On Modesty
Norman Jameson over at the Biblical Recorder has written a helpful, brief editorial on modesty. This is a dicey topic, to be sure, but I think Norman is right and that far too many women (and men!) don’t care enough about modesty. I have a couple of modesty “war stories” from my own local church ministry experience.
I can remember serving as a youth minister several years ago at a rural church in South Georgia. I was taking the teenagers to a water park for the day, and I requested that that the young ladies wear (and I quote) “modest, one-piece bathing suits.” This was the language my own youth group used when I was growing up, and I just claimed if for myself. The only person to complain was one of my female chaperones. She explained to me that she liked the way she looked in a two piece, she didn’t own any one-pieces, and I’d have to get over it. I eventually won the debate, but only after her husband urged he to be a good role model for the teenagers.
A couple of summers later, I was serving as the interim pastor of a different rural church in South Georgia. My youth director, who was a father who volunteered in the role, was planning to take the teenagers to a summer camp. He asked for my input about some appropriate rules (he’d never taken a group to camp), and one of my recommendations was that the girls only wear–you got it–”modest, one-piece bathing suits.” This time, the only person who complained was the mother of one of the teenagers. She griped that her daughter didn’t own a one-piece, she didn’t even know who sold them, and if she did, she couldn’t afford to buy one “just for camp” because bathing suts are expensive. I explained that Wal-Mart had one-piece bathing suits for around $20 that would be just perfect for summer camp. She begrudgingly bought her daughter an appropriate bathing suit.
My wife periodically mentors younger women, most of whom are collegians. Many of these young ladies did not grow up in a context where modesty was stressed, but now as young adults they are concerned about dressing in a way that pleases Christ and doesn’t cause their Christian brothers to stumble. Leah recommends Mary Mohler’s short booklet “Modeling Modesty” as a great resource for women who want to think biblically about modesty. “Modeling Modesty” can be downloaded for free from Southern Seminary’s website.
7 Responses to “On Modesty”
Leave a Reply
Nathan A. Finn serves as Associate Professor of Historical Theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He's a husband, father, elder, baseball enthusiast, and Broadway musical fan. He's still trying to figure out why we drive on parkways and park on driveways.
Luckily I haven’t had any students, parents or chaperones challenge my “modest one-piece” rule. Even so, for the mothers or daughters who don’t want to spend money on buying a one-piece suit, I give the option of wearing a dark t-shirt over the two-piece. It has worked well.
Such an important topic!
The Beauty of Modesty: Cultivating Virtue in the Face of a Vulgar Culture, by David and Diane Vaughan is a good book.
Aaron,
I’ve also done the dark t-shirt thing, but it was for young ladies who “forgot” to pack their one-piece bathing suits. I didn’t give the option up-front.
Ray,
Thanks for the book suggestion.
The Mahaney ladies at http://www.girltalkhome.com also have a good resource entitled “Modesty Heart Check” that can be found in PDF form here: http://girltalk.blogs.com/girltalk/files/modesty_heart_check3.pdf
While it rightly addresses the heart first, it also has some practical, real life suggestions that I find helpful as well.
Thanks, Leah. If I’d have known that writing about modesty would get you to comment on my blog, I’d have written on this topic years ago.
Next topic: modesty in the baptistry for those being baptized in church plants – just sayin’…
Nathan,
Very important. One of the shocks of moving from the Muslim world back to America is to see the horrendous lack of modesty among Christians. I am sadly not surprised that the protests you received were from the mothers and not the youths themselves.
Charlie,
I don’t know about your church. When I was young, I was baptized in water. I’ve never seen someone baptized in the plants.