Surrendering her serpent seed

A fashion for churchianity

A lot of blog traffic has been generated on the women’s wear debate going on in Nigeria. Funmi Iyanda talked of her experiences, Chippla’s World covered the matter and various other blogs have put in their tuppence worth.

I really have striven to keep my peace on this matter because I thought all that could be opined on this matter had been said till I read a comment on a blog by “My Pen and My Paper”, something about “unless a woman has to repent and surrender her serpent seed” by one michellamarie (address unknown) – Errr! Serpent seed? This is well beyond me.

Now, that blog does have all sorts of opinions and women's wear in church, prejudiced and myopic as they seem because of some preconceived mindset as to what a wife should wear or what a mother should wear, beyond that, people are beginning to externalise spirituality as if clothes decide whether the Holy Spirit would to use one person over another.

The ascendancy of Churchianity over Christianity is becoming a worrisome development.

Dress the world from church

The whole argument that women entice men to lasciviousness and immorality is beyond the pale, the men are either weak-willed or not disciplined in their spiritual upbringing, it is the work of church to teach people how to deal with temptation when they encounter such.

Attendance at church hardly takes 24 hours of a 128 hour week, how do you protect these men from the sights and sounds they encounter on the streets?

The temple should and must also have an open door policy to all those who desire to visit to worship, it is, I believe the work of the Holy Ghost to convict of sin, especially, if He is allowed to do His work without being constrained by the teaching of traditions of men for doctrines of God.

Secular and smart

Amazingly, I find that secular establishments are better equipped for dress code imposition; I have been to restaurants or formal settings where a dinner jacket or a black tie is required. Rather than being turned back, the maître d' would discretely take the person aside and offer suitable dressing to accommodate the guest.

Nobody, I think should be turned away from church; rather, the zealous ushers and Keepers of the Modicum of Church Dress should after their subjective assessment of the poor spirituality of their quarry offer tagged laboratory coats in the garish colours to those who have sincerely come to worship and forgotten how to appear “decent”, then coral then to a section of the church where they can in purity of heart serve their God whilst being subjects of human ridicule, if that helps elevate the worship of the more properly dressed.

Losing our religion and keeping fashion

There is no doubt that there is need for church discipline, but who paid the greater price, the annoyed leader of the church who hates to see various states of undress or the lord of the leader who died on the cross for the naked and the overly dressed?

Trousers in themselves are just symbolic, well tailored and fitting trousers should be acceptable anywhere, the issue of them being men’s clothes rather than for ladies, borders on the hypocritical.

As Chippla rightly noted, these 3,000 year old laws of Judaism being applied to modern times is as selective as any would get because the selfsame chapter that rules against cross-gender wear also says people should not wear clothes of mixed materials. Leviticus 19:19 & Deuteronomy 22.

You only have to check the source material of the underwear, the shirt, the trousers, the socks and how all of them are mixed in different grades to provide different qualities.

In cultures where both men and women wear the same clothes like using wrappers and the difference is the way the wrapper is tied or held, this whole matter begins to border on pedantry.

Then, after some evangelistic success, would churches forcibly clothe the natives in strange apparel to promote seeming decency?

Leather and fur from the God Collection

It just does not add up, in the end, if we must be so fundamental about dress, maybe we should go back to Genesis where after Adam and Eve fell, God made coats of skins for them and clothed them. Genesis 3:21

Nothing said that this was some fashion statement or that there was any difference between what Eve wore and what Adam had – the only danger might be the church would be picketed by PETA when in fact the church has only opted for the prime example of the Creator, clothes of leather and fur, some circles might even find that quite kinky.

Basically, we should be smarter about this matter and more resourceful about tackling it, if it is so much a big issue for some, so far, it has been overrun with absurdity and unseemly publicity; the pastors might weather this storm but have done no good in proclaiming the gospel.

As for serpent seeds – I am not qualified to take on such a deep theological analysis or preposterous falacy.

References

Deuteronomy 22

Leviticus 19

Genesis 3