A Fashion Alert                                          by Carl McMurray

 The news channel I listen to more than any other begins each segment of their morning program with a “FOX NEWS ALERT” banner. It is their headline for that segment that they want to catch your attention with. It may be old news, but they want you to pay attention to it so it becomes an “ALERT”. I have a “Fashion Alert.” No, it’s not a sale at Kohl’s or Elder Beerman. It may also be old news but I believe it’s worth paying attention to.

  In the seventies it was the fashion to raise skirt hems. The mini-skirt came into being and men started walking into poles and getting whiplash walking down the sidewalk.  You might think it funny now, but so many thighs had not been seen outside of Colonel Sander’s chicken house. The sad part was that it wasn’t very long before beautiful sisters in the Lord followed the popular path, even to wearing such distracting wear to worship. To be sure, most didn’t go all the way with a micro-mini or some such attire and we are not suggesting that.  What we are saying, however, is that many ladies were encouraged to raise their hems to get as close to those levels of indecency as possible.

  It was an amusing time and possibly the beginning of the feminization of the American male. It was certainly the time that pulling and tugging skirts down when seated became a national pastime. While hems went up, drawing attention, men were told they shouldn’t be looking and to get their minds out of the gutter. Talk about mixed signals! Some of these silly things that were said were efforts to escape the implication that such skirts were intended to get men’s attention, I’m sure. But I am just as sure that many sisters in the church repeated these things innocently, and in their naivete of some of the real differences between men and women. They just didn’t “get it.”

 So what’s the ALERT for? I’m seeing a repeat situation. It may be old news, but I believe it to be important. I thought for awhile I was mistaken and it was just ill-fitting clothes, but it appears that the scoop neck tops have become a fashion statement. Showing cleavage has become acceptable fashion again, even visiting the worship services. Christian women have begun tugging and pulling again, this time moving their clothing north instead of south. Ladies, it is distracting to serve the Lord’s Supper and suddenly find oneself looking down the top a sister is wearing. It is embarrassing to have a lady come up to speak to me and to see her grab her top and pull it up as if I was peeking down her blouse. If you have to tug, that should be a clue. You are beautiful, sisters, now cover it up. “...women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, 10 but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.” 1 Timothy 2:9-10