us arbitrary commands to be determined by His enemies for the standard of His people. He has something specific in mind in such commands, and accounts that we all know what is intended. We all know what “the attire of an harlot” is. And modern confusion about Deut.22:5 has a history and context that should not be confusing. And granting the kindly patience of our divine Redeemer, His severity will not be expected in such matters. But His infinite mercies should all the more oblige our sincere, transparent, and diligent consideration of such practices.
Fifthly, it is imperative above all other factors that men and women both attain and maintain a spiritual transparency that is candid not to color it’s own sinful actions with godly motives. Conniving at our own inward motives and thoughts is a pollution that will corrupt your walk with God. My lady reader, will you not kindly look at yourself when you are dressing and assess what you’re really thinking when you are putting on an outfit? Truly, to accent your beauty is no sin, but can be purely accommodated to God’s glory. But there is an art that knows full well that it is putting before men that which will enflame them, and this is fully known by all who do it, and never happens by mistake. A pure honesty alone will fix this entire thing, regardless of all the men in your world who will warrant whatever you put on. Their motives are as much subject to personal interest and dishonesty. But yours are known to yourself. Don’t deny them. Think about it. Look at them. And move forward in love to God for His patience and infinite mercy, and to your fellow man, who is weak as yourself.
Lastly on such points, I find myself highly humored by church rulers talking about how the bible ostensibly never mentions such things as dresses, hair length, or make up, as it but reveals a haphazard and negligent application of study to the whole of revelation. Very plainly, such matters are dealt with in the bible. People just account that they have a warrant to smugly dismiss whatever contradicts cultural expectations with conscience, which is a sad and shameful commentary on the state of the faith of contemporary Christians. Did men more busy themselves with seeking to be a prophet of God to His people, rather than an advocate of the people to themselves in God’s name, the decays of the modern church could have, and would have, been resisted and prevented.
So, we began by averring that there is a plague of ministers who’s cowardice and blindness on such points is nearly universal, and the platitudes levied against public modesty, as empty as unoriginal, have but proved to be but a corrupting influence upon the church, and a canker to her witness in the earth. Let us, then, next consider some examples. First, let us examine some statements by Mr. Todd Friel of “Wretched Radio”. Mr. Friel represents an example of the more charitable element of dissent on such topics, and provides a case in point of how those who are otherwise of good report can be sadly deceived of heart on such matters. And most assuredly, Mr. Friel is not singled out for some sort of extreme on such points, but is entirely representative of the average modern Christian or Christian minister on such topics. And certainly his treatment is more charitable and embracing that nearly any other I can think of.
Consider, then, a video by Mr. Friel entitled: The Fundamentalist vs. Evangelical Split. Mr. Friel introduces this video this by proclaiming, “Let us not fall into a Fundamentalist Ditch”. He then goes on to detail how Fundamentalists are our brothers in Christ with whom we will spend eternity, and thus how inappropriate it is to speak in a demeaning manner to them. He seems quite sincerely not to notice that likening them to the blind leading the blind into the ditch might qualify. But he continues:
“Fundamentalist Baptists…. I disagree with my brothers and sisters about some things; what type of bible to use[8], what type of clothing women wear, going to movies. None of these issues is included in any sort of historical statement of faith of orthodoxy that I’m aware of.”[9]
So, I hate to seem a nitpicker, over a video that has some merit, (if you watch the whole thing), but one has to wonder how many confessions or catechisms Mr. Friel has read. And his presumption regarding historical views of this topic are utterly universal in the age, as every other age is merely imagined to be just like us, without review. The Westminster Larger Catechism, however, speaks of the duty to wear modest apparel, and to eschew immodest apparel, (Questions 138 & 139). I wonder what the Westminster theologians had in mind when they talked about “modest apparel” …. yoga pants? Levi’s? We need but look at them to know what they intended by it, and the idea that we can’t really know what they intended by such statements but demonstrates a will not to. We don’t hear them elaborate on the duty of women to wear dresses, because not a soul did otherwise, nor had they ever considered or witnessed such a thing within civilized society. You will find similar statements in most confessions of faith, with the like supporting culture of modesty that attests to their exact meaning.
If nothing else may awaken moderns on such a topic, the fact that no culture before our own, known only for its extreme decadence and the loss of all other facets of Christian culture, ever digressed from these horrible ditch dwelling fundamentalists. If this is mere “fundamentalism” then all of history were Fundamentalists. Had anyone gone about in modern swimwear in their times they’d have been arrested and charged with criminal conduct, and this was true even into the 1900’s in huge numbers of cases, as the march into the epicene era of legalized child murder, transgenderism and sodomy washed away the last vestiges of Christian character from secular culture, being presently shamed out of western culture, a remnant church excepted. For the most part.
The sheer presumption of such statements is extreme. Is Mr. Friel unaware how everyone of the entire history of civilized humanity has dressed? Is exceptional modern decadence the oracle by which all previous cultures are to be authoritatively judged? And if we’re left to judge by culture, doesn’t twenty centuries of culture trump but one? And are the worldlings of prior ages, who would all have been horrified by the cross-dressing and lewdness of the attire of modern Christians, now to be reckoned as “Fundamentalists”, simply because more modest in concealing their nakedness and in maintain clear gender standards, than Mr. Friel advocates for as the biblical model?
Let’s consider another far more presumptuous and less rational example of this problem, and one infinitely less charitable. On Jeff Durbin’s “Apologia Studio” youtube site is a video from a podcast called “Cultish”, where they are interviewing women who were “set free” from the “legalism” of “fundamental churches”.[10] The video begins with an advertisement for a whole conference trying to “set people free from legalism”, and features many speakers thus ostensibly set free.[11] The main thing they were set free from appears to be… wearing dresses. This is evidently very dangerous if someone believes women should wear dresses. Like literally every.single.christian.that.ever.lived before 1920. But this means you’re in a cult. Like every Christian that ever lived before these ignoramuses arrived to impose their myopic arrogance and fraud upon modernity, who thus condemn all Christians of all history except…. their perverted little selves, and in their self-important delusions are too stupid to be embarrassed.
The interviewer starts the first interview off by saying, “So you have a background of growing up in a very legalistic mindset, you know… long skirts, long hair, not being able to wear make up”, and so on. And then goes on and on how they were delivered from all this legalism by the help of their “ministry”. Now, the woman was in the United Pentecostal Church, an outright heretical sect, being antitrinitarian. But… he’s not there to dabble in such secondary issues as Sabellian heresy. No … it’s their dresses that he’s worried about. The woman may still be a Sabellian/modalist for all we know, but it’s likely not important compared to getting her in a pair of britches. At least the danger of thinking you have to wear a dress is behind her, because he’s corrected her former imbalances.
But it is hilariously amusing to contemplate doing a spoof video mirroring this one, exposing “cult leaders” in parallel to this one, but interviewing… Mrs. Spurgeon. Mrs. Owen. Mrs. Bunyan, and so on, so forth, and etcetera. Because it would become perfectly evident that none of them would have been “set free” by their “Living Free” conference, but would all still be “living in bondage” as “cultists” by their exceptional and perverse measure, imagining that they were obliged not to wear that which pertains to a man, as the bible commands, and as everyone practiced until recent times. But then we would stone Mrs. Owen, Mrs. Bunyan, & Mrs. Spurgeon, and cast them out as heretics, and vehemently warn everyone that listens to them and their abusive husbands to escape their demented heresies. Yep. That’s what they’re doing. It’s exactly what they’re doing. And that’s just how perfectly idiotic these mountebanks in divinity have become.
“So, a very good morning to you, Mrs. Owen, we appreciate your attending our “Living Free” conference, and thought to get your impressions on being set free. Mrs. Owen: I am most shocked and outraged by the decadence and impudence of your unfathomably perverse advocacy, and can scarce believe I’ve just heard all this, and am perplexed at just how easily corrupted the attendees were by your libertine speakers. I find all of you most perverse and corrupt, and John will wish to know of this at once, to make it a subject of pulpit remonstrance, and I should think the crown itself will be interested to suppress such sick perversions by law”. Well, we will have to include his church in our list of fundamental churches to expose and exclude as cults and outside the pail of true Christianity”. Mrs. Bunyan: “Sir, I must agree with Mrs. Owen, as I’ve never heard of such unparalleled debauchery and lewd provocations advocated even by an unbeliever, and am agast that any could be so possessed of evil as to think to make it a tenant of the Christian faith. If you prevail and find some so misguided as to practice your perversions, please have them tell John hi when they get thrown into prison.” Mrs. Spurgeon: Charles shall know of this at once, but he may well doubt such wickedness could be taught in a civilized country, and I’ll have my work lined up just to convince him of what I’ve heard here today!” Well, I can see that all three of you are incorrigible cultists, and inveterate in your commitment to hyper-fundamentalist and legalistic churches. We wish you could have had a more open mind to hear the stories of these women, and how Christ pulled them out of legalism and into the church.” All three: “We ponder what region of hell your teaching has arisen from!” And so on.
Only someone entirely unfamiliar with such persons and such an age could possibly conjecture any dissimilar response, and such a response would not just be the influence of a mere cultural prejudice, but their verdict upon scripture, as is witnessed by their teaching, and by literally any age of believers before them, or even of any worldling before them, who all exceeded modern Christians for biblical godliness of attire.
Now, it may be objected that Owen, Bunyan, and Spurgeon, etc., were pinnacles of orthodoxy, and at least one of these Pentecostal women was from an antitrinitarian denomination, and so any parallel is misguided. Which would be a profoundly amusing objection. Because these “pinnacles of orthodoxy” believe precisely as the moderns they deem as “heretics” whom they decry as cultists. And this perspicuous idiocy never dawns on them. Owen, et. al. are not here to heap their outrage upon our immodesty in person, so we imagine the prerogative to own them as alike degenerate with ourselves. But then there’s everything they wrote, leaving an exact opposite testimony. And besides, the grand focus of the entire “ministry” and of this broadcast was not to correct doctrinal heresy, but seeking the deliverance of these poor women from … all that stuff these pinnacles of orthodoxy believed.
Richard Baxter reflected on this disposition in deluded souls to embrace those of history, but castigate contemporaries who believed precisely the same in contested points.
“Godliness as in the rule, is to them a more unobserved dormant thing, and doth not so much annoy them; for they can shut their Bibles, or make nothing of it, but as a few good words. But godliness in the godly, existent in their teachers and neighbours, is more discernible to them, and more active, and more troublesome to them, and so more hated by them. In a dead letter, or dead saint that troubleth them not, they can commend it; but in the living they are molested by it; and the nearer it is to them, the more they are exasperated against it. The word is the seed of godliness; which least offendeth them, till it spring up and bring forth the fruit which condemneth their wicked lives.”[12]
And we’ve just considered that the bible commands women to wear long hair in ICor.11:1-16, associates make up with whoredom in IIKi.9:30, Jer.4:30, & Eze.23:40, (excessive make up at the least), and commands women to wear dresses in ITim.2:9. But culture has damned all that to hell. You’re in a cult if you believe… the bible. With all history. Evidently.
But no one will care, least of all these spiritual demagogues, because all the swelling cant of “sola scriptura” ends where mortification begins, and their self-righteous vilification of biblical dress ends, and after calling the entire Christian world of history “legalists”, and “cultists”, they must avoid obtaining the censure themselves at all costs, and so condemn the bible. Prepare for their linguistic and grammatical gymnastics, because they will by no means repent. The bible won’t matter. Twenty plus centuries of Christian agreement about what the bible said about it won’t matter. Their hatred for it will matter. Their desire to mainstream their aberrant exceptionalism to all history will matter.
We always hear the same complaints from such persons… “I just felt like God was a tyrant, and not a loving father”, and this presentation is no exception[13]. And these interviewers are, of course, the white knights that will save them from these bad feelings, by telling them, there, there now… get in your yoga pants and inflame the male world. It’s your liberty purchased by the blood of Christ. Because if God commands anything, then He’s a tyrant. Whenever I hear modern hipsters talk like this, I’m just waiting for them to say, “I finally realized that God loved me, when I didn’t have to do whatsoever He commanded me to be friends.” (Jn.15:14) “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you” … is out. That’s legalism.
Now the hipster preacher will reply that he has not warranted yoga pants nor any other form of attire specifically. No, he’s just damned to hell as a cultist anyone who thinks dresses are required or make up forbidden. But if he has not thus warranted yoga pants, or other excesses, then let him say so, and let him provide his list where he draws the line on what is and what isn’t modest feminine clothing. But he won’t. And he won’t because he’s just insinuated that such limitations are human inventions, and constitute “legalistic” cultic behavior, and so he can’t really go there. Because the second he does, another ministry will pop up to deliver people from his cultic ministry. And when the church has become a brothel, then the engine will have reached it’s goal. This is where it leads, and where they are leading. They can’t stop without becoming everything they anathematize, being then anathematized for being legalists when they finally draw a line somewhere themselves, or for being devils if they don’t.
Without presuming into the spiritual status of these young ladies, the truth is that unregenerate people say this about ANY law or obligation because they are either weak believers wanting in assurance, and inappropriately terrified by their failures and by a law that can never condemn them, or are unregenerates who never knew mercy, and hence always feel resentment toward God for obliging them to a rule they are not reconciled to, because that’s how self-will and unregeneracy respond to command and sanction, which if omitted from preaching omits the gospel. Because the gospel cannot be rationally conceived of outside the paradigm of law, transgression, condemnation, and grace. Grace has no other context; unbelief has no other response. Being oppressed by the righteous condemnation upon our sin is what makes grace so welcome and refreshing a thing, and those who have embraced it and enjoy it don’t feel oppressed by its truth any longer, being freed from condemnation in the atonement which they have joyfully believed and have confided in. They have no more motive to attack its truthfulness. Believers may suffer a want of vision and assurance, but don’t make war with the standard, but with themselves.
In the introduction to the video under consideration, you will find the following “Description:”
“Join us for this episode as we speak with Jennifer and Natalie who both come from hyper-fundamentalist and legalistic churches. They share their stories on how Christ pulled them out of legalism and into the church.” Thus they confess to the world that if a church teaches that God has commanded women to wear dresses, long hair, and avoid cosmetics… they are not a true Church. So…. I reckon we’ve not had a true church in all of history until these shills of modern decadence emerged to enlighten everyone of how all prior history were cultists. But let’s make good on that, shall we?
Visitations from the Spirit of Christians Past
It would be amusing to produce a short story allegorical to Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, only having the scoffer “Scrouge” be such as produced the video above considered. He imagines he is in the way, but glibly mocks the modesty and sanctity of faithful Christians, but in his sleep is visited by the Spirit of Christians Past, who reveal to him his extreme contrariety of life and faith to all of Christianity before him. Then the next night, he is visited by the Spirit of Christians Present, who details the suffering he has caused from his mockery, vilification and exclusion of the faithful, and the corruption and perversion he caused to those weak enough to be intimidated by him. Then the next night he is visited by the Spirit of Christians future, from which he is excluded from the heavenly contingent, as one who loathed and hated the sanctity of the Christian faith and who mocked and belittled its true confessors, and is cast out as an alien to the spirit of the gospel, which has animated and sanctified the people of God in that goodway of Christian mortification and singleness of heart. This would be oh so amusing! But let us now supply the first part of this allegory in the following paragraphs, provided in a few citations at hand, containing the testimony of the Church of Jesus from many past ages. Read now, “A visitation of the Spirit of Christians Past”, and as you read, let it not slip from your mind what such persons’ universal understanding of modest attire was, as manifested by their known practice. You will then realize that the reproofs are aimed at the entire modern world, my reader likely among them.
William Gurnall
“O what a base work are these men employed about! By the law it is death for any wilfully to set fire on his neighbour’s house. What then deserve they that set fire on the souls of men, and that no less than hell-fire? But, is it possible thou mayest do it unawares by a less matter than thou dreamest on. A silly child playing with a lighted straw may set a house on fire which many wise cannot quench. And truly Satan may use thy folly and carelessness to kindle lust in another’s heart. Perhaps an idle light speech drops from thy mouth, and thou meanest no great hurt; but a gust of temptation may carry this spark into thy friend’s bosom, and kindle a sad fire there. A wanton attire, which we will suppose thou wearest with a chaste heart, and only because it is the fashion, yet may ensnare another’s eye. And if he that kept a pit open but to the hurt of a beast, sinned, how much more thou, who givest occasion to a soul’s sin, which is a worse hurt? Paul ‘would not eat flesh while the world stood, if it made his brother offend,’ I Cor. 8:13. And canst thou dote on a foolish dress and immodest fashion, whereby many may offend, still to wear it? ‘The body,’ Christ saith, ‘is better than raiment.’ The soul, then, of thy brother is more to be valued surely than an idle fashion of thy raiment.”
William Gurnall, again:
The power of holiness is expressed in the saint’s BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS SIN.
Liberty is the Diana of our times. O what apologies are made for some suspicious practices!—gaudy garish apparel, spotted faces, naked breasts. These have been called to the bar in former times, and censured by sober and solid Christians, as things at least suspicious, and of no ‘good report;’ but now they have hit upon a more favourable jury, that find them ‘not guilty.’ Yea, many are so fond of them, that they think Christian liberty is wronged in their censure. Professors are so far from a holy jealousy, that should make them watch their hearts, lest they go too far, that they stretch their consciences to come up to the full length of their tedder; as if he were the brave Christian that could come nearest the pit of sin, and not fall in; as in the Olympian games, he wore the garland away, that could drive his chariot nearest the mark, and not knock on it. If this were so, Paul mistook when he bade Christians ‘abstain from all appearance of evil,’ I Thes. 5:22. He should rather, by these men’s divinity, have said ‘abstain’ not from ‘the appearance,’ only take heed of what is in itself grossly ‘evil.’ But he that can venture on ‘the appearance of evil,’ under the pretence of liberty, may, for aught I know, commit that which is more grossly evil, under some appearance of good. It is not hard, if a man will be at the cost, to put a good colour on a rotten stuff, and practice also.[14]
Robert Bolton.
After displaying the wicked career, and sudden ruin of Jezebel in 2Ki 9:30, Matthew Henry exhorts,
“Let painted faces look in Jezebel’s glass, and see how they like themselves.”
Or John Gill on Eze. 23:40
“‘for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thy eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments’; just as harlots do to make themselves agreeable to their lovers; who use washes and paint, as Jezebel did… Harlots had their particular attire, by which they were known, Proverbs 7:10.”
Calvin on Jeremiah 4:30,
“As then harlots, for the purpose of enticement, are wont to dress themselves elegantly, to paint their faces, and to use other allurements, the Prophet says, “In vain wilt thou adorn thyself; though thou puttest on scarlet, though thou shinest with gold even from the head to the feet, yet all this will be superfluous and useless; and though, in addition to all this, thou paintest thy face, it will yet avail thee nothing.”
William Perkins
“First, everyone must be content with their own natural favor and complexion that God hath given them, and account of it as a precious thing that God hath given them, be it better or be it worse: For the outward form and favor that man hath, is the work of God Himself, fitted and proportioned unto him, in his conception, by his special providence. Being then the Lord’s own work, and His will thus to frame it, rather than otherwise, great reason there is that man should rest content with the frame.
“Here comes to be produced, the strange practice and behavior of some in these days, who being not contented with that form and fashion which God hath sorted unto them, do devise artificial forms and favors to set upon their bodies and faces, like painting and colorings, thereby making themselves seem that which indeed they are not. This practice is most abominable by the very light of nature, and much more by the light of God’s word, wherein we have but one only example thereof[15], and that is of wicked Jezebel (2Ki.9:30) who is noted by this mark of a notorious harlot, thus she painted her face.
“For what is this, but to find fault with God’s own workmanship and to seek to correct the same by a counterfeit work of our own devising which cannot but be highly displeasing unto Him? A cunning painter when he hath once finished his work, if any man shall go about to correct the frame, he is greatly offended. Much more then may God, the most wise and absolute former and creator of his works be highly offended with all those that cannot content themselves with the favor and features they have received from him, but will needs be calling his works into question, and refining it according to their own humors and fancies. Tertullian calls such persons, and that deservedly, the devils handmaids.”[16]
Robert Bolton
“Obj. But if sin be so ugly, may some say, as you have set it out, how comes it to pass that it is so amiable in the eyes of most? Why do all sorts of people pursue and practice it with such eagerness and delight? Why doth the whole world run mad after it?
Answ. Herein observe an universal soul-swallowing depth of Satan’s infernal policy. He knows full well, that should sin appear in it’s own likeness, every eye would abhor it, every one would detest and defy it; and therefore he endeavours by the exquisiteness of his colours and excellency of painting, to put a seeming fairness upon a hellish face, whereby the greatest part dote upon this deformed hag to their endless damnation: for we must know that Satan, in this mystery of cozening by colours, incomparably surpasseth the most famous Jezebels that ever existed; so that it seems to be the notion of the ancient fathers, that the devil did immediately reveal unto lewd women this art of painting; at least he was most certainly an extraordinary assistant to the first inventors of it. Now for painting sin to make it more plausible and passable, we may see more variety of colours and cozening tricks ministered unto Satan by your false hearts, his agents for that purpose, in that excellent discovery of their deceitfulness, Dike’s Discourse of the Deceitfulness of Man’s Heart. But as an old, deformed wrinkled hag, setting out herself with a false fair, a painted face, and other meretricious affected dressing, entangles and ensnares the hearts of fools and eyes of vanity; whereas men of understanding and those that have eyes in their heads discover in her so doing and daubing an addition of a great deal of artificial loathsomeness to her natural foulness; so it is in this case. The grisly face of sin being daubed over with the devil’s painting and false lustre, carries away captive all carnal men, and detains in a fools paradise, indeed a hellish prison, a world of deluded ones.”
Mr. William Prynne
“To condemn effeminate mixt dancing, lasciviousness, and diceplay…. are now chief Symptomes of a notorious Puritan. To declaim against our whorish females frizling, broydring, pouldring, dying, plaiting, with their late impudent mannish, that I say not monstrous cutting and shearing of their haire; to declaime against face-painting, vaine wanton complements, strange fashions, tyres, newfangled or overcostly apparell, are eminent characters of a branded Puritan”.
Second Book of Homilies, Church of England
“But it will be here objected, and said of some nice and vain women, That all which we do in painting our faces, in dying our hair, in embalming our bodies, in decking us with gay apparel, is to please our husbands, to delight his eyes, and to retain his love toward us.
“O vain excuse, and most shameful answer, to the reproach of thy husband! What couldest thou more say, to set out his foolishness, than to charge him to be pleased and delighted with the devil’s attire? Who can paint her face, and curl her hair, and change it into an unnatural colour, but therein doth work reproof to her Maker, who made her; as though she could make herself more comely than God hath appointed the measure of her beauty? What do these women but go about to reform that which God hath made? not knowing that all things natural are the work of God, and things disguised and unnatural are the works of the devil: and as though a wise and Christian husband should delight to see his wife in such painted and flourished visages, which common harlots most do use to train therewith their lovers to naughtiness; or, as though an honest woman could delight to be like an harlot for pleasing of her husband. Nay, nay, these be but the vain excuses of such as go about to please rather others than their husbands. And such attires be but to provoke her to shew herself abroad to entice others: a worthy matter! She must keep debate with her husband to maintain such apparel; whereby she is the worse housewife, the seldomer at home to see to her charge, and so neglect his thrift, by giving great provocation to her household to waste and wantonness, while she must wander abroad to shew her own vanity, and her husband’s foolishness. By which her pride, she stirreth up much envy of others, which be as vainly delighted as she is. She doth but deserve mocks and scorns, to set out all her commendation in Jewish and Ethnic apparel, and yet brag of her Christianity. She doth but waste superfluously her husband’s stock by such sumptuousness: and sometimes she is the cause of much bribery, extortion, and deceit, in her husbands dealings, that she may be the more gorgeously set out to the sight of the vain world, to please the devil’s eyes, and not God’s; who giveth to every creature sufficient and moderate comeliness, wherewith we should be contented, if we were of God. What other thing doest thou by those means, but provokest others to tempt thee to deceive thy soul, by the bait of thy pomp and pride? What else dost thou, but settest out thy pride, and makest of the undecent apparel of thy body, the devil’s net, to catch the souls of them which behold thee? O thou woman, not a Christian, but worse than a Paynim , thou minister of the devil!”
William Gouge
“If a husband shall command his wife to go to mass, to a stage play, to play at dice, to prostitute her body to uncleanness, to go Garishly and whorishly attired, to sell by scant weights, short measures, or the like, she ought not to do so.”[17]
Thomas Watson
“Look to your attire. We read of the attire of a harlot. Prov vii 10. A wanton dress is a provocation to lust. Curlings and braidings of the hair, a painted face, naked breasts, are allurements to vanity. Where the sign is hung out, people will go in and taste the liquor. Jerome says, they who by their lascivious attire endeavour to draw others to lust, though no evil follows, are tempters, and shall be punished, because they offered the poison to others, though they would not drink.”[18]
Richard Baxter
“If {clothing} tend to the ensnaring of the minds of the beholders in procacious, lustful, wanton passions, though you say, you intend it not, it is your sin, that you do that which probably will procure it; yea, that you did not your best to avoid it. And though it be their sin and vanity that is the cause it is nevertheless your sin to be the unnecessary occasion: for you must consider that you live among diseased souls, and you must not lay a stumblingblock in their way, nor blow up the fire of their lust, nor make your ornaments their snares; but you must walk among sinful persons, as you would do with a candle among straw or gunpowder; or else you may see the flame which you would not foresee, when it is too late to quench it. But a proud and procacious, lustful mind is so very willing to be loved and thought highly of, and admired and desired that no fear of God, or of the sin and misery of themselves or others, will satisfy them, or take them off.”[19]
James Waddel Alexander:
“What a horrid fraud Satan is practicing on the church in regard to the daughters of the covenant! In fashionable circles ―dare I name them Christian― the years where girlhood merges into maturity are frequently sold to the adversary. The young American woman is taught to deem herself a goddess. If there be wealth, if there be accomplishment, if there be beauty, almost a miracle seems necessary to prevent the loss of the soul. Behold her pass form the pedestal to the altar. The charming victim is decked for sacrifice. Every breath that comes to her is incense. Her very studies are to fit her for admiration. Day and night the gay but wretched maiden is taught to think of self and selfish pleasures. Till some Lenten fashion of solemnity interrupt the whirl, the season is too short for the engagements. Grave parents shake their heads at magnificent apparel, costly gems, night turned into day, dances at which Romans would have blushed, pale cheeks, bending frames, threatened decay; and yet they allow and submit. And thus that sex, which ought to show the sweet unselfish innocency of a holy youth is carried to the overheated temples of Pleasure. Thus the so-called Christian verifies the apostles maxim, “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth”.[20]
Charles Spurgeon
“Give me a woman in a nice neat dress, clean and suitable, and she will beat the flashy young hussies all to pieces. If a girl has got a few shillings to spare let her buy a good bit of flannel for the winter before she is tempted with bright-looking but useless finery. Buy what suits yourself to wear, and if it does not suit other people to look at let them shut their eyes. All women are good, either for something or for nothing, and their dress will usually tell you which.”[21]
A.W. Pink
“If lustful looking be so grievous a sin, then those who dress and expose themselves with desires to be looked at and lusted after are not less, but even more guilty. In this matter it is only too often the case that men sin, but women tempt them so to do. How great, then, must be the guilt of the great majority of the modern misses who deliberately seek to arouse the sexual passions of our young men. And how much greater still is the guilt of most of their mothers for allowing them to become lascivious temptresses.”[22]
Or as a puritan author, who’s name I can’t recall, once said: “It is devil-like to tempt men to sin, and then for it.”
So… all the women wore dresses, and yet here they are complaining about the “lewd attire” of worldly women? That indecency can be practiced with any style of clothing, constitutes no demonstration that some styles are not themselves inherently indecent, and no assumption to the contrary has ever been assumed, either antiquated or modern. Great provocations can and will manifest themselves in any style of clothing, because of the nature and degree of our depravity. Certainly true modesty includes, but also transcends mere articles of clothing. A modestly attired woman may well be chaste within. But she may not be. But when she is not so even outwardly, the pretense has been abandoned, whether she imagines she’s going incognito or otherwise.
The inward necessarily participates in such characters as are thus plainly confessed openly, in the negative only. One may be entirely courrupt and appear angelic. But no one goes about in that which is openly provocative unless something has jumped the tracks inwardly. Jn.7:24 is about an accusation made against God (come in the flesh), Who was not violating any command, but walking in obedience, and Who was yet adjudged by the wicked to be in sin[23]. When men appeal to such a passage that respects those falsely accused, and then apply it to those who indeed are in violation of the commands of God, then they do violence to those commands, to the principles of modesty, charity, purity, and of Jn.7:24 as well. It’s the now weathered appeal to validation of things as indifferent with no assumption of responsibility for proving that the item thus pleaded for under that claim is in fact indifferent, thus attempting to warrant sin as lawful upon a mere assumption. The fact that men often misjudge outward behavior as sinful when it’s not, or not when it is, doesn’t change the fact that outward behavior always has, and always will, indicate inward character. It may be indifferent, it may be sinful, it may be godly. The only problem arises when the judgment is false, not merely in that it’s on the outside. And this can’t just be assumed, but must be proven, as Jesus did in John 7. Again, as Spurgeon confessed: “If there is no visible difference between you and the world, depend upon it, there is no invisible difference.”
And certainly no one but our present debauched generation would ever have esteemed the wearing of pants, or of our modern spray-on dresses as not in violation of the commands of God to chastity. The bible need not spell out fifty thousand instances of it before the righteous will be enlightened, and such as lay claim to such an expectation merely reveal their extreme legalism.
It may be replied, How do we know these reckoned any given style as indecent when no one ever wore them? Perhaps because … no one ever wore them? Perhaps because when women first began to wear them there was outrage in all but avant garde leftists, until spiritually panty-waist Christians dutifully wimped into line. And now that the standard has been corrupted in the public mind, it’s the ones who advocate for returning to the view of scripture embraced by the church of all history that find outrage, not so much from the world, as from a guilty and self-justifying company of professing Christians.
And yet, despite this general contempt for the biblical modesty of past ages, your average modern would likely imagine that he agrees with most of the citations afore going, in as much as he is habitual in vainly surmising that practices he allows and justifies are not those intended by such historic remonstrance, forgetting as he perennially does, the potent and unavoidable witness of their own practice, and hence the like unavoidable conclusion that likely three fourths of his wife’s and daughter’s wardrobe would fall under such censures in the intent of the authors, if for no other reason, then for that of their manifestly wearing “that which pertains unto a man”. Their women wore dresses, only dresses, and only extremely modest dresses. Modern wannabe Puritans all imagine they love these fathers in the faith, but banish from their mind what all those paintings of them look like. Because they look like all those moderns they damn to hell as ignorant legalists and cultists.
Who cannot see and concede that their example entirely defines their meaning? Should a family visit your church dressed like Puritans, who there advocated for modesty of attire, you’d suppose they meant that britches were all good, and maybe even yoga pants, yes? Well, no you wouldn’t. So please don’t pretend you don’t know the answer, reader! When such authors reproved immodesty in feminine attire it could only reference immodest dresses, as that is all their women wore. They could manifestly have no concept of modest pants on a woman, and hence there can be no rational expectation that they could conceive of a modest version. You might as well aver that their teaching validates bikini’s so long as they were modest!! Most plainly they would have been outraged and horrified had they ever even seen a woman in britches, and called upon the sheriff did they ever witness the extreme lewdness of a woman in modern swimwear.
I can hear the modern man reply, “Their views of pants on women are not in print”. Except that they are. In every book that displays their appearance. Because nothing will tell you more plainly than that, exactly what they meant by these words, and everyone knows it, so much so that such dissent is unbridled hypocrisy.
But of course there were a great many practices mentioned by name in the foregoing citations, that indeed are contested by modern times, such as women shearing their hair, make up, and others, and which the two charletans above qualify explicitly as rendering you a “legalist” and in a “cult”. And so…. if not for the issue of dresses, certainly for these beliefs, all these authors of the past, and hundreds like them, were all indubitable cultists. And so here we have several things that make you a “cult” advocated by such as we style “heroes of the faith”. Prohibition of make up, short hair on women, and yes, pants. Who knew that so many of their heroes of the faith were in fact …. cultists?
And truly, not just these few cited, but the entire church, until the last 100 years or so, were cultist heretics, being of like mind on such points. For they did not simply assess our modern modes of dress as unfashionable, but as immoral and unlawful. So all of these, by the rule advocated in the video above…. are legalists, and doubtless as well, blinded to the gospel by Satan, and hoping to be saved by works, and all the other slanders you get branded with should you be audacious enough to turn from sin, and be led of God’s word and Spirit, so as to contradict your own generation’s degeneracy. Because unless they run their wives daughters nearly naked in public, and engage in full androgenous fashion advocacy, then, and apparently, only then, can they have possibly understood the grace of God. Plainly only exposing yourself as an open spectacle of unlawful admiration, is the certain sign that one has truly embraced a genuine hope in Jesus. Thus their “salvation”. Thus it’s evidence.
And I doubt my reader will appreciate how many such citations might be provided for his consideration! I merely paste from ready sources because of constraints of available time. But what was just pasted above is entirely representative of the entirety of Evangelical Christian literature, and you’ll find nothing like our modern devotees of popular culture in anything from the witness of past Christians.
And when literally every modern Christian can see this vast imposing contrast from past to present, why does no one question why? Why does not the mystery of that contrast confront him as a most pressing necessity to lay hold of? Why does he perennially exclude his ostensible heroes of faith from censures he reserves only for contemporaries of the same opinion? I will tell you the reason. It’s because … he’s an open hypocrite and applies his censures to those who reprove him, and excludes those who, in his vain imagination, vindicate him, despite all they said, and showed themselves to be.
And such persons seem always to have the same moral infection of supreme arrogance that sees their times as the touchstone by which all other ages must be measured, and this would be more understandable did we live in an exemplary age that stood shoulder to shoulder with every other, but when it’s the exact opposite, and the church has become the slave of culture, and a complete anomaly to every other age, except in bare doctrine, the infatuation is not just curious, but manifests a fatal religious narcissism, most certain of itself where most anomalous to the entire world of Christian apprehension of moral duty. But we can put a payload of destruction within a six-foot target across the globe, and can map the genetics of a virus. Therefore our age is superlative, and doubtless our wives and daughters can nearly remove their clothes in public, and be assured of our orthopraxy. That also seems to be part of the disease.
But, it may be rejoined, cannot a former consensus be wrong? Cannot the bible be misunderstood of the church, even for long periods? In reply, let it first be noted how humorous a thing such an objection is in the mouths of those who can never ever question their own consensus; and to be more explicit, their own narrow, exceptional, completely contrary consensus, to the entirety of Christian history. But, yes, most certainly both of those things can be true! Christian consensus can be wrong, Scripture alone reigns supreme, and a more enlightened age can correct the former ages.
But several things must be noted. Firstly, that a mere human “consensus” is not what is being appealed to by appealing to a former consensus of biblical arguments. That is no more an appeal to history or consensus than appealing to the current “biblical” arguments people make regarding such subjects. That is neither to repudiate the value nor the advocacy of godly consensus, which can have a valid and unique value. Because those compromised in their walk with God may hear a man they respect, when they will not hear their very bible. And if they cannot hear that, then there is hope that at least they may fearfully regard the fact that they are of an entirely diverse tradition than that which they had imagined. Had they lived in a former time, they would not have consorted with Owen, but with Laud, not with Whitefield, but with contemporary clergy that reckoned him a moonstruck fanatic, and etc..
And, yes, the practical application of the doctrine of sola scritpura means that the church can be wrong about its doctrines and practices, even for long periods of time. But in the current matter considered, the likelihood of all ages getting it wrong, together with the idea of a notably corrupt age thinking itself the one to be the deliverer, present an obstacle to enlightened discretion so powerful as to constitute a prohibition in any mature spiritual mind. Because it proposes a case as preposterous as morally impossible, such that one would think it’s advocates would hide in shame for embarrassment, except that believing it themselves, they’re likewise too blinded to be ashamed. Their “salt” has not kept depraved Satanists from seizing the reigns of power, and yet it’s sufficient to emerge over ages that imposed the scriptures upon the world as the light that will correct and heal them.
At a minimum it might be expected that such advocates would approach the subject with trepidation and meekness, and not with the raving self-absorbed myopathy that is universally seen in the advocates of modern degeneracy, that wishes to render all Christian history as cultists but themselves and their age, notable but for nought but it’s presumption, degeneracy, heresy, and spiritual death, alone.
As Robert Lewis Dabney said in regard to those contending with his writing against promiscuous dancing, “It may be rejoined, that all the witnesses cited are human, and therefore none of them is Lord of the Christian’s conscience. Let this be granted. But what shall be the presumptive estimate of the humility, modesty, and docility of that temper which sets itself up arrogantly against this concursus of all religions, all ages, all civilizations, to decide, in its ignorance and inexperience, in favour of what the wise and good of the ancient and modern world have condemned? In the face of this array, the charge that the condemnation of dancing is only puritanical or self-righteous is simply silly. Whether this opinion of the virtuous of all ages be sound or not, it is clear that the self-sufficiency and arrogance of mind which rejects it under the plea of asserting its Christian liberty, is the farthest possible from that righteous and reverent, God-fearing, and humble temper which should animate the champion of the holy rights of conscience, especially when constrained to contend against God’s own church.”[24]
And lets say that the reader is not persuaded that certain specifics of public presentation, such as are advocated for above, are valid representations of God’s will. Ok, that will be inevitable. Even my own level of agreement with such historical citations just referenced above, while close to universal, would not find me signing off on every degree of every expression. But what is altogether unconscionable is the presumptuous arrogance of these intemperate and delusional missionaries of modernism to call the entire church of history cultists should they digress an inch from what is without controversy their exceptional departure from how all history viewed public decency of appearance, and equally unconscionable, their virtual excommunication of contemporaries who make the same confession just as these of the past once did. And while these that have been made an example of may be in some measure a more extenuated example of myopic pride and idiocy of expression, yet they are by no means far removed from the average views of the age when it comes to any response to the notion of modern Christians putting their clothes on. Dissent is always going to be there. But this idea that the modern’s extreme exceptional belief is enthroned of God to judge all of history as heterodox is not only profoundly arrogant, but mentally unhinged. Truth will not die with them. (Job 12:2)
Had the last one hundred years produced a global revival, instead of consummate spiritual ruin, then those who understand that the last five minutes of theological fad doesn’t comprise the compendium of Christian historical theology would be more inclined to consider the possibility of such an unliklihood. But what would any sane man expect from the anomalous innovations of such a perverse age, known only for the extenuation of all evil, the forsaking of all decency, social soundness, and uprightness, but that the radical changes it assays to impose as universal truth, are certainly just like everything else they’ve been deluded by, and have but again departed from the good ways of God.
This age that has produced a culture in which any degree of gender sanity is mocked out of higher education, a culture where it is lawful for “doctors” to slice off a child’s sexual organs, should some grooming pervert successfully insinuate his gender confusion into the child’s thoughts in the vulnerability of their youth, a culture that fills the air with poison in the name of trying to overthrow the sun, and that fills their food with poison in the name of keeping it healthy, that feeds them poison in the name of healing them, that has paper for money, that removes children from homes that may or may not even exceed just chastisement, as a pretense to put them in a place of safety only to then expose them to pedophile rings, and yet leverages the full power of the state to protect parents that hire doctors to rip them to bits from the womb; where Christian churches count them “God’s chosen people” who don’t even believe in Jesus, but blaspheme His infinitely Holy Name; where fanatical “Christian” sects think to attain more of a “holy anointing” by sucking the spirit of a deceased charlatan out of his grave site, that swallow swords and play with tanks and imagine it’s a “men’s” conference; where church members in good standing wear clothing so lewd that prostitutes of the Puritan’s age would have found them shocking, extreme, and contemptible; where laws force children into schools where every contrivance is strained to ensure that young girls will be deflowered, and if the contraceptives they give them fail, they’ll take them to have their offspring butchered by a “doctor” who swore an oath to “do no harm”, all made possible by politicians who all swore an oath to protect the life of all people, and all of this without so much as telling the parents; where the virtuous are prosecuted by criminals, and criminals elected by the prosecuted; where prisons are run by corporations that have a vested interest in keeping them full, hence increasing crime, and augmenting the laws that put them there, creating the highest prison population on earth; where politicians bleed the nation’s youth dry in wars for foreigners who have done nothing but use and fleece us; where the people who created the freedoms everyone risks everything to illegally enjoy, are vilified by those same people as racists, where the most criminal demand to be judged by their character, not their race, except when they are; where the head of everything is vilified, and the tail lionized, and the one doing both alone profiting; where people who protest an insurrection get charged with insurrection, while those who burn down dozens of major metropolises are given hundreds of millions by nearly all major corporations, and are ignored by even by the most lauded “conservative” “rulers” … and all this and much more, while Christians wave their flags and imagine that they are living in the greatest country that’s ever been, which protects them and which guarantees and secures their freedoms.
And yet this is the age that has finally figured out what feminine modesty is! Caveat Emptor, reader! Because, NO, our influence in the earth has not even been sufficient for the world to figured out what a boy or girl is, and their influence over the church has been great enough that we don’t hardly know what our bible is, or what history is. Modern Christian views of “modesty” were not gleaned from the bible, but from the radio, television, and from the antichrist schools, and by the ubiquitous newspeak corporations in an antichrist revolution to overthrow Christianity, whom modern Christians both abominate and follow, while excluding as heterodox to Christianity any that fail to get on board with their revolution, and this advanced stage of religious schizophrenia goes for orthodoxy.
This is the age that inflicted the toxic “sexual liberation” revolution for both husband and wife, and children, as nearly the entire church sat by and dutifully sent their children off to be brainwashed for Satan, thus making the entire Christian family, and those they failed to be light to, more “available” for the pervs that orchestrated it, and the family more easily corrupted, and thus more easily dissolved. Because nothing less than this has been the objective, and nothing less has been the attainment; and both the wife’s and children’s removal from the home, and the acceptance of deepening lewdness of dress has contributed greatly to these objectives. And this is the age, noted for nothing but its failure, that you worship, serve, and follow, as some sort of paragon of biblical rectitude that is insightful and virtuous enough to be esteemed the moral standard that the ethics of all previous ages of saints must be judged and overthrown by.
This is the age that brought us from a formerly elegant, amazing, and winning femininity and modesty, so agreeable to feminine nature, and to the more refined eye of man, to where complete nudity is the only further step that might be taken in regard to “swim” wear, and to where if antiquated underclothing were worn as today’s outer garment it would be considered absurdly prudish, thus not just fomenting a revolution in mere fashion, but in the moral character of those who have embraced it.
What conquered the church in this matter? Could the same influences that have altered literally every other human institution away from Christianity have affected the church in this matter also, and affected it’s views of feminine modesty as well?This age, that has abandoned nearly every other last vestige of moral decency, is the one that has arrived at the exceptional and extreme conclusion about what the bible really teaches about modesty? You’re telling us it’s the bible that has defined your views of feminine apparel. Just like all these other matters? You could not be more satanically deluded. You’ve been brainwashed.
So here is the question, reader: Have you allowed yourself to be complicit with these devilish revolutions against the Christian world, and against the biblical understanding of feminine modesty we had formerly held up to the world for literally thousands of years, rather conforming your views and practices accordingly as some sort of dutiful slave of the enemies of your faith? Or have you been a stalwart defender of the message of scripture, confessed and practiced by all the Church before you until this perverse generation arrived to lead the world astray? Have you abetted this revolution against what Christianity has always practiced and believed, or made war with it? Because two things are perfectly obvious. First, that what your world of Christians mocks as legalism and as faithless moralism, has been the faith of the entire church before you. Which will you leave? Which will you embrace? Where will you abide? Decide who you are, and make a plain confession.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/us/evangelicals-christians-conservative-trump.html
[2]. Proteus/ In mythology, a marine deity, the son of Oceanus and Tethys, whose distinguishing characteristic was the faculty of assuming different shapes. Hence we denominate one who easily changes his form or principles, a Proteus.
[3]. The Thoughts of the Evangelical Leaders, pg. 161-62.
[4] Mat.13
[5] “Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts. In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers,The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings, The rings, and nose jewels,The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails. And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.
[6] John Gill Commentary on the Whole Bible, ITim.2:9
[7] Chapter 1, paragraph 6. “The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.”
[8] A digression into the issue of bible translations would be off topic, but its not like KJV translators didn’t have Alexandrian text types to choose from. They did but all Reformation bibles were based upon the TR. So, yes, they did make a choice on that point. They didn’t use a Douay Rheims.
[9] https://youtu.be/5kyHtdOArrk?t=51
[10] https://youtu.be/tGDpPckC8DE
[11] https://bereanholiness.com/conference
[12] Richard Baxter, Christian Directory, pg. 368
[13] https://youtu.be/tGDpPckC8DE?t=644
[14] The Christian in Complete Armour, Page 428
[15] There are not one, but three examples of this. 2Ki.9:30, Eze.23:40, Jer.4:30
[16] William Perkins, Cases of Conscience, pg. 338-339
[17] William Gouge, Domestic Duties, pg. 236 Puritan Reprints, 2006
[18] Thomas Watson, The Ten Commandments, An Exposition of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, Pg. 159
[19] Richard Baxter, The Christian Directory, Page 392
[20] A Shepherd’s Heart, Sermons from the Pastoral Ministry of James Waddel Alexander, Pgs. 134-5
[21] Spurgeon’s Practical Wisdom, pg. 90.
[22] https://gracequotes.org/author-quote/a-w-pink/
[23] 22 Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers;) and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man. 23 If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day? 24 Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
[24]. R.L. Dabney, Discussions, Vol.1 pgs. 568-569.
