purity

The Christian Bares of Trillium Lake?

Laid bare: a lake, a mountain, and other handiwork of the Creator

Yesterday we had a family outing to Trillium Lake. (It was a birthday thing.)

Summer Bare Country
Summer Bare Country

This morning early I thought back on the other vistas of God’s creation which awaited us there. And I wondered…

  • How many of those nude legs belong to women worship team members?
  • How many of those barely covered breasts have the heart of a female Sunday School teacher beating behind them?
  • How many Christian male eyeballs tracked back for one more discreet look?
  • How many Christian men wrestled with wistful wishes, treacheous thoughts, and deadly desires?
  • How much ache in the Creator’s heart?
  • Will His heart have any revulsion in church services today?

You could read that as me looking down my nose on fellow Christians or fellow fallen humans. You could accuse me of being a Puritanical prude. You could charge me with contemptuous condemnation. You could slam me for sanctimonious something-or-other. And you’d be wrong.

I’m not blind to the beauty of forbidden fruit, OK? But in my other-world moments I look beyond eyeball-grabbing displays and feel compassion. Read it all

Bill Gothard, Sexual Predator?

I ask because I don't know the extent of his guilt.

In my late teens and early twenties, I received a lot of teaching and encouragement from “Basic Youth,” so I’m very sorry about this:

On March 7th, Bill Gothard, the founder and president of the Institute in Basic Life Principles resigned from his position in the organization after allegations from over thirty women were made public that Gothard sexually harassed, and in one case out right sexually abused, these women while they were teens or young women.

I wonder what his side of the story is. Read it all

The Older Women of “Team Jesus”

Teach what is good, and so train the young women...to be self-controlled, pure.

I read a gutsy article earlier this morning about modesty alongside a proclamation of Jesus.

I say “gutsy” because I imagine La Shawn Barber has already reaped plenty of scorn and condemnation for it. (Hopefully, some praise and commendation as well.)

Here are some bits from her piece as posted over at World Magazine:

As we entered the park, I noticed a large group of people wearing matching “Team Jesus” T-shirts.

I watched these teenage girls with “Team Jesus” displayed across their chests and wondered why their parents, particularly their fathers, allowed them to leave the house in such tiny shorts and made-up faces.

I observed the girls out of curiosity, knowing that some of the men standing in line observed them for other reasons.

Plus, as Paul writes in Titus, older women “are to teach what is good, and so train the young women…to be self-controlled, pure,” which will not only help discourage lust, but also encourage the wearer to seek holiness.

So even though women and teenage girls can show little or no flesh and still be the object of lust, Christian women should do their part, even in this age of political correctness, to deter sin by dressing modestly and encouraging their younger sisters in Christ to do likewise.

Girls: Beware of what you wear

Generally, I can’t figure out people wearing billboards, especially when they’re just providing free advertising for some clothing line. (If Nike would pay me to wear their swoosh, but when I’m expected to pay them to wear their ad at not cost to them…)

But that aside, if a woman wears one of these “Team Jesus” shirts, where exactly am I supposed to look if I want to read the finer print? And how do I look there without appearing to be looking there?

Of course, I don’t think it best for Christian women to wear T-shirts. And if consistency requires that Christian men not wear them either, I can live with that.

IDKU

I didn’t violate you — as though seeing you exposed were no violation.
modified photograph of T

I. Don’t. Know. You.

I wasn’t looking for you. I found you during a Web search for one of my many friends. Now I’ve seen you — far more of you than I, who am not your husband, should have seen.

Did you mean to look sad? Perhaps you were trying to look seductive or at least inviting, kneeling upright there in the grass.

But what’s striking and attention-grabbing to me is your face, not the rest of your body. You look sad, T. (I’d make this even more personal by using your name, but then I would be helping the curious and the perverts to find you.)

Do you look sad because you know…

  • you are giving away your “scenic views” so cheaply?
  • you have little prime “real estate” left covered and unexploited?
  • you are demeaning yourself for little return?
  • you two have turned you into mere eye candy for lustful men?
  • you won’t get the affection your soul craves?
  • you should be protecting your modesty and your value?
  • the photographer should have protected your modesty and your value?

Or is the sad face your attempt to sear an unspoken truth into the eyes and conscience of the photog and all other lookers? Read it all

To What Kingdom Does That Belong?

I don’t watch TV or movies. Not even on my computer via the Internet. But I could. And I could become addicted to both. I know. (I even could become addicted to blogging, Facebook, and other social media.)

Maybe you don’t watch TV or movies either.

But we read. (Well, some.)

This applies to our reading as well as our viewing:

We went to Blockbuster and rented one season’s worth of episodes.

[…]

I overlooked it and kept watching for the laughs. […] The feeling lingered and I went to bed feeling oddly soiled. I prayed. I sought God’s perspective on the TV show. I made two lists […]

Here were the reasons in my second list for not continuing to watch the TV series:

  1. The dirty feeling afterward.
  2. We are told to “walk as Jesus walked” (1 John 2:6), and I can’t picture Jesus sitting on a couch, passively taking in the sights I took in.
  3. Scripture says, “Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves” (Romans 14:22). I am not at all sure that I would not judge myself someday for approving of watching that show.
  4. God commands us to love Him with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. I don’t believe that finding enjoyment or interest in that TV show meets that bar.

Then I fell asleep. In the middle of the night I woke up with a single word in my mind, a word that is not part of my working vocabulary: “abomination.”

What would that list do to our (you know, my and your) viewing and reading?

What would these do?

“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11).

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14).

“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you” (2 Corinthians 6:17).

Oh, and please read the full version of the article above: Andrée Seu’s piece at World Magazine, Abomination.

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Above all, love God!