Recently I saw a beautiful picture of some people I care a great deal about. She had just given birth to their new son. The pics were obviously right after delivery. Mom and Dad were smiling and obviously proud. And why shouldn’t they be! What a great moment in life. (Wonderful Couple, if you are reading this, I love you very much! And I am so happy for you.)
That being said, this is a response to a couple of social media posts that I would have normally let past without concerning myself about… until I saw that a friend at a sister church intended to share it with her youth. I will share the posts below.
What I am addressing is a form or Plastic Christianity. Asceticism. We are warned against asceticism in Colossians 2:20-23
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20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. (ESV)
We fall into it all the time. Its the temptation that if we can just look the part, act the part and so on they we must be the genuine thing. But the Bible teaches us that God judges the heart, and Jesus, in the beattitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) shows us what kind of heart attitudes we need.
But the recent social media firestorm surrounding the posts by Brian Sauvé have highlighted the problem. He tries to address our oversexed culture, but instead just hands us something along the lines of a one sided coin.
Early in the post he says “Brothers, you have no choice but to live in a world where even some of your professed Christian sisters parade their bottoms and breasts in front of you.” When you consider that this is part of a longer explanation of the below tweet it is clear that Brian views the men as the victims of sinful provocation and women are the perpetrators.
On the surface, some of Sauvé’s exhortations make sense for us Christians. But the observations go no where near deep enough to really build up the Church or glorify God. Their is something to be said for modesty, as it is indeed true that the Bible tells us to dress that way. And yes, some dresses are designed and chosen to illicit sexual stimulation. But if a man is driven to sinful thought by seeing the upper part of a woman breast as she cuddles or nurses her infant, that that man is confused. He is missing the point of a woman’s breast. He is the one who has turned innocence into sin, not her. We must leave her alone and respect her as she is literally using her body to do what it was created (as God intended it) to do.
To call such situations pornographic as Brian does reflects more of the heart of the author than the woman fulfilling her responsibilities.
As for the idea of tight clothing. Aside from the afore mentioned intentionally provocative dress, a woman wearing a modern swim suite would fall into his descriptions as well. Yet even the most conservative fathers I know allow their daughters to wear these swim suites to the pool/beach. Admittedly some require a one piece instead of a two, but as for the fit, their is little difference. So I ask a rhetorical question to my ascetic pears, do you have wives or daughters who wear modern swimwear to the pool? And is it not more provocative to have such a sight live and in person in front of you rather that some ladies sharing a photo of them and their friends at the beach? Again, the problem is not the women enjoying a day in the sun, it is the men not knowing how to deal with their own thoughts.
So how are we to deal with it??? (That is the question our author asks.) Well concerning the women, lets be honest. If you are intent on calling attention to yourself so that men will have a lustful desire, yes this is sinful. Aside from that, we need to leave them alone – God judges the heart. What about men? Guys, ask yourselves, are you looking at her as a human created in the image of God deserving of full respect and care? If so it really doesn’t matter if she is wearing a designer bikini or an Amish kapp, she needs Jesus before you start thinking things…. The point is man or woman, we deal with temptation by looking to Christ in the midst of temptation, not by yelling ‘how dare you’ at the temptation.
Sauvé tells us, “You simply will NOT tolerate it, whatever provocation is given you. Be as radical as you must to kill the lizard.” Ok he may not realize it, but this is the kind of thought that went through Robert Aaron Long’s mind when he murdered multiple women in Atlanta. Robert saw them as a temptation and he took radical steps to eliminate that temptation. Now Jesus tells us that if our eye causes us to sin, that we are to gouge it out. But his point is not to go around blind. His point is that we have to find the source of sin and get rid of it. The source of sin is the heart. We need a new heart, a new spirit. Hence we read as much in Ezekiel 36:26-36.
In the latter part of the post Sauvé really comes down on women. “Yes, the world is full of women who have forgotten the face of their fathers. Yes, it is unprecedented in many ways.” – But no more so than the men. Men who would rather blame others for their failures and shortcoming and sin than accept responsibility for their own actions. We have all been told to consider others as more important than ourselves. yet we men have become far to slow to accept our own responsibility for our sins. Those sins cannot be addressed by telling others to dress differently, they must be addressed via our own relationship with Christ. Ask yourselves, “Is my relationship with Christ strong enough to help me through temptation? It my relationship with Christ fulfilling? Sin does not crush our souls because of what someone else does, but because of our lack of relationship and trust in Jesus Christ. No other reason.
Then Sauvé tries to blame the church as being cowardly for “refusing to rebuke those sins common to women.” But I would say the church has been more cowardly in refusing to rebuke the sins common to us all, in this case men specifically by failing to live out the fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:22-23. Specifically the long standing lack of self-control.
This post by Sauvé is entirely manipulative. By laying the overt responsibility on women, He is dismissing the truth that the Bible is very clear that we are each responsible for our own hearts. (Matthew 5:28 – The man is guilty in this case. Not the woman.)
As for Sauvé referring to women who meet his description as ‘any passing whore’…. This is degrading and judgmental of so many women when it is not possible to know the hearts of such ladies. A bathing suite and a nursing mother are not whores. One is my wife, the other is my daughter.
The real thing we must learn here is that we cannot blame the women for the sinful hearts of men. Each of us are responsible for our own actions and we need to commit focussing our our relationship with God. When talking with another, it is far more important to encourage a strong relationship with Christ. Let the Holy Spirit work on any needed conviction. We are not equipped to discern what issues of the heart need to be addressed first in any one person. Only God is. So trust Him to do so.
Here is a link to the original authors post: https://m.facebook.com/1086386382/posts/10220259209525515/
