The Manly Church

Today I want to talk a little bit about the common charge heard in Conservative/complementarian circles that today's church is 'feminised', springboarding off this article from Christianity Today called "Act Like Men: What It Means to Fight Like a Man", subtitled, Men, is [sic] your life characterised by courage, strength, and love?

Here's how the article starts: "One of the reasons many churches struggle is they're not a friendly place for men. Think about the worship service at your church. More than likely, there's a lot of talk about loving each other, but not much about fighting against sin or fighting for each other. There's holding hands when we sing, but not much locking arms as we get marching orders for the mission."

The article goes on to cite passages like 2 Timothy 4:7 ("I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race..."), Ephesians 6 ("Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the tactics of the Devil…so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand."), and 1 Peter 5:8 ("Be serious! Be alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour.")

You may not be surprised to find that I take issue with this. Here's why: what they are talking about is not feminisation. It is just plain weak theology and vague experience-- and I refuse to accept that as inherent to my gender. "Is your church all about lovey-dovey pop-psychology stuff, with no serious, difficult looks at sin and struggle to be seen? LADIES."

Those passage referenced above? Are inspired Scripture intended for the whole of the church, not 'Notes from the Men's Manual of Being a Good Christian'. Battle language is part of our life as Christians; warring against the flesh, fleeing temptation, standing firm against the flaming darts of the enemy, being alert and watchful are the territory of every Christian. Being "characterised by courage, strength, and love"? Two-thirds of that dictum are in my blog title referencing Proverbs 31, the excellent wife.

I have always loved John Piper's description of "strong complementarian women" as having "massive steel in their backs, and theology in their brains." By all means, let us call churches to draw from the richness, depth, and strength of Scripture in their meetings instead of relying on niceness to save us. Let us face the darkness of our sin, let us ask the Spirit for self-control, endurance, and discipline along with our love, kindness, and gentleness-- and let all of us do this without drawing a line down the middle for gender, because that line is not written into God's Word. Let us not, however, make the mistake of calling a theologically-weak, feel-good, standardless church 'feminised'. Because, I beg your pardon, but that ain't my femininity.

Jen Wilkins on TGC. Read It.

On Daughters and Dating.

Dang. Straight. That's all I can say.

Except don't read the comments unless you like being depressed.

Culture Check: The Top-Selling Girl's Dolls

This image is sourced from Pigtail Pals Ballcap Buddies' blog, where a community member submitted this collage of the top-selling dolls in toy stores right now. Are these "just" dolls, or do they send a loud and clear message to our daughters (and sons!) about the "right" way to be a girl?

One of the reasons I wanted to share this is because there is a certain amount of fear about blurring gender lines in the evangelical, complementarian community. This is certainly a concern; God created two genders and declared two genders very good, and I think it is right to celebrate and defend that. But I think it is equally harmful the way the majority of our culture (as seen in the bulk of mainstream media and merchandise) seems to be pushing the lines further apart in ways that alienate and harm male-female relationships, and limit both men and women, boys and girls. You can bet that the top-selling boys' action figures have nothing in common in terms of interests, physique, or attire with any of these girls' dolls.

Yes, God created us different, but God also created us for fellowship and with many, many similarities. Men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus; we are all image-bearers of God, joint heirs of the same salvation, and intended to live together with fellowship and respect, not mutual incomprehension. (And we both have a great deal more variety within our respective genders than these dolls would have us believe!)

10 Reasons I Stopped Wearing Make-Up

I want to talk today about make-up. Or rather, the lack thereof. And before I do that, I want to make a quick disclaimer: the purpose of this post is to encourage and provoke, not to judge. I feel myself very blessed to have a God who inspires a deep confidence that isn't rooted in other people's opinions of me, and a husband who affirms and celebrates my natural beauty without any makeup at all, but I know that given the prevailing cultural pressures, every woman will be on a different point in their journey. So I want to start by saying, I'm not judging anyone for wearing make-up. I think life in general is much better without it, and I want to share why, but if your choice is to continue, understand that this is not intended as a criticism of you.

So, that said, the story of how I stopped wearing make-up, and then 10 reasons why I think it's a great idea.

As a teenager, I was deeply insecure, wracked with guilt and condemnation about my sin inside, and convinced that externally I was plain and needed make-up to fix feature flaws-- my too-straight eyebrows, my crooked mouth, my eyes with the funny outside slant, my stubby eyelashes, my high forehead and long face. God was very kind to bring me out of my forest of condemnation and into a joyful freedom in Christ when I was around 18 or 19, but the journey of physical confidence was just starting. 

I often said I wore make-up because it was fun: colourful, experimental, interesting. There was a degree to which this was true (I liked cat-eye liner, bright lip colours, and bold eyebrows) but there was a much stronger degree to which I still believed in that list of "feature flaws" above. 

The year I turned 20, Steven and I began our relationship. Steven has been an amazing help to me in overcoming my physical insecurity; from the first he has called me the most beautiful woman in the world, never criticized my appearance, and has complimented the very things I considered flaws. I was so nervous for our honeymoon because he would see me with my hair down for the first time and I didn't like how it looked down, and wondered whether I should wash my make-up off in the evenings!

His acceptance and love of my appearance couldn't help but work it's magic on me, though. I remember vividly one morning midway through our first year of marriage when he was once again complimenting me, first thing in the morning before I'd fixed my hair or put on make-up.
"Do you really think I'm this beautiful with no make-up on?" I asked.
"Your eyes are brighter," he told me.
Well, if that was true, I didn't see the point anymore.

It took me a while to get accustomed to my face without the additions I'd given it, but over time I learned to love my straight eyebrows (I think they make me look intellectual) and care more about my smile and it's one-sided dimple than whether my mouth is perfectly symmetrical. These days, I occasionally wear make-up to formal events like weddings as a way of signalling that they're special, but I barely put any on; I usually feel like it makes my features look dark and unnatural.

I'm now about two years out from wearing make-up on a daily basis, and here are 10 reasons why I think it is a great decision for any woman to make:

1. You are free to cry, swim, or sweat without warning or consequence. Make-up subtly limits the activities you can participate in. How many times have you felt moved by something in church but been distracted from the deep significance of what you're feeling by the need to hold back the tears so they don't smear your mascara? How many times have you decided not to go swimming or play a sport (things that men participate in without a second thought) because it will ruin your make-up? Heck, you can't even drink normally as a make-up-wearing girl because your lipstick might smear on the cup. Losing the make-up frees you up to be more involved in actually doing things, instead of focusing your energy on just looking right. 
2. It saves you money. I always had a fairly small make-up kit: mascara, tinted lip balm/blush, an eyeshadow palette or two, brow shader, and eyeliner. At a frugal estimate this was about a $35 kit. (At this point in my life, I'm much more concerned about the quality and ingredients of my toiletries than I was as a teenager, so if I was still wearing make-up today it would probably be more.) Given shelf-life and rate of using up, that $35 kit was probably $100 yearly. If I started wearing make-up at 13 and kept it up until I was 65 (although in all likelihood if I went on that long, I'd probably keep going 'til I died) that would be over five grand spent on hiding my face. And that's a small, frugal kit! Aren't there better, more fulfilling ways to spend $5,000?
3. It saves you time. I'll soon be a mother of two. I'll be nursing (probably both of them), getting two babies dressed, and making breakfast for us all in time for Steven to come home from work for 9:30 coffee break. I work a part-time job, am redecorating my house, and pre-homeschooling a bright, curious little boy. In short, there are a thousand practical things that I am responsible for. Beyond that, there are many other meaningful things that do more for my soul than putting on make-up: reading my Bible, praying, reading good books, spending time with people, creative pursuits, and building my relationship with my husband and child. I gladly take the extra 20-30 minutes of time that come from not putting on and taking off make-up on either end of my day. And I believe that reading the Word or loving people actually do more for my beauty than mascara and blush. 
4. It's better for the environment. There are a host of problems with the ingredients used in conventional make-up products, from animal testing to questionable origins, but even if you're using organic, "earth-friendly" make-up products, you're still facing a colossal amount of packaging waste, manufacturing waste (power usage, by-products), and transportation costs (emissions, fuel use). When adding up the cumulative effect of this from the millions and millions of women using make-up worldwide, shouldn't we be asking ourselves if this is really good stewardship of the resources God put on our planet? Especially given that it isn't substantially improving human lives or allowing us to be better in serving the church or sharing the Gospel.
5. It's better for your health. If you've hung around me for any length of time you've probably heard me rant about the nasty ingredients in beauty products: alcohols, artificial fragrances, chemicals preservatives and dyes, many of which are known or suspected to be involved in causing cancer, reproductive difficulties, and more. Not to mention how a healthier planet (see #4) results in healthier humans. I mentioned this in a previous blog post about how the things that are considered feminine and beautiful are often harmful to our health, which I think is a good indicator of how warped our perception of beauty has become. 
6. It breaks a vicious circle. This is sort of related to the last point-- those nasty chemical ingredients in the beauty products that are supposed to give you flawless skin, miles-long lashes, a blooming complexion, erase your wrinkles, etc. are self-perpetuating a cycle of oil-overproduction and skin-drying for your skin, degrading and damaging your eyelashes, dulling your skin's natural bloom, and contributing to the aging of your skin. So that you'll need to buy more make-up to cover up the ill effects, so that your skin will be even worse off, so that you'll need to buy even more... Almost like make-up manufacturers don't particularly want you to be naturally beautiful isn't it? Like maybe they care more about profits than about you actually having any of those buzzwords they use in their commercials: "fresh", "natural", "breathing", "real you..." The other side of this is that the more accustomed you become to your face in an augmented/artificial mask-- the arch of your brows carefully achieved by plucking and pencils instead of your natural straight line, your thin upper lip plumped up with a lipstick, your undramatic lashes darkened-- the harder it is for your to enjoy or even recognise your own face without make-up; you start to feel as if the face you were born with isn't really who you are.
7. It takes a stand against the world's lie that age is to be fought and feared. The world, faced with at best nothing and at worst, judgement, in the afterlife, has a good reason to fear the effects of age, as they bring death ever-closer. But we have something else to look forward to: eternal joy, worship, and peace in a world made perfect by Christ. We have a Scripture that tells us grey hair is a crown of glory. The lie about age is particularly pernicious in it's condemnation of female aging, and I have heard this explained as a simple matter of biology: men like women who look young because men like women who look fertile. Never mind that female fertility is generally decent until around 40; we as Christians need to assess the deeply humanistic assumptions of this idea.
   
   Scripture teaches that the point of marriage is a lifelong commitment mirroring that of Christ and his Bride, the Church. Humanistic viewpoints often debate whether men are "meant" to be monogamous, assume the sole point of life is to pass on genes, and address attraction and parenthood from a purely naturalistic perspective. Not so the believer! We know monogamy is God's intention for human relationships and thus the happiest, most fulfilling path for both men and women. We know that healthy biological children are a great blessing from the Lord, but that they are not the be-all-and-end-all of a happy relationship or a happy life. We know that there is more to attraction than genetic influences because we are called to lifelong love and attraction where our mate's character and our own self-sacrifice are as important as genetic factors. Believing this, why do we buy into the idea that the highest compliment we can pay an older woman is that she "looks young"?* 
8.  It declares the "very-good"ness of God's creation. I want to tread carefully here because I know the effects of sin have brought deformity, illness, and injury into the world so that there are real ways in which one's face might no longer be "very good" as it was created. But at the same time, I don't believe God intend to create a world without genetic variation. I think that if there were no Fall, there would still be women with big noses and small ones, high foreheads and long torsos and cowlicks and widow's peaks, with crazy afros and downy-fine locks, with wide hips, flat chests, sturdy ankles, and narrow shoulders. I certainly don't believe we'd all be slight variations on the modern Western ideal woman: white, long flowing locks, slender figures with curves in the "right" places, doe-eyes, and perfectly regular facial features. My straight eyebrows, my high forehead, my "funny" eyes, are all part of the Avery that God lovingly knit together when I was in my mother's womb. My childbearing hips and my Laura-Ingalls-esque "strong as a little French horse" constitution are part of my heritage, traits I can see in my grandmothers and great-grandmothers. I will never be the "ideal" presented in movies, but I am just as God intended me to be, and I believe that is a far more beautiful thing.
9. It fights the false image of femininity sold to the men in your life. Sometime after I stopped shaving my legs, I came across an article about how, in a society where hard- and soft-core pornography is more and more readily provided for young boys, many young teenaged girls already feel pressured to get full Brazilian waxes-- boys from a very young age are squeamish about or unattracted by female body hair. Setting aside the numerous other issues we could explore in this story, isn't it scary that from such a young age, boys are indoctrinated to believe that a woman's body should look perpetually prepubescent? Make-up plays the same game, if more subtly; pouty lips and long, fluttering lashes help make a woman look perpetually physically attracted/seductive. Ditto blush. Arched brows suggest mystery. None of these are the things that make a woman a good Christian, a good woman, or a good life partner. Mystery? Honesty and encouragement in the faith are far more important. Seduction? It's all well and good in a one-flesh union, but it's not the part of a godly woman to be seducing the males willy-nilly. But if the media's image is the only one ever presented and it's always presented in a deeply attractive light, it's hard for male brains to ignore. If they should be seeing something different, surely they should be seeing it in the church?
10. It fights the negative body messages constantly sent to the women in your life. The number of genuinely hideous-looking people in the world is pretty low. But there are women all around you who see themselves as less acceptable because of the messages of media. Women who think they are too stocky, too pale, too curvy, too fat, too skinny to be attractive. Women who think they aren't glamourous enough or charming enough or that they lack the "feminine mystique" to be valued and loved. And every time you criticize yourself they-- your sisters, your friends, your daughters-- face the temptation to compare themselves to you and measure up even shorter. You moan about how you need to lose five extra pounds? The girl beside you carrying twenty-five extra pounds has a new reason for self-loathing. You mention how you hate your hair? The girl beside you who has always wished her hair was as nice as yours now has reason to suspect you think her hair is ugly beyond all belief. You use make-up to "fix" how your eyes look "too close together"? Now your daughter with the exact same eyes has reason to believe her mother thinks her eyes are a feature flaw and she'd better find a way to fix hers as well. The world needs women who will proudly declare that not only are there many things vastly more to be valued than physical beauty-- from kindness to humour to persistence to wisdom-- but that women as God created us are beautiful anyways-- we don't need to fritter away our time and energy and money to "fix" ourselves. 

*I remember one time in a prayer meeting we divided up by age: youths, 20-40 years olds, and over-40s. Our pastor joked that the over-40 women need not declare their age. I don't blame him for this lighthearted and probably realistic jest, but how I wish that women over 40 in the church were cheerfully sharing their age and showing their grey hairs and wrinkles to the younger women as a proud declaration that age is not something to fear but a blessing from God and a status of honour and wisdom as the Bible teaches!

Femininity and Artifice

Have you seen any of the coverage of the debacle surrounding comments by BBC's John Inverdale about Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli's appearance? He basically said she was too ugly to be anything but a scrappy fighter, actually suggested that her father probably told her she was ugly. This was immediately following Bartoli's celebratory hug with her father and former coach, and was a shameful, demeaning way to approach both her victory and her relationship with her father. 

Sadly, Inverdale was not alone in thinking that Bartoli's physical appearance was somehow a relevant factor in her being an athletic champion. Public Shaming (warning: link contains plenty of strong language) condemned a whole string of tweeters who used a far more offensive tone than Inverdale to do the same thing he did: sexualise her. Remember the first condition of sexualisation from Wednesday's blog post? Sexualising is happening when "a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behaviour, to the exclusion of other characteristics."

I read a thought-provoking quote from Rebecca Hain's blog post called "When Women Look Strong: The Sexism At Wimbledon" (emphasis mine):

"The tamest of the twitter comments said that she “didn’t deserve to win because she is ugly,” that she is a “pig,” and that she “looks like she’s a cross between a man and an ape.” Why did so many comments fixate on suggesting Bartoli was an animal and/or a man? Well, as Judith Butler argues, femininity is not naturally occurring; it is a performance. It requires artifice and careful planning: pretty makeup, coiffed hair, stylish clothing, and a body that is controlled–slim and slight but curvy. In today’s world, people expect that any self-respecting woman will make being feminine a priority at all times. (Think about how many women won’t leave the house without makeup on, lest people judge them negatively.)

Bartoli, on the tennis court without makeup, was not performing femininity. She was being athletic: running, sweating, driving her body to function at its peak. She looked strong because she is strong–and because our culture associates strength with masculinity, it’s really hard to appear strong and feminine at the same time. Hence, the ape/pig/man comments."

The part I found particularly interesting to think about is why our culture's trappings of female attractiveness (stylish haircuts, hair dye, mascara, foundation, shapewear, plastic surgery, laser hair removal) are artificial when the cultural trappings of male attractiveness are fairly natural (a man with tousled hair and 5 o'clock shadow in jeans and a tee, for example, is perfectly acceptable and attractive). It harks back, for me, to one of my first blog posts, You Don't Have To Be Pretty. In it I quoted a man (a pastor, sadly), who said parents should tell their athletic daughters, "Sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up." 

So, just some food for thought here: does God intend that part of being womanly is being committed to covering up or changing our bodies and faces-- the natural beauty of a his good creation? If not, what can we in the church do to encourage women not to buy into a commercially and sexually driven stereotype of femininity? On the other hand, why do we associate a human being using their body-- their muscles, their endurance, their endless hours of training to get their body to respond intuitively-- to the fullest with maleness? Does God intend that part of being womanly is not pursuing physical excellence-- the enjoyment of the natural performance of his good creation? If not, what can we in the church do to encourage women to use and enjoy their God-given physical strength and abilities without worrying about whether it jives with society's ideas of walking and talking and smelling "like a girl"? 

(One final note-- it's interesting that "feminine beauty" as suggested above often involves putting weird chemicals onto or into your body, eating in an unsustainable way (i.e. not enough), or subjecting oneself to physical pain, whereas "masculine ability" as suggested above involves eating good fuel and exercising, things that contribute to long-term health. If that's our definition of feminine versus masculine, can I humbly suggest we're doing it wrong?)

Dr. Amy Cuddy on "Power Posing"

Last night Steven and I watched this TEDTalk on "power posing" and how it reconfigures the hormones in your brain to be more powerful-- in the sense of authentic, engaging, confident, and passionate (not in the sense of lording it over others or being the alpha dog).

I thought it was fascinating as it relates to my recent post on canting. Dr. Cuddy describes how a person who is insecure or feeling weak "collaspes into themselves" with head down, arms down and towards the torso, and feet and knees together. It's certainly not identical to canting, but it bears some striking similarities: the tendency of the head to be angled downwards, of the arms not to lift above the shoulders, of the feet or arms to be crossed. As well, both feature an off-balanced positioning. Both serve the same purpose, though for different reasons: to persuade onlookers that the poser is not a threat.

Now, the low-power postures Dr. Cuddy describes are an instinctual, emotionally-hardwired way of reacting to feeling weak, while canting is a culturally-learned way of responding to peer pressure (i.e. canting is seen as how feminine and desirable women pose in our culture, and most women would like to be seen as feminine and desirable.) But I wonder if the reaction of women's bodies to canting is the same as the reaction of our bodies to low-power posing; I wonder if canting actually causes us to be more easily stressed, more likely to hide our true passions and personalities, and less confident. I can only speculate, since that wasn't within the scope of Dr. Cuddy's study, but certainly it's a point worth considering. It makes me want to stand a little straighter and square my shoulders when I face the world-- what about you?

Canting-- What's That?

So I went pretty full-on theological last night so I thought I'd switch things up a little bit tonight and talk more pop-culture. I don't know if people caught my mention of "canting" in my review of Now You See Me. It's not a very common word, and to be honest, even the Internet doesn't have much to say about it, but it's an extremely, scarily common happenstance.

So what is canting? Well, the dictionary tells us, "1. Angular deviation from a vertical or horizontal plane or surface; an inclination or slope." In terms of female body language, The Achilles Effect describes it as one of "the many ways that female bodies, when displayed in popular culture, are sexualized and positioned to communicate submissiveness and powerlessness. Showing females in a recumbent position is one way of communicating this message and canting is another... the crossed leg position, standing on one leg, the torso twisted away from the vertical, and the head cant. All of these positions serve to place the female character off balance and give her an air of vulnerability."

So that's the wordy definition, but a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are a few:

 

Getting the idea? In children's media-- and comic books for adults*-- the canting is very obvious, to an almost grotesque degree, and it is quite common for it to be dismissed on the grounds of them being cartoons, exaggerating the characteristics of the characters because that's what cartoons do. In the adult movie posters it can be more subtle, as in the Italian Job, just a little bit of chest-thrust, with head down and a leg stuck off to one side, or it can be quite obvious, as in the Pirates poster, with Kiera Knightly's tilted head and seductive glance and her hand pointing right at her chest.** These postures are in stark contrast to the sort of poses men hold; consider the Gatsby poster where all the male characters have their shoulders squared directly to the camera (as do the male leads Jack, Will, and Charlie in the other two posters). 

 It becomes a bit of a chicken-or-egg debate, whether the movies are just reflecting that women do subtly stand this way because of their generally-larger hips and different center of balance and what have you, or whether women learn to stand like this because it's presented in media. If you think it's the former, do a little experiment (if you're a lady). Check out that Disney poster up at the top, and try on all those poses. Then ask yourself-- is it really natural for me to stand like this? Ask yourself a few more questions-- if I were standing like this in a public place, would I feel awkward because of what my body language was communicating to the men around me? Try this one: if I had a 15-16 year old daughter (the average age of Disney princesses), how would I feel if she was standing like this in a public place? 

I'm just going to go ahead and take my stance on the chicken-or-egg debate-- women stand like this as a learned behaviour, not as a reflection of some kind of innate knowledge that this is the most feminine way to stand. Since I've agreed pictures are worth a thousand words, here's another in favour of that argument:

When did we go from this kind of thing to what we see in the movie posters above? Someone else can trace that lineage. What I'm concerned about is why this ubiquitous canting pose matters. I propose a couple of reasons:

1) Posture! When we stand with our feet totally together, or toes turned inward, or when we always rest our weight on one hip, or have one shoulder off-balance, or our head tilted, or our torso curved or twisted (all fairly common for women; try comparing male and female postures the next time you're in a crowd), we're trading off future, and even current, comfort and health in order to fit into a media-driven, sexually-charged standard of beauty (sort of like what we do with high-heeled shoes, or chemical-heavy make-up). This happens pretty subconsciouly, because much like figures of speech, we pick up "appropriate" body language and position from our culture without too much conscious decision-making going on. Which is kind of unfair to us in this instance, but that's why there needs to be people pointing it out.

Also, and more importantly...

2) Value. When we fall into line with a canting posture, we are nonverablly communicating a false idea about men and women-- taking the Biblical warrant to submit to our husbands far beyond the realm of marriage and adopting a submissive posture before all men. This is not Scripturally-mandated, and it is not Scripturally-lauded. When I think of the daughters of Zelophehad fighting for their right to keep the family inheritance in Joshua, Ruth proposing to Boaz so she could fulfill the Scripture mandate to maintain a family name, Tamar risking her life and reputation to do the same, Esther steeling herself to face the king and die for her people if need be, Deborah stepping up where the male leadership of Israel was doubtful and did not trust the Lord, Rahab hiding spies because she could see where the Lord's favour lay, the Proverbs 31 woman making investments and working with strength and diligence, Anna with her decades of unwavering faith, Mary standing up straight before the prospect of ridicule, shame, divorce-- everything in her life crashing down around her-- and saying "I am the Lord's handmaiden"... when I think of these women that the Scriptures honour and commemorate, I don't think about their soft, yielding dispositions to the world around them. They are women of courage, of rock-solid faith in the promise of God, bold to risk ridicule or death for the sake of that promise, even if the leadership-- the government of Jericho, Barak the judge, the partriarch Judah-- did not believe or value that promise. I don't doubt that women like Mary, Anna, and Ruth were submissive to their husbands as the Scripture requires. But without being aggressive or unwomanly in the least, the woman I listed above do display what John Piper calls "massive steel in their backs and theology in their brains".

Of course, it's as plain as the nose on your face that God did provide two different (general) body shapes to men and women (with lots of variations within that general theme for both genders). It is not plain to me at all the He wants women to damage their bodies and accentuate their sexuality for the sake of seeming submissive or nonconfrontational towards a wider mankind to whom they owe no such allegiance.

So, in closing, one more image, a turnaround by Kevin Bolk of a poster for The Avengers that puts the one female character in a front-facing, nonsexual pose instead of vice-versa. It's actually incredibly awkward and embarrassing to look at-- which is exactly how the original poster would look if we weren't so desensitized to the sexualisation of women by the sheer magnitude of the imagery that does it. Think about that.

And, hey, I warned you when I started out that these were going to be incredibly verbose blog posts. At least there's lots of pictures here.

 *If you have any doubts about that, check out the Hawkeye Initiative, which sheds stark light on just how far comic book creators will go in twisting the female body to make it "sexy".
 **It actually comes a lot more obvious, particularly in low-brow comedies or romance movies, but I'm sparing you that.

You Don't Have To Be Pretty

I came across this rather appalling link via Princess-Free Zone: a pastor of a North Carolina church tirading about gender stereotypes. I wanted to address a specific quote, "And when your daughter starts acting too butch, you reign her in. And you say, ‘Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.’" (Emphasis mine.)

News flash! God does not say women have to be beautiful to please Him. God does not say it is women's job to dress up, woman's job to be "attractive". It is just not present in the Bible. Of the famous women of God in the Bible, do you know how many have their appearance mentioned? Five. Of these five, two are only mentioned because it's significant to a plot point (Esther and Sarah both attract the attention of pagan kings, but their faith is the point of the story. The other three are Rebekah, Abigail, and the Shulamite of Song of Solomon, all Old Testament women and part of a culture where a woman's economic value came from her appearance.) Do you know how many of the famous women of God in the Bible have no record of their appearance one way or the other? In the Old Testament, we have Eve, Ruth and Naomi, Hannah, Deborah, Tamar, Jochebed, Miriam, and Rahab. Among the women in Jesus' life, Anna, Elizabeth, Mary, Mary and Martha, Mary Magdalene, and among the women of the early church, Dorcas, Lois and Eunice, Junia, Phoebe, Priscilla, Lydia... indeed, nowhere in the New Testament is any woman praised or singled out for her beauty or lack thereof-- it's simply not present.

Now, all humans have a responsibility to steward the bodies God gave them. We are to avoid the sins of gluttony and laziness, and to treat others with respect, which easily translates into dressing appropriately for our culture and occasions, not eating to excess or only to satisfy our appetites, and to practice healthy exercise. I don't want you to hear me saying, "God says it's ok for you to be a couch-bound slob who lives in ratty sweatpants." But I do want you to hear this: all humans have these responsibilities. No, Pastor Harris, women don't have to smell nicer, dress up more, or spend more time cultivating their physical attractiveness than the men around them do. God never gave us that command. That's coming from the world.

Christian woman, God did give you a command about your appearance, though: to focus on inner beauty. To cultivate good works, a quiet and gentle spirit before the Lord, faith, not living in fear, to imitate Christ. But if anybody, within the church or without, tells you you have any kind of obligation to be beautiful, hold that up to the Scripture and I think you will find that it holds no water at all.

John Calvin on 1 Timothy 2:9-10

"9 In like manner also women As he enjoined men to lift up pure hands, so he now prescribes the manner in which women ought to prepare for praying aright. And there appears to be an implied contrast between those virtues which he recommends and the outward sanctification of the Jews; for he intimates that there is no profane place, nor any from which both men and women may not draw near to God, provided they are not excluded by their vices.

He intended to embrace the opportunity of correcting a vice to which women are almost always prone, and which perhaps at Ephesus, being a city of vast wealth and extensive merchandise, especially abounded. That vice is — excessive eagerness and desire to be richly dressed. He wishes therefore that their dress should be regulated by modesty and sobriety; for luxury and immoderate expense arise from a desire to make a display either for the sake of pride or of departure from chastity. And hence we ought to derive the rule of moderation; for, since dress is an indifferent matter, (as all outward matters are,) it is difficult to assign a fixed limit, how far we ought to go. Magistrates may indeed make laws, by means of which a rage for superfluous expenditure shall be in some measure restrained; but godly teachers, whose business it is to guide the consciences, ought always to keep in view the end of lawful use. This at least will be settled beyond all controversy, that every thing in dress which is not in accordance with modesty and sobriety must be disapproved.

Yet we must always begin with the dispositions; for where debauchery reigns within, there will be no chastity; and where ambition reigns within, there will be no modesty in the outward dress. But because hypocrites commonly avail themselves of all the pretexts that they can find for concealing their wicked dispositions, we are under the necessity of pointing out what meets the eye. It would be great baseness to deny the appropriateness of modesty as the peculiar and constant ornament of virtuous and chaste women, or the duty of all to observe moderation. Whatever is opposed to these virtues it will be in vain to excuse. He expressly censures certain kinds of superfluity, such as curled hair, jewels, and golden rings; not that the use of gold or of jewels is expressly forbidden, but that, wherever they are prominently displayed, these things commonly draw along with them the other evils which I have mentioned, and arise from ambition or from want of chastity as their source."*

A lot of old-fashioned talk to sift through, but I what I want to highlight here is the emphasis of Calvin (and, I believe, the passage itself) on "modesty" as a counterpoint to "excessive eagerness and desire to be richly dressed". Calvin uses the word "chastity" to talk about what we often refer to as modesty: not dressing to be sexually alluring. "Modesty", in his vocabulary, is is about not dressing to highlight one's wealth, to achieve one's ambitions (whether for attention, a sense of superiority, or some other worldly advantage), or to display oneself (he does mention "either for the sake of pride or of departure from chastity", as both are certainly temptations). 

We often hear in the church of the need to be modest in the modern sense I mentioned. Depending on how conservative your church is, that could be anything from only wearing floor-length dresses to covering your chest to a certain height. These are what Calvin refers to as "a fixed limit" and says that a godly teacher will seek to guide the conscience and address the disposition rather than making rules. Not that choosing not to dress in a provocative way is wrong-- far from it!-- but rules prescribing exactly what is and is not appropriately chaste tend to miss that the emphasis in Scripture is on a more subtle heart issue.**

Calvin speaks of "Ephesus, being a city of vast wealth and extensive merchandise." What could be more descriptive of us in the affluent West? I believe we could do well to take to heart Calvin's charge to begin with "the dispositions; for where debauchery reigns within, there will be no chastity; and where ambition reigns within, there will be no modesty in the outward dress." I believe I spent the majority of the last ten years dressing, in some sense or another, to impress. Whether this took the form of dressing like a punk to show people I was above all their petty consumerist attitudes, or trying to emulate the women I saw on The Sartorialist to display my superior fashion sense, it certainly came from a disposition of ambition, not of Christlike humility.

When I look at my Saviour who "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped", I am ashamed of myself for trying to use clothing as a way to make myself look better than others. My prayer and hope going forward is that I can devote less time and energy to attempting to raise my status through clothing, and more time and energy to what God calls "proper" for the women who serve him-- good works. Meditating on the glorious truth that my status before God is already secure in Christ should serve to fight my fleshly desire towards self-promotion.

Is it wrong to dress in a way that is fun, fashion-forward, unusual, or high-end? I don't think that can be Scripturally argued. The issue of how to dress in a God-honouring way is deeply nuanced and must encompass, for starters, the topics of respectability, creativity, and Christian liberty, as well as what I've begun discussing here. However, I think it can be Scripturally argued that modern Christian women could benefit from a swing more in the other direction-- away from telling each other that it's okay to enjoy dressing up and fashion, and towards what Calvin calls "the duty of all to observe moderation." We must strive for wisdom and balance in every issue not specifically prescribed in Scripture, and I believe in the present-day, we need to move towards moderation to achieve balance.

I want to end, then, with a challenge to my sisters in the church: Calvin says, "This at least will be settled beyond all controversy, that every thing in dress which is not in accordance with modesty and sobriety must be disapproved." Do you think you could describe how everything about how you dress as "in accordance with modesty*** and sobriety"? Will you pray and ask the Spirit to reveal to you if your clothing choices are driven by ambition instead of godly character?

*Quote sourced from Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

**And vilify the female body over the human heart, but that's a topic for another post...

***In Calvin's "not putting on a display" sense.