The View From My Fishbowl

I was going to start my skirts-only post today, but I feel some more needs to be said. I’ve already written a preface, so consider this the post-preface preface. Or the preface addendum. Or the post-preface pre-post.

Just bringing this subject up is probably going to open me up to all sorts of interesting comments and emails. (Probably from the same people who have sent ‘interesting’ emails in the past!) So let me just start out by saying this is simply an explanation of why I am a skirts-only lady. I am not trying to persuade anyone to my way of thinking, but simply stating the why behind my belief. I obviously think that I am right (don’t we all?…otherwise we wouldn’t believe the way that we do!) but I realize that other people believe other things. I have dear, dear friends who believe just like me in every other respect, and they wear pants. I don’t condemn them for this. I still hang out with them and count them as some of my dearest friends. Believing in skirts-only is a very personal thing for me and I would never try to push that belief on anyone else.

Now, that being said, sometimes the position of a pastor as the leader of a church can be misconstrued. As a church, sometimes rules have to be made about the dress of women at church functions and the dress of those in positions of authority. The church cannot dictate how you dress in your home. But the church does have the authority to dictate how you dress at church. (Let me add here that if you visit our church, proper dress is something that we expect out of our members. As a visitor, you would not be humiliated. There was a rumor going around a couple years ago that we made ladies wear paper skirts if they came to church in pants. That is absolutely FALSE. We never have done that and never will.) If you are in a position of authority (a pastor, a songleader, a Sunday school teacher) within that church, you take on a greater responsibility in conduct and appearance than a normal church member would. When the church has to step in and say something about a woman’s dress, suddenly that makes the pastor look like the bad guy. (For some reason, when speaking of the issue of dress standards, emotions get out of control! If you feel your blood pressure rising just reading that last paragraph, think of this same scenario in the context of drinking alcohol or smoking. It is the same underlying principle of a church’s authority over its regular Sunday morning members and those in positions of leadership.)

I didn’t really understand this subtle difference between personal beliefs and a corporate body’s beliefs until a couple years ago when I worked at a Christian school. I, as the only lady working every day in the high school, received the ‘enviable’ task of watching for dress code infractions and then dealing with them. I have a certain set of dress standards that I adhere to personally, but the dress code that I was enforcing in that school was stricter than what I believed. A lot of the girls couldn’t see the difference. I spent much of that year trying to explain to them that when I came to them and asked them to change something, it was not because I necessarily thought that thing was bad, but because they had broken a clearly-defined rule. For instance, one girl pointed out that she had seen me wear the same shade of nail polish the Saturday before. However, the rule stood that the girls were only allowed to wear clear nail polish during school.

Sometimes rules have to be set up by organizations, schools, or churches that are stricter than what anyone believes who voted to put those rules up. This is just the nature of having such organizations. In the setting of a school, there must be a simplicity of rules, an ease of enforcement, while keeping distractions to a minimum. There must be easy ways to judge what is accepted and what is not (earrings no bigger than a dime, for instance). That is not to say that the person who is chosen to enforce those rules thinks the person who has broken those rules is a terrible human being.

This distinction is hard to distinguish, I agree. That is why there is often so many hard feelings if a pastor has to deal with something. As a church, a guideline may be in place for those in positions of leadership, and if a pastor has to address someone breaking that guideline, it is translated as a personal thing. Then the pastor is made out to be the judgmental, harsh one…just because he is enforcing a rule the other person formerly agreed with.

Yes, it’s all very messy. As part of the pastor’s family, I am often lumped right into that ‘judgmental, harsh’ category. Suddenly, if I come out and say I believe something, those around me who don’t agree with me feel like I’m being hard and mean-spirited.

That is not how I want this post to come across. I am simply sharing why I believe in wearing skirts-only. Every person needs to make this decision for themselves. My belief in wearing skirts-only is based on Scripture, and I am fully persuaded that I am right. However, it is not my place to go around pushing those beliefs on anyone else, nor will I. We are all thinking adults here. I trust that you have studied out the Scripture for yourself and that you are fully persuaded in your mind as to what you believe. If you are unsure, then I invite you to read along as I share with you the why behind what I believe.

Now that I am considered an ‘adult’ (when exactly did that happen?), it is interesting to note some of the questions I get asked about my upbringing as a child and my life now. For those of you who don’t know, I grew up in a pastor’s home. My dad may not be well-known on an international or even a national scale, but he is fairly well-known among independent Baptists. He has written quite a few books and has a pretty wide influence in missions and such with others who believe like us. Most importantly, if you know anything about my dad, you know that he is very strong on what he believes.

When someone doesn’t like my dad or what he believes, they like to say he is too strong. (Legalistic is usually the word they use, but when you define the word, that is not true.) This is where the questions start getting interesting. Sometimes they make inquiries about general life or specific situations, and I can tell they are just fishing for information. (Someday I’ll have to do a post on how to talk to people who are digging for information. Trust me, I’ve had tons of experience in this regard…and sometimes too much fun! Then again, I may not want to give away my secrets!) Sometimes they ask right out, “Do you believe like your dad does?” I’m happy to say that yes, I do.

These beliefs that I have in common with my dad did not come about because he brainwashed me. In fact, those of you who have had him as a teacher know well his infamous response to a question you may ask: “Why don’t you write a paper about it?” His goal has never been to just tell people how to believe, but to put them on a journey to discover the truth for themselves. Although he may not suggest me writing a paper when I ask him questions, he might as well. I can’t recall one time where I asked my dad a question (relating to matters of doctrine or what we believe) that he gave me a straight-out answer. Always, always, always…he either tells me to go do research and then come back so we can discuss or if the situation is more urgent (if I need an answer a bit sooner so a decision can be made), he begins asking questions to make me think about it.

At first this frustrated me. Here I was, the daughter of the pastor, and half the time I didn’t even know why we believed what we believed. (Which really was my own fault for not always paying attention in church, because we all know he preaches on these subjects!) And if I asked the why behind the belief, I was not initially told, but instead sent off to do my own thinking. If after doing my own study and thinking, I was still confused about something, he would then gladly discuss it. I used to want the easy way out – Just tell me what to do and believe, and I’ll do and believe it! But then I began to see the wisdom in his approach. The result is that now I know what I believe and why.

Yet still, when I tell people this, they seem to get upset. “But you believe exactly like him! He’s brainwashed you!” Really? Can I help it if we come to the same conclusions on things? Can I help what the Bible says? What kind of convoluted reasoning says I should believe the opposite of what my dad believes, just to show that he hasn’t brainwashed me? But I digress.

The answers to all of life are found in the Bible. 2 Peter 1:3 tells us that as children of God, we have been given all things that pertain to life and godliness. (“According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.”) A person that studies and believes the Word of God will find not only direction for what to believe, but how those beliefs should be manifested in every day life.

I just wanted to write this as a little preface to the “Why I Believe in Skirts” series that, as of this moment, is still rolling around in my head. Please know that what I will share with you is not because of how I have been raised or because I am still living in my father’s house. It is what I believe because of the study that I have done and the truth that God has shown me.