Through our different experiences with people of all
different cultures and religions, I have decided that Christians in America
have really missed the mark when it comes to modesty and holding the purity of
women as a priority. I feel like American Christianity sometimes even looks
down on radical modesty (think the Mennonites).
This is something we have learned to really value in lots of
other cultures and religions that we get to spend time with, especially in the
Muslim and Hindu people. One of my favorite stories is from a Muslim guy
explaining the reason women are separated in the back of the room from the men
in the Mosque. He asked the ladies if they would normally bend over with their
booty in the air in front of a man. Of course they responded no. Then he told
us that because of the bowing involved in prayer at the Mosque it would be very
distracting to guys to see a room full of women bent over in front of them with
their booties in the air. “Because men, we are men, and we will look.”
Again, sitting on one side of the room with the men at a
Sikh temple, I realized how much easier it is to focus, and even if a guy did
want to look at a lady, he would have to awkwardly turn his head to stare
across the room at women who’s bodies and heads were completely covered. There
was definitely no lusting in this Sikh house of worship.
What awesome commitments to get rid of the distraction of
lust, by the men and the women. What if we as Christian men cared so much about
the women in our lives, especially our wives, that we would want them to be
completely covered from head to toe so that their husbands were the only ones
that got to enjoy their beauty? Ladies, what if you believed that you were so
beautiful that only one man should see how beautiful you are? Do you realize
that the legs you flaunt, the chest you show, and every curve of your body that
you reveal harms your brothers in Christ?
It breaks my heart to walk into churches and see so many women
being terribly distracting to the thing that hopefully we have all come there
to do, worship God. I think we have a lot to learn from our Hindu and Muslim
brothers and sisters when it comes to showing respect to women’s bodies and our
places of worship. How much more should we be respecting women’s bodies to show
everyone how much Jesus respected women and their bodies?