By Ray Ferris
Along about this time of the year it has been customary for many preachers and editors to have something to say about the immodest apparel that was for years associated with “summer weather.” We bad much to say about shorts, halters, swim-suits, etc. There is no doubt in my mind that such was timely and needed. It seemingly did little good.
However, I am now faced with a problem. How can I be critical of shorts and halters; and swim-suits after mini-skirts, micro-skirts, see-through blouses, etc.? The clothing of the modern female has reached a sad state, indeed, when a Christian who is a teacher in the public school system and who has fought the encroachment of shorts as acceptable dress for years, is constrained to recommend them now! Why? Because he feels it is less immodest than the dresses that mothers and fathers send their daughters to school in today! Many school administrators fought a brave battle for many months to restrain such activities, but alas, the foolish parents sided with the children, and even to the point of taking matters to court. Now a judge with much less sense than nerve has the audacity to say that no dress code at all can be sustained!
Now what does all that mean? Why one dare not be critical of the dress (undress) of a fellow human being, because the law is on his side. He may jolly well wear what he pleases, if be pleases to wear anything at all! Many people in many places, from what I bear, are now pleased to do just that – wear nothing at all. They call them nudists, and I suspect they are not as sexually stimulating to the opposite sex as the tease that will expose almost, but not quite all!
Someone is doubtless saying now, “Preacher, are you saying you think shorts, and halters, and modern swim-suits are all right now?” Absolutely not! I am just saying they are no worse than some things I see on the streets, in the stores, in the homes and in our own church building that supposedly consecrated people who call themselves followers of Christ wear for normal dress! Many times I have heard people talk about modesty being relative. They remind me of grandmothers day, when the dress went to the ankle and a glimpse of the ankle was deemed an immodest revelation. Well, perhaps there may be some relativity involved. Somehow it seems to me that we have just about used up all the relativity by now and must be just about down to the absolute! Mothers, what kind of example are you setting before your children? Fathers, what are you allowing to go out of the house? Boys and girls, do you want to he deliberate in your efforts to arouse one to sin and crime? Read again, I Timothy 2:9-10 and Galatians 5:19-21. Study the word lasciviousness again. Are you helping in the solution, or are you part of the problem?
TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 42, p. 13
August 31, 1972