A slight rant on Modesty

As I'm preparing my posts on modesty, I am also doing other reading from my enormously long reading list.  I just finished a book review on Alan Conner's book Covenant Children Today, Physical or Spiritual.  It was an excellent read.  Then, I picked up An Orthodox Catechism by Hercules Collins.  If you don't know, it is an edited version of the Heidelberg Catechism, which I find to be a monumental blessing.  And, as the Lord frequently does, there was a gem...just sitting there in the first few pages of the book.  If you had been reading the book you may not have noticed it, and I don't know if I would have if my mind weren't also engaged in thoughts about loving our sisters in Christ, particularly regarding this issue of modesty.  But I will get back to that in a minute.

Why is modesty such a hot topic now?  Well, first of all it is because our culture is over-sexualized.  But secondly, because it is easier to blame our sister in Christ, than to address our husband's lustful and imaginative eye.

But, I don't want to borrow from a future post, and so I will move on.  

I hope we can all agree that the majority of the issues on modesty, the prescriptive ideas on exactly what to wear, is nowhere in the Bible.  We are at liberty here as long as we do not purposefully wear blatantly sexual clothes.  So why all the anger and hostility if it is a liberty?  Why the glances at another woman in judgement...as if we can read her heart!  We can't.  And we can't become her master or we usurp God.  And aren't we supposed to love our sister?  (1 John 4:7-8; John 13:34-35; 1 Peter 4:8 and more)  But where is the love when we judge and put motives that are not really her's onto her.  Who gets to decide if she is "dressing for the eyes of God" or for the eyes of men.  (again, blatant sexual clothing is not what I'm talking about).

Have you ever looked at a woman's shoes and said they were "hooker shoes"?  (Actual comment made to a young woman!)  What does that even mean?  And furthermore, what do "hooker shoes" look like and who gets to decide that?  That is not a helpful statement and in fact is hateful and harmful to our sister in Christ.  I'm so thankful that God looks at our hearts.

But again, I digress...to get back to the book I'm reading...

Hercules Collins says, in his preface, "Now albeit there are some differences between many godly divines and us in church constitution, yet inasmuch as those things are not the essence of Christianity, but that we do agree in the fundamental doctrine thereof, there is sufficient ground to lay aside all bitterness and prejudice, and labor to maintain a spirit of love each to other, knowing we shall never see all alike here."

He was not talking about modesty at all.  He was talking about things pertaining to the way the Bride of Christ is organized and run!  If we are to have this attitude to "lay aside all bitterness and prejudice and labor to maintain a spirit of love each" in regards to the Bride of Christ, how much more should we have this attitude over a matter of liberty such as modesty.

I realize someone is going to say, "but some women ARE immodest".  Yes.  And I will get to that in future posts.  But let us examine and address our own hearts first.  Please remember modesty is not the "essence of Christianity".