Prominent secular conservative voices repudiated British singer-songwriter Harry Styles for appearing on the cover in Vogue magazine in a dress. Both Candace Owens (also here and here) and Ben Shapiro confronted his masculinity. MSNBC defended Styles with the exact or identical argument used by evangelicals and fundamentalists for unisex apparel: “Jesus wore dresses.” That I have seen, only secularists have renounced this fashion. Zero of what we call the Christian public intellectuals say anything about it. I don’t hear any public Christian voices. A very low percentage of professing Christians mount any defense of designed gender distinction. Very little makes evangelicals and even most fundamentalists more angry than a Christian who stands for unique female and unique male items of clothing.
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On the other hand, the world is very serious about what Harry Styles did. That I know of, only Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro have said or written anything, and that you can tell by what’s being written from the left. The world has come to Styles’s defense with great ferocity (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). This is big to the world. It means a lot to the world system. It means almost nothing to Christians. Why? Christians stopped teaching and standing on biblical teaching on this matter a long time ago. This is in a major way because professing Christians themselves will attack fellow Christians for talking about what the Bible says on this subject. They will not defend the Christian who says what the Bible teaches. They attack. And then many, many just stay silent. They might be thinking what I’m writing, but they will not stand with me for what I’m writing.
Among the leftist values bromides, denouncing Styles is breaking the law, “kindness is everything.” Only positive affirmation must be given. If not positive affirmation, then smiling silence at least should be offered to be kind, according to the platitude. Meanwhile, God Almighty seethes in heaven at this abomination. He designed men and women. He requires support of His design. This is an attack on God as Creator, violating both written and natural law of God. God is not happy.
Harry Styles is not the first contemporary male to wear a dress. We’ve seen a rise in this trend. However, women long ago started wearing pants, the distinguishing male item. A majority of Christianity long ago capitulated on the biblical teaching of gender designed distinctions in dress. Very few Christians will tell you with certainty what is male and female. I contend that women wearing pants is as serious as men wearing dresses. If someone is judging these matters based upon biblical or divine authority, it must be.
On various occasions and for various reasons, including preaching there, I traveled through the vicinity of the San Francisco gay pride parade as I pastored a church in the Bay Area. They had several booths or tents for the purchase of the male skirt or dress. I think that you all know that when a “transgender” makes his statement about being a woman, he wears a dress or a skirt. He’s not wearing pants. Why do you think that is? Hmmmm. Jaden Smith, son of actor and rapper Will Smith, drew attention by wearing dresses in public a few years ago. I’ve thought that it was only a matter of time that men will start wearing dresses on a regular basis.
Most Christian men will still say that it’s wrong for a man to wear a dress, but they don’t mount a biblical explanation. It’s just a preference. They’ve actually been defending men in dresses for awhile. They say something like, everyone wore robes in Bible times, to justify their wives and daughters wearing pants. That’s their argument. It’s not one that you can draw from scripture, but it has the purpose of defending a woman wearing a male item. So now when a man wears the woman’s item, it’s that goose and the gander thing. What can they say? They’ve taken away their own biblical argument against male dresses or skirts.
Where have true believers argued against pants on women and skirts and dresses on men throughout history? They go to Deuteronomy 22:5, 1 Corinthians 11:3-16, and Job 38:3 and 40:7. I call pants the male item because of the language of Deuteronomy 22:5. A good understanding of the Hebrew of the King James Version English, “that which pertaineth unto a man,” is “male item.” It is more than just clothing. Women should not wear what is a distinctly male item. Men should not put on a woman’s garment. All who do so are an abomination unto the LORD thy God. When I write on this, it isn’t unusual that I get mocked by professing Christian men for writing on it. They want to make sure that they stand up and take a strong stand for “women’s pants.” This is very important to them.
I think that a dress or a skirt on men is still a bridge too far for most men, let alone Christian men, but the defense of that position comes from the Bible. We need men to repent of their capitulation on this issue and to join churches outside the camp to stand upon the Word of God. This is not just a matter of a gag reflex or a personal turn-off. This is about creation order. This is about the preservation of divinely originated roles. This is to preserve the family, which is to guard the truth.
Before men starting wearing dresses, women began wearing pants. Why do you think this is? It isn’t rocket science. You know that. You even know why? Pants are a male item, so they symbolize authority. I think this might be an insult to your intelligence, but when women started wearing pants, society as a whole opposed it, women too. Pants were masculine. Most people saw pants as rebellious for women. They were bucking male authority. This assumed there was male authority, represented by the terminology, men wear the pants in the family. There is less repulsion and rejection of a dress on a man right now in our culture than there was at one historical juncture with pants on women. Most of you reading this know that.
The dress that Harry Styles is wearing for the Vogue article is also frilly. It is not just a dress, but a very feminine dress. It is attempting to make an even greater statement of “gender fluidity.” If the statement was put into words, it might be, “There is no gender distinction.” A corollary to that is, “God didn’t make me; I got here through natural causation.” The postmodernist or critical theorist adds, “It’s a social construct.” Constructed by whom? The Male Patriarchy.
Shapiro argues Jordan Peterson style, assuming that the Bible can’t be used in the public square. He tries to go all science, like a classic liberal. He looks at animal life and genetics. You can tell that he doesn’t feel good about his argument, so he uses “moron” and “idiot” to add. We Christians need to come in and just say it. God wants male and female items. We need to stand on them. We shouldn’t mock them. God wants the distinctions, clear ones. God created masculinity. God Himself says, Gird up your loins as a man. Go with what God says. Honor Him.
There is, as you know, now such a thing as a dress that is more feminine than other types of dresses. For instance, some women wear “business dresses” that project a kind of authority. It’s still a dress, but it’s also indicating a work that also was once only masculine. Women jumped from the feminine dress to the business dress to the pant suit. Each of these steps were moving away from a God-ordained appearance and role.
Secular conservatives should not be the ones, or at least the only ones, saying something about the perversion divine designed distinctions between gender. Ben Shapiro makes an argument, “It’s just stupid!” He’s saying something. It’s stupid. That isn’t a good argument, but he’s saying something. This is an intelligent man. We need to bring the biblical argument to the public square. It is true. It is science. It is necessary. Join in this.
This ties in with your other article on perennialism. The religion and values of modern day explicitly rejects the Bible except in its modern, watered down and pliable form wherein everyone accepts that it has mistakes in it, that allows the people to take all of the positive aspects of the gospel without taking any of the difficult to accept, or what they see as negative aspects.
To them it is all something made by the people, for the people. It started with higher criticism, and soon after this gained prestige for itself, people's thinking started to be changed. They all started becoming more relativist.
This thinking shows in the behavior, because whenever any part of the law that Christ established becomes in any way politically divisive or unpopular politically, it is thrown out and anyone who stands for those things is attacked as "making things harder for everyone else." This is what you would expect from a relativist perennialist, who takes all the things he thinks as positive from the gospel and cans the rest, using relativism as the broom to sweep every inconvenient truth under the rug. He has made something else his own final authority, usually the popular will and favor of the world at large. Big crowds means approval and success in his mind – they justify themselves before men, but God knows them and what is highly esteemed amongst men is abomination in the sight of God. And so, after all of this, sodomites will continue their campaign to gain access to every country in the world, in order to predate and abuse the children in it with utter impunity.
Of the three laws, the law of Christ, the law of Moses and the natural law, sodomites are those which violate the oldest of the three. See Romans 1. And it is little surprise they are to be found among the groups that invert the other two. All of this stuff, the feminism and critical theory, the "liberating tolerance", all of it is connected with the sodomites working in the shadows pushing the country one step at a time towards their vision.
And you can block my comment, it's ok. But I am not afraid of them anymore, they cannot scare me or anyone away from speaking the truth, there is nothing any man can do to our immortal souls. Let them come find me if that is the case.
If you support feminism, or eco-marxism, neoliberalism, progressivism, or the like, just know that you are very unfortunately signalling that, as long as you receive a cut of the profits from these things, you are ok with dismembered body parts of partially born but aborted children to be sold for profit to hospitals and other organ traffickers, which is what the planned parenthood officials bragged about on record multiple times. You signal that you are willing to look the other way as this goes on, not pay attention to the details and then have to explain yourself before the Almighty Lord on why you did these things rather than taking even the most basic actions, the most simple acts, to oppose it. No, you would rather bask in your own ego and the approval of others for the moment and tell yourself that the Lord is not watching and testing you in your life.
You will have to come to terms with why you chose to side with a crowd in New York and Virginia that roared in primal satisfaction for the concept of partial and post birth abortions. These facts are openly known and reported, they are not myth. At some point, you will have to come to terms with this in some way.
What do you think they do with the dismembered body parts of what could have been your second or third cousin after they sold them to the organ traffickers? Maybe Gеоrgе Sоrоs uses them for his blood transfusions. Who knows. You, progressive, seemingly could not care less what happens to them, as long as you personally get your cut of the profits while remaining firmly seated on your sofa getting the latest infotainment, from the latest stimulus package that was doled out by a now single party authoritarian state that cancelled the election, all thanks to the purposeful failures of eco-marxism and its self-centered, self-satisfying heathenistic gaia worship, and rain man promises to make the weather get better again through giving to green funds.
This is a reflection of some truth about what is going on right now. If you don't like it, it doesn't matter, because it is still accurate and true and a reflection of the fate that awaits a lot of people who are hanging in the balance right now but will feel the weight of their decisions for an eternity in the direction either of forgiveness, grace and being right with the Lord or else breaking every safeguard God has set up in your life and driving out beyond the point of no return that does exist, on the wide path to destruction as a means of asserting yourself and "being different." Yes, you can assert your identity in this way, but it is a way of neverending sin and torment waits on the end of that path. I am praying that the reader chose the right way, which leads a different direction than that way.
Anonymous,
When you say that you're not afraid of them anymore, I don't know who "them" is and I don't know who you are. As long as you are anonymous, there's nothing to be afraid of. It's easy to be strong and anonymous. Maybe you meant to leave your name, and just forgot. Maybe you're someone whom you think I should know by writing style or everyone else should know because of the style of writing.
“I don't know who "them" is and I don't know who you are.”
You can see my IP. But what is up with this comment? Do you not agree with me on these things? Come on now. Surely you agree with these things.
Amen. The distinction between male and female is a created design/order that rebellious mankind wants to overthrow, as prophesied in Psalm 2.
It is unpopular to teach the male female distinction in regard to clothing, even in churches. But pastors and preachers should obey God. This is part of the spiritual warfare.
Anonymous,
Blogger doesn't show the identity of someone who writes a comment unless he tells you. I'm just saying that what you've written doesn't take courage because no one knows you wrote it, so that when you wrote, "I'm not afraid of them anymore," in complete anonymity, that is to be afraid, unless you are just afraid that someone knows that you read and comment on this blog. I do not know who you are. I can still be happy with your comment, which is why I published it. I'm saying that your comment that you are not afraid won't be believed by your readers, because you aren't telling them who you are. You can stay anonymous, but don't tell people you aren't afraid.
Tenrin,
Thanks!
Thanks for pointing this out. The double standard and failure to see the direct correlation between men and women clothing is remarkable. Ben Shapiro in his podcast on Wednesday I believe made a good point that in every culture especially in Bible times and the OT Jewish nation there was always a distinction between men and women. I am not sure if you heard his podcast where he discussed this but he seemed to give some good arguments from a cultural standpoint and how destroying men and women’s role will destroy a society. Of course he could have stronger arguments by using the Bible. That being said, it’s amazing how Christians cannot see the direct connection between women wearing pants, men wearing dresses and the rise of the transgender movement. It is sad and is part of Christians loving the world and loosing their salt.
Tyler
Tyler,
I agree on Shapiro. I didn't want to misrepresent him. I think I know his positions and how he thinks and I didn't think he was making a scriptural position per se, and that is something we need to do, is make a scriptural one, like we're for God, representing God. I don't think we need to lead with it. I've not brought it up in my first five months of starting this church, but I also am not silent on it when the point comes to the surface. I've read you enough to understand you, I think. You like a Christian worldview too. It might be called, living by faith.