Why Are Fundamentalist Obsessed By Appearance?

Or it may be that some of us recognize that changing appearance does not change the heart. By focusing on the appearance we deceive people into thinking that by cleaning up their outside they become acceptable to God. That's a whited sepulcher, and Christ condemned that attitude.

Is immodesty a HUGE problem? Absolutely. But those who preach a message of external conformity more than inner heart change will give account to God for why they rejected Christ's message.

 

I'm still waiting to see the scripture that says thou shalt not wear a sleeveless shirt!

Maverick, I'm 52 years old. I don't wear tight blue jeans. In fact, I look much more appealing in my long church dresses that I do in my everyday housework clothes... It's how you wear the item, how it fits, etc. and not the clothes.

I wonder how many times a week people who are so intent on judging Christians on their clothing witness to the unsaved instead of spending their time judging their brothers and sisters in Christ?

Diane

 

Mav I love you brother but I must ask if your illustration above is taken from baptist or pentecostal doctrine
I also take offense at your view that my pastel shirts promote homsexuality

Real men still don't wear pastels! Even the lost guys would have beat up a guy in pink when I was growing up. We are helping to promote the effeminate ways of homosexuality by men wearing pastels, ear rings and neck laces. Look up the word androgny and you will see what is going on in the world and the Church is participating.

Last week Duck Head had a big sale on shirts and I bought every pastel color they had, light blue, green, yellow. I wish they had a pink I would love to have one. I have wore a pink dress shirt to church but now I no longer have one. Wish I did. Now concerning the lusting over women in jeans issue. Last night I visited a mall and as one who tries to avoid such places I was shocked, I can't imagine parents allowing their teen daughters to go out in public that way. But one of my fondest memories was of a girl I had a crush on in highschool, she normally wore jeans but she looked much much better in dresses. What I am saying is that sometimes men will lust even if a lady is atired in a potato sack or a long flowing robe, they should dress decently but we cannot dictate what that is.
Murph

 

Words in parenthesis are mine and refer back to the meaning of the original post.

Well Maverick, that is NOT Baptist preaching right there! You and I both know that we receive the Holy Spirit the minute we ask Jesus into our hearts and lives. God is MUCH more powerful than any hair pin and fake stone.

I looked at your web page and was surprised to see you and the wife (?) all decked out in cowboy shirts and you in a fancy hat. Are those pearlized buttons on the shirts? Also, the wife's shirt looks JUST like yours. There's no male/ female distinction! Why oh Why are pastel shirts on men a sign of homosexuality and your wife wearing a cowboy shirt not a sign of homosexuality? Where oh where are we going to draw the line?!!?

We must be about the Lord's business and judging people, because of their shirt color or if they wear well fitting pants instead of long dresses, is a waste of time we could be sharing Jesus!

I am appalled that we spend so much time defending our rags instead of lifting up Jesus and each other. Satan has surely infiltrated and divided.

Diane

 

I believe that this statement is a judgment on the part of the author. Saved people who believe that the female gender should not wear pants do not spend their time judging others Christians they share their convictions and scripture so that someone else may understand. People who don't believe that way have also stated their reasons for their beliefs. Dress only's are no more obsessed than nondress only's.

To answer your question above; dress only people witness whenever they can, can that be said of nondress only's?

 

Attention everyone, we are not traveling down the same old ugly path again if I can help it. Jabs and barbs toward each other will not be tolerated, please conduct yourselves in a respectable manner regardless of your clothing preference. I am certain we all judge others too often and witness too little so let's call it even.
Murph

 

I realize this is Oooooollllldddd Testament, but as the old timers say, "If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and has webbed feet like a duck...it's a duck. If a sister doesn't want to be judged as immodest and a BROTHER (let's not forget them) doesn't want to be judges as Don Jaun, don't dress like it. You might not mind if your daughter looks like a Calvin Klein girl, but I want my girls to be chaste, mosest, sweet, lovely, godly, etc. This is hard to do if they are not conciencious of their attire.

The Bible is the book that brings us to the topic of appearance. We don't need a written standard, we need to people who have done a thorough job of repenting of our former wicked lives (at least on my behalf) and make sure that the world knows in word AND DEED that I am one of His. I do not judge the salvation of others by their appearance, but I do question their commitment to Christ or their maturity.

Ben

 

That statement says a great deal about the standards by which you judge people. Your standards could not POSSIBLY be more inconsistent with God's. (1 Sam. 16:7) I suggest that you consider an adjustment.

And as long as the other side of this argument is ripping verses from their context (abstain from all appearance . . .), I might as well have a little fun, too. "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment." John 7:24 in the KJV, baby.

 

OK, a lot to answer here, not enough time, but I will do a few.

Yes, I agree that clothes do not change the heart and some can look squeaky clean and be lost, but that is no excuse for believers to get slack or whatever else you might want to call it.

Oh nuts, most of the time all the other responses show up at the bottom of my screen, but of course not this time.

The incident was not in a pentecostal book. God doesn't test obedience in the Baptist faith? Are we not to seek the filling constantly because we leak or take back control? I didn't say she was looking for a second blessing or to get the Spirit after she was saved. The book was an old one and they use terms differently than us.

A cowboy hat in Texas is not an odd thing and while the colors amy be the same my shirt and her blouse is actually quite diffrent. You will never catch me in a pastel unless I am dead and have no control.

Maybe you haven't noticed the trend towards effeminizing the society. Like I said, as recently as the 60's men who wore pastels, ear rings, necklaces and such would have been thought to be gay and they would have been 99% of the time. Now, folks accept that. Just saw a show about flea markets where a lad was selling "kilts" out of all sorts of patterns and designs in CA. If you weren't Scot and wore one of those you would have been laughed at and thought gay. Some thought Scots were as well I suspect. We had man bags in the 70's which were pretty much a ladies purse changed just a little. Even the colognes are getting harder and harder to tell apart. Some men's colognes smell like a cheap house of ill repute.

Women in men's clothes were Lesbians called butches. I once had to explain to my young children why a certain person they thought was a man was really a woman by the bra straps. The clothes, hair styles and even glasses frames were masculine. Now, we barely blink an eye. We are helping the gay movememnt achieve normality by wearing the clothes normally assigned to the opposite gender making even transexuals more comfortable.

If women were not to wear that which pertained to a man the converse was obvious. The degendering/androgny started in the early 1900's when Marlene Dietrich started wearing men's tuxedos because she was tired of men having all the fun and in 1927 when Mary Garden, an opera star, bobbed her hair as part of throwing off the last shackles of men. And the beat goes on.

Laugh if you want, but in the end the truth will come out. Why do you think many clothes designers are gay? It is easier to come out when you don't stand out as much as you once did and even the straight guys like pink. They will design clothes that turn them on and sell it to a sucker society that goes by fads. Much easier to slowly infiltrate than to make a frontal assualt, but they are getting bolder because they have made so many inroads in so many areas.

Men are supposed to look like men and women like women and anything that blurs that jist t'ain't kosher. Better to become Mennonites if we must err than to have a veritable free for all and chaos.

Ok, I will have to post this and see what I may have missed.

 

Well, I guess I got most of it and since Murph has put out a mild warning I will skee daddle and let be like it it is each to his own like a dog to a bone. We seem to like it that way though God does not have different standards for His kids. We need to figure out what His standards are and get with the program is my main thrust. That fact that there is so much "diversity" means we are not all walking in truth for there is only one truth.

Paul gave commandments for all the churches not just some or some individuals in certain churches. We need to find out what the uniform is and then wear it. We are soldiers, not civilians.

 

Maverick said,

"Laugh if you want."

 

Amen, Terry. I still didn't notice Mav's scripture reference condemning my pastel shirts. I think I will buy a pink one and put my picture in here. I am so ugly that no matter what color I am wearing you won't mistake mw for a woman.
Murph

 

I was brought up to hate the sin, love the sinner, with that said, I have a few friends from high school who have "come out". I still keep in limited contact with them. And I can most assuredly say that their *uniform* is not pastels. Maybe it was in the 50's, or whenever, but I just don't think that because you see a man in a pink shirt today-or any pastel color, that should assume they are gay. What a sad day, that we judge a person's heart by the COLOR of their shirt.

 

The latest "in color" for gays is red anyway. Before that it was purple.

If someone wants to think I'm a harlot because I wear jeans and Reeboks, have pierced (only one per side) ears and wear hoop earrings, and when I'm not too busy, color my hair (to cover the gray) and paint my nails (which are long and glorious now after years of biting them), they have a bigger problem than can ever be addressed on this board.


PS: I'm a fundamentalist. Not a legalist.

 

I don't think anyone here is saying it is an excuse. My point is that extended rants on appearance with obvious cultural limitations accomplish nothing exept maybe putting a new coat of paint on the mausoleum. Preaching that gives people a heart to love and serve God just might work (because it's biblical).

When you devote about an inch of cyberspace to that point and about 8 inches to the externals, it's not hard to see which you emphasize.

 

In my opinion (probably not other people's opinion), but I think that people who are so obsessed with how they dress, and how other people SHOULD dress, are more concerned with what men think of them, and not with God. This has been my experience with IFB's: These are also the same people who work themselves into a frenzy and talk about the other people not doing enough. The same people who look around on Wed. nights and take mental notes on who isn't there, so they will be sure to know who's spiritual and who isn't. The same people who even say out loud behind pulpits, "Well you can see who is NOT here tonight". The same people who observe the letter of the law without the heart. The same folks who turn a cold shoulder to their brothers and sisters, for no biblical reason, and decide to separate themselves, and spread rumors that are untrue. The same people who won't associate with other Baptists, if they don't obey all the manmade rules. The same people who, for all observances have a serious shortage of true agape love. This turns my stomach. If I ever set foot again in an IFB church, I'll dress the way I'm comfortable, not to fit a mould. I repeat here, this has been MY experience with IFB's. Surely, not all are that way?

 

Wygal, we were talking with our youth minister (age 34) last night at Joe's Crab Shack and he brought up the same thing you're talking about. He said he's seen so many churches 'legalize' people right out of church!

He asked ME if I had any idea why Baptist women are returning to legalism in such numbers when scripture doesn't command it. He wondered if any of the women's seminars are influencing the women to feel this way. I don't know how to answer him. None of the studies I've attended every pushed legalism!

Diane

 

I don't know why it's happening either, but I just know it really makes me almost physically ill. We are now attending a SBC, and you can feel the Spirit there, and see it in the faces of the people. It's so much better!

 

I'm SBC and I wore some brown plaid pants today with a cream colored shirt and my Sam and Libby ankle high boots. We have 'dress down summers' and every third Sunday is 'dress down Sunday'. We had a father and his little girl in shorts today. My 26 year old son wore a nice orange plaid shirt, dress jeans and tennis shoes. Hubby did wear a sport coat but over one of those casual shirts the guys have now. Not a polo but collarless things.

I sure don't get it! Scripture tells us we've been set free from the law and yet others chain themselves to rules and regulations and forget about the main business which is reaching the lost for Jesus Christ!
Diane