For a longtime I didn’t wear figure-flattering clothing to church. I figured this type of clothing wasn’t appropriate for the space and, of course, I had learned that my clothing could lead a man into temptation. So I tried my best to keep my skirts knee-length and A-line and my dresses flowing. Not until I reached my mid-20s did I begin to dabble in wearing figure-flattering clothing to church because I became comfortable with my body for my sake. I remember on one particular day of wearing a form-fitting outfit a close female friend looked at me and said, “Wow, why don’t you dress like that more often?” She asked. “You are bodied-down,” she said. I thanked her for her compliment, but in the same moment felt a slight pang inside. My bodied-down self and the bodied-down selves of many women in the church have long been concealed and subdued because of the effect it might have on men. Women have had to pay the price for the possibility of a man’s temptation instead of men learning how to temper their desires and divert their eyes. Women are told to be careful about the way they dress lest the man stumble. One wonders how many of these oh-so-vulnerable men are ever asked to stumble into a therapist’s office. It is as if anytime a woman puts on something that shows her figure, she must be dressing for a man and not for the sheer pleasure of enjoying her own womanhood. The problem is as old as time and yesterday it reared its head again when Erica Campbell, half of the gospel duo Mary Mary, released pictures from the photo shoot for her debut solo album. Dressed in a form-fitting, knee-length turtleneck dress, social media tongues were wagging and a pastor commented on it on Facebook saying,
“THIS IS NOT OKAY. Yes, you are a beautiful, curvy woman…but NO MA’AM YOU ARE SINGING THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. Saints…smh COME ON.”
Though many assumed this comment came from a man, it was actually from a female pastor, Apostle Stacey Wood, who issued a long response explaining her comment. That the comment came from a woman and not a man indicates the pervasive nature of the church tradition that thrives on concealing women’s bodies. This tradition reaches further back than many of us are aware of. There has been a struggle between body and soul dating back to Plato, the Greek philosopher from the 4th Century, BCE. In his “Phaedo,” Plato wrote, “the soul is most like the divine, deathless, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, always the same as itself, whereas the body is most like that which is human, mortal, multiform, unintelligible, soluble and never consistently the same.” For Plato, the body is subordinate to the soul, the former being only the temporal prison of the latter. His sharp distinction between body and soul was instrumental to the ways in which he categorized lower and higher pleasures–for him sexual pleasure would be considered a lower pleasure because it diminished the power of eros for higher things. Augustine, the most prominent theologian in the history of Western Christianity, was influenced by the work of Plato and many interpreters have read him according to this same duality, suggesting that they impact sexual desire—the body puts us in danger of putting sexual desire ahead of the higher goods. These teachings have all become a part of the Christian tradition and have weaved their way into the fabric of our churches, making it nearly impossible for people not to look at the body as anything other than a vessel for temptation and sin, with sex often being the sharpest example of both. The problem with this conception of the body, however, is that it is deeply in conflict with two of the most significant doctrines of the Christian tradition: Incarnation and Resurrection.
Good dualists that we are, we too often forget that the incarnation of God happened through a human body–the Virgin Mary’s body as the birthing vessel and the body of Jesus that she brought forth. “And the Word become FLESH and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth (John 1:14, NRSV).” God used a fleshly body to do saving work on this earth and though many denied the efficacy of this body’s power to do saving work, it did. This is not to separate Jesus’ humanity from his divinity, but it is to make a particular point that Jesus came in flesh to do God’s will, empowered by and imbued with God in himself. It is to say that the infinite God is united to a finite human in fleshly form. We also forget that the resurrection of Jesus that had to take place for fulfillment of his prophecy and our redemption is a bodily one, so much so that the narrators of his resurrection appearances felt it significant to talk about him walking around, eating and drinking. Incarnation, then, the union of the Creator with creation, is the affirmation of bodies—not just one body but all of them—and resurrection is their redemption and fulfillment, along with all created things. The new life we live in Jesus is through these bodies which we do necessarily give up as the temple of the living God. We don’t abuse these bodies by presuming they are full of temptation and sin precisely because we know of the original sacrifice that was made through Jesus’ body and blood. Our bodies are bodies built by the gospel of Jesus Christ and because of this our first task is not to judge them as one thing or another but to receive them just as we imagine Jesus would have received them, with grace and mercy.
I want to suggest that Erica Campbell’s dress and body are not the problem. Too often, rather, the Church has been the problem, allowing itself to be captive to a sort of Folk-Platonic dualism that disproportionately conceals women’s bodies—especially black women’s bodies (when they’re not being offered as spectacle). This has the result that the invisibility of the body has become a prerequisite for holiness, preventing us from recognizing that the bodies are holy as such, in virtue of the one through whom and for whom all things were created. Moreover, in this context the gifts women offer to God are too often not recognized as the good gifts that they are, but are rather undermined and tossed aside. Instead we need to bring ourselves into the light of Jesus, who does not conceal bodies but makes bodies visible in his life, death and resurrection, and who didn’t and doesn’t judge humanity by appearance, except to reaffirm the words of the Creator that humans, bodies and all, are very, very good.
It’s a funny thing when more of the focus can be on what Campbell is wearing than the fact that she is continuing to proclaim the gospel in her life’s work. She is still in the business of proclaiming the gospel through song and I would wager that this instance is not the first in which we have seen her wear something figure flattering, nor will it be the last. Therefore, we can choose to debate and obsess over what she is wearing, implying that her figure-flattering clothes are going to cause the saints to stumble which in turn perpetuates the damaging body and soul duality brought to us by Plato and his promoters. Or we can choose to believe that a dress is just a dress and she is going to continue to do good work for the kingdom, drawing women and men to Christ by way of her gift in singing. Long story short, it’s time to get out of Plato’s closet. That means getting out from under the philosophical and theological assumptions that lead us to stymie the good work of bodies, and that allows us to define a Christian woman’s commitment to the gospel according to the dresses she wears.
Ha! Interesting that the concept of modesty doesn’t appear anywhere in the article. Maybe the problem isn’t the dress or the church. Maybe the problem is that newly-minted folks like the author of this article are so willfully blinded by the “moral” code of our society that they turn their enlightened noses up at the eternal morals outlined by our Lord and Savior.
Plain and to the point. I love both Mary’s and have been fans of their music for.many yrs.
But when I see that outfit I think….CLUB!! We are to respect God’s house and my husband wouldn’t.let me out the house in.something as tight. Yes she.looks good and.has always been beautiful but all that is.a tad.much…especially for a “Christian” imho
She looks like a prostitute. Plus, she is too fat and not built for something like that. She needs to learn how to dress for her SIZE WITH MODESTY. No, men will never see wrong with that they want – lust, sex, and more lust and sex. What does she think she will attract with that kind of dress. look at beyonce, she sells sex with her attire – are we as christian women supposed to represent God and not the world. Looks like she wants to be like the world to me.
Your comments are offensive and judgmental. This is a major problem with current attitudes…telling beautiful people they are fat because they don’t fit into some non-realistic model given to us by the media. I’m not familiar with Campbell, but from the picture alone I think she portrays herself as a confident woman–a far better example for young girls than someone with your vicious rhetoric.
Amen to this blog post!
Is this for real? Is the advise of God Himself not enough to make it clear that modesty is imperative in the church? Or are we not accepting Scripture as the inspired word of God? When we gather together, it is to glorify God, to worship God, not to do a fashion parade or to display how “sexy” we look. The moment we wear anything that draws attention to ourselves/ our bodies, we have forgotten why we are there. Do you suppose God to be a fool when he warned about how we should dress? A woman who dresses like that is saying “look at my body, doesn’t it look good? aren’t I sexy?” She is a stumbling block for her brothers and seeks glory for herself instead of God. GOD WILL NOT BE MOCKED!
Maybe everyone should stop judging, as God commands, get off their high horse, and love Erica Campbell, rather than acting as God’s appointed modesty judge. Let’s remember what we’re called to do: love the Lord and LOVE God’s children!
I think we are missing the point. Ms. Campbell is not standing in a pulpit. She is merely taking a picture. Are we called to judge one another or to spread the gospel of a Jesus Christ. There are some Christians who dress according to the moral code of religion, but don’t have the love of God is their hearts.
Doesn’t matter where she is standing–she is still standing before God and will be held accountable to Him. Would she want her little girls to look like this? Probably not, train up a child and go that way yourself !!!
Dear fellow readers, for anyone coming to this comment section either A. without reading the article or B. intending to make some sort of argument from modesty, kindly consider these two things:
1. Anyone who thinks that dress is immodest is being absurd, because it’s about as much coverage as you can find on an album cover that shows anything from the neck down.
2. The article doesn’t in any way reject modesty as a moral or Christian good. You won’t find any of that here. But it does oppose any attempts to use “modesty” as an abstract and oppressive concept in order to subjugate, shame and conceal women’s bodies. So just stop.
I totally agree
“conceal women’s bodies”???? I have never heard such a ridiculous argument in my life. Modesty is a biblical concept for the Christian. Not just in church. Your argument suggests that GOD HIMSELF is trying to “subjugate, shame and conceal women’s bodies.”
If you have a problem with what the living God has to say on the matter, then your problem is with God. A person may wear clothes which cover their body from head to toe, but if it is skin tight, it might just as well be a nude with body painting on them. If a so called godly woman cannot give a good Godly, biblical example to other women, then she is probably someone to be avoided. It SHOULD be shameful to be exposed publicly whether you are a man or a woman. So trying to turn this into an oppression on women just proves the ungodly feminist influence of such carry on.
In spite of my better judgment, however, I'm going to try to help you out on this one, Gary.
Modesty is indeed a Christian good, and it certainly makes a claim on our lives beyond the confines of a Sunday worship service. Absolutely no one here is debating that. No. One.
But, contrary to what you might believe, modesty is not a one-size-fits-all (time/place/social group) concept. And if you really spend your time reading Paul on this (like, looking at the complexity of the Greek, noting apparent contradictions, etc.), you'll see that his arguments are a little more convoluted than you realized and that he even had a hard time figuring out what modesty meant for the communities he was planting and shepherding. (Some people, smarter in this regard that you or I, even think he didn't necessarily write all of that stuff, but that some chunks of it may have been added later. These are called glosses. Sometimes they're highlighted in your Bible's footnotes.)
Anyway, one big problem is that men like you and I throughout history have too often been the ones who have taken this very good thing—modesty—and determined its meaning for women (this is called a social construct, btw, because we determine it, you know, socially). And the thing is, we're really not too often saying much about what it means for men to be modest. We're unusually and disproportionately concerned with women's modesty. And if we're concerned with men's behavior with respect to women, we're all too often ready to blame the women at least in some part for being "immodest" or "causing men to stumble" rather than just holding the damn men responsible for their own behavior. In this, and far subtler ways, we suggest that women's bodies are something to be ashamed of. But they're not. Women—bodies and all—are God's creation. And, as the article states, God called human bodies very Good. But we've got a long history of saying implicitly and explicitly that this isn't true. Furthermore, and this is a big one, black women's bodies have received the brunt of this sort of shaming, because often black women's bodies are in certain ways more visible (for lack of a better phrase). Through the construction of race and difference (which has been decided for the most part through white ideals by a white supremacist culture). Black women's bodies have been treated as a spectacle. If you're familiar with Saartje Baartman, you'll know what I mean here.
Wearing a dress like the one above is not almost nude. It's just not. And if it were a woman without the particular body type that Campbell has, nobody would be saying a damn thing. But instead, this woman is being treated as a spectacle. People are simply saying "that's not modest" without really thinking through what it does and doesn't mean to be modest, and without considering just who it is who gets to interpret what it means to be modest. Furthermore You and I don't get to decide what it means for this woman to be modest. She has the freedom to answer this question on her own, and she is responsible to God. Not you. Not me. And if she needs help with discerning that she can find that sort of help within her own community—people who love her and celebrate with her and suffer with her.
By the way, you don't have to be a feminist to say all this stuff. You just have to follow some of the implications of the Gospel a little further than we're often wiling to do, because it can get pretty uncomfortable for some of us.
I am sorry Joshua, but it disturbs me how people such as yourself try to complicate the simple message of the word of God by insisting that the reader should “brush up on your hermeneutics”.
It is exactly that kind of self important attitude that the Catholic church used for centuries to convince everyday people that they can’t really understand God’s word. Am I a child of the living God? Yes. So is the Holy Spirit that dwells inside of me a different Holy Spirit who is unable to reveal God’s word to me?
Let me make this simple for you and ALL. If you believe that the bible is the COMPLETE inspired word of God, you seek to obey. If you seek to justify through vain philosophy or cultural or historical reasons why you should IGNORE God’s instruction, then you are a fool.
There is simply no need for discussion on it because it is this simple: Either do what God says or don’t. Obey or disobey. Submit or excuse. Receive or reject the living God’s instruction. Even a fool knows what is modest and what isn’t. There are no excuses.
The Bible isn't the Word of God. Like I said, Jesus is. That is in the Bible. You can look it up (John 1)
That doesn't make the Bible less important, it just makes it not God. And that's a good thing, because it was written not by people who could contain the word of God, but by people who had encountered the uncontainable Word of God in the person of Jesus Christ. It was written by people who were then, as we must now, WRESTLING with what it means to live in the aftermath of this encounter, of a life, death, and resurrection that disturbed everything about the way that they viewed the world. This means that I don't have an easy answer for what it means to obey God at every moment, but that the Christian life is characterized by a wrestling with God comparable with Jacob's wrestling by the river Peniel. Sometimes it will leave you (and your sense of certainty) wounded. Wounded and blessed.
All I meant when I said that you should brush up on your hermeneutics is that you shouldn't naively assume that your interpretation is untainted by your own social location/interpretive framework. When you do something as simple as read the word "love" it's going to mean something drastically different to you than it does to someone in China or a 13th Century monk, for example.
And yes, the Holy Spirit is given to us for the purpose of discernment, but the Holy Spirit is not given exhaustively to any one person. The Holy Spirit is given to the Church Universal, and it is the Church, together, across denominational and cultural boundaries that has to do the hard work of interpretation, which, thank God, involves unmasking our own prejudices in the midst of our lives together. INTERPRETATION IS A COMMUNAL ACTIVITY THROUGH WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT WORKS TO CHANGE US. PRAISE BE TO GOD.
The thing is, when a person says the kinds of things you're saying, it ends up making God sound a lot like whoever's talking (in this case, you), and a lot less like Jesus. And when you assume that the immediate audience of the biblical writers are people living 2000 years later, you lose all the context and depth and meaning of what it was that they were actually doing. And a lot of times you end up sounding mean and oppressive. I'm not saying I have the right biblical interpretation, I'm saying that it is Campbell who is responsible before God and her community to discern what modesty means in her given context.
Importantly, I'm not saying that the Gospel isn't simple; I'm saying it isn't just simple. A child can understand it, but the Gospel is alive and dynamic and it grows with you, precisely because it is about a new relationship with God, a relationship that is alive and dynamic and grows in depth. And because you're relationship with God necessarily involves being in relationship with other people.
And I'm saying the "gospel" many of us have been raised to believe in the 20th and 21st centuries is shallow and individualistic and legalistic and has little to do with bringing about Shalom.
I might sound self-important. I probably do. I'm sorry for that. I really am. But that doesn't mean that what I've said isn't true.
Oh, and you're sort of right about race. It's a social construct, too. But it is a construct that does have real-world effects and denying it only serves the interests of the privileged. On the other hand, your anti-Catholicism (which is really more of an anti-intellectualism aimed at a straw-man Catholicism) is sad. I'm not Catholic, but you shouldn't come for them if you don't know what the Reformation and Counter-Reformation really involved. Plus, it's not like Martin Luther wanted to keep the "whole Bible." Along with other books, he wanted to toss James, which is one of the BEST PARTS.
and you might want to consult Paul on that “even a fool knows” thing, because i’m guessing he felt a little foolish when he was trying to give women advice about head coverings.
As a side note: There is only ONE race…The human race. You’ll find that in scripture too.
the thing that makes me sad is that I’m guessing you’re referencing Galatians 3:28, which is an amazing and politically radical text. But what it doesn’t do is abolish difference. Rather, it abolishes the overdetermination of difference that causes (or is marshaled in support of) alienations of humans from one another. A Jew is still a Jew and a Greek is still a Greek, but relating to one another as such is no longer primary. Christ is. This means being committed to one another’s good and liberation in spite of differences that might otherwise divide us, but still celebrating difference as good.
I don’t have to reference Galatians, since I believe ALL of Scripture is true. As such I only see ONE human race created at Creation. So there is ONE race. But I see that it would be pointless to argue any point on here because God’s INSPIRED WORD ( Yes I know Jesus is the Word) is being filtered to exclude what doesn’t suit the itching ears of the modern day “Christian”. I will say no more on the subject.
who do you think want to read all this stuff – can you sum it up in three words or less!
of course, you would say that joshua…what man wouldn’t – more lust and sex. If she turns around, her big butt looks like a huge question mark – her body is not the right shape for tight clothes, both Mary’s are too big to wear the stuff their other big sister put them in !!
Indeed…
…To Joshua’s original post
I don’t personally think Erica’s dress is bad (it is tight, but let’s be honest, a great deal of that is probably photoshopped). Thing is, when it comes to modesty arguments it’s a slippery slope because modesty is just so subjective. NO ONE is doing modesty the way the bible literally says to and if you ask 10 people what modest dress for a woman is you’ll get 30 different answers. Some people think this means that women shouldn’t wear pants or make up or jewelry, others think it means you can’t have skirts above the knee, and still others think that if the nape of the neck and ankles are exposed that is immodest. I know of a pastor that legit thinks that women who wear heels are going to hell.
All this leads me to believe that as long as you are in line with the authority and wise counsel God has placed in your life and aren’t convicted by the holy spirit inside you and are comfortable and feel good in what you are wearing then it’s fine and it’s not my job to judge you (unless I’m part of that wise counsel or authority).
I think the real issue is not modesty as much as it is appropriateness. There’s a time to dress in clothes that celebrate your body and femininity and there’s also a time to wear clothes that don’t distract anyone from the function of the hour. While serving God or fellowshipping with other believers at church just isn’t the time to draw attention to ourselves but to diminish ourselves so that we can bring glory to God.
Reread that “bring glory to God part”. The reason we dress modestly shouldn’t be so that we won’t cause brothers to stumble, because we can’t control what our brothers think. The motive should be because we want to honor God. This is what we should teach young women. There’s a time to be sexy, but church isn’t that time. And as far young men: God doesn’t fault Erica Campbell if you stared at her with lust in your heart. He faults you. So instead of focusing your efforts on telling women to cover up (with loose fitting clothes of course) Why don’t you spend your time asking God to help you to control your eyes and your thoughts so that you can be made pure before him? You know, since that’s what you expect your woman to be. /endrant
Purity and holiness benefits all believers. In all that we do as believers, we should ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom and guidance on what to wear and what not to wear. The modesty issue came up because of the issue of lust. The dress is form-fitting but still modest but we should never do things as believers that cause people, particularly men, to stumble. Remember, these images are photo shopped for marketing purposes so we will never see how she really looks. I agree with the last comment on the post, pray for God to keep you from lusting sexually after women (or men) and see them as brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.
Nicole – you said one thing that really rang true – you referred to us as “dualist”. Out of 16 years of preaching, you are the only other person that has stated that other than myself. We have a tendency to place evil on an equal plane with God (when God is truly supreme).
I personally have no problem with her outfit – I hope her husband likes it (I have my own wife and she’s curvy too). We ignore that Christ was fully God and fully man.Tempted and tried in all points, but yet without sin. I understand the issues of holiness – but I’ve learned through the years that personal sanctification is an individual walk – who am I to condemn another man’s servant?
wow some of our Christian do the most judging, what the bible said not to do. I think Erica is absolutely respectfully dressed and gorgeous and God show’s all over her inside and out. The way these Christians are doing in the church now you might as well stay in the world…sad to say but they will make it to heaven before some these judging Christians …….she is covered from her neck to below her knees what more do you want, she is a young gospel singer not and old lady….you keep on working it Erica ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE YOU.
The world has done an excellent job of teaching you how to live! If only we followed God’s principles as closely.
I think the overwhelming issue with this comment board is that there’s no acknowledgement of the difference between “judging” and “discerning.”
Discerning: “Wow, that lady is dressed provocatively.”
Judging: “Wow, that lady is dressed provocatively. She must have loose morals.”
Discerning: “A lot of these Christians have very strong opinions. Some I don’t agree with.”
Judging: “These Christians have strong opinions that I don’t agree with. They should be ashamed of themselves and they’re probably all going to hell anyway.”
For clarity: The Bible tells us that if we judge, we will be held to the same standard that we use to judge others. And the Bible speaks VERY strongly about discernment and what we choose to allow into our lives, in our company, and how we carry ourselves.
Dress mainly represent a model with all its looking features fetching a great look.
I completely agree with Joshua and Kathryn. This woman is celebrating God with her work, with her God-given talents. I am a young woman, and I find no fault with this dress. In fact, I find it quite modest. She is not fat, she just has a figure, and is celebrating the beautiful body that God has given her, because it is GOOD. God did not create men and women to be ashamed of our bodies. EVERY KIND OF BODY IS BEAUTIFUL, not just the ones that YOU find beautiful. White, black, orange, purple, who cares? God has given her the body He gave her. As has been previously stated, the Holy Spirit resides within our earthly vessels for the purpose of discernment. If she feels that God is still being celebrated in everything that she does, then who are we to judge? Furthermore, many of the comments on here seem to be focusing less on the appropriate attire, and more on general hateful comments on women’s immodesty. When I am older, am married and eventually have children of my own (God willing), I would have no problem if my late teenage daughter wore this to church. If she is lifting her hands and singing her heart away, praising and giving the Lord everything she has, what fault has she made? If this makes her feel comfortable with her body, then so be it. I do not pretend to be an expert on the Bible, and I do not pretend to know more than God, but I know that hate-filled comments towards either a woman specifically, or women in general will win you no favor with God. As Kathryn said, God will fault the men for looking lustfully, not the women who believes her modesty is intact, who is celebrating her Lord and Saviour, AND feeling comfortable with her body.
Ann: I would also make the point that hate-filled comments because you believe a women’s body is too “fat” or that when she turns around, her “big butt” would be a “question mark”, are extremely hurtful to women. I am, as I have said, a young woman and i personally find this degrading to women, especially young ones, easily influenced. I have struggled with my body image, going through both anorexia and bulemia before finding solace in the arms of our Lord, and have finally come to terms with the idea that you do not need to have a “thigh gap” or toned abs. Having a curvaceous body does not mean you are fat, and therefore, by implication, not attractive. Women’s bodies are BEAUTIFUL. We alone were gifted with the honor of bringing children into this world, and porportionally gave us the hips for it. So what if God deemed that some women would be full-figured? So what if God deemed that others would be teensy tinsey? You should consider how your comments may make other women feel. I am a tiny woman, and food portions are not made for woman as short as I am, so I watch what I eat, but I know that no matter what weight I am at, that I am perfectly beautiful in the eyes of my Lord and Savior, and that matters way more. I am glad of the way she displays her full figured body. She does not need to hide that her ethnic spice and Lord have handed her a wonderful body, as long as she continues to feel modest in His presence.
And that is what is truly important in the end, isn’t it? I would much rather strive for modesty in the eyes of the Lord than society as a whole, bercuase you will never please the entire world. And you don’t need to. Have a blessed day everyone, and remember that in everything you do, give your thanks to God.
*Proportionally
*Because
Wow what an interesting conversation. Human beings have always use standards in almost everything in life that is associated with the lives of human beings standards have been apart of, so why not in Christianity. Why not certain standards associated with being identified as a Christian. In the military they call it conduct unbecoming of a soldier. So with that being said are Christians supposed to be peculiar people. You become a new creature in Christ Jesus old things are put away all things become new. That looks like the world to me.