Thursday 27 February 2014

It’s the Wrong Trousers!


... thoughts on modesty and patriarchy

It was all over bar the shouting. I'd finished my year of church visiting and didn't think many more people were going to notice my little blog. And then Mr Anonymous discovered my post about the Free Presbyterian Church in Inverness, almost exactly a year after it first appeared online, and it all started kicking off.

To describe this commentator as intemperate would be putting it mildly. So great is his rage that he struggles to express himself clearly at times, making some of what he's written unintentionally comical, as you'll see if you can be bothered to trawl through all the stuff he's felt duty bound to tell me about what true Christians would and would not do, wear or drink. Don't feel obliged, dear readers.

Thankfully, not all my readers are like Mr Anonymous. And indeed, there are other anonymous commentators who have written considered and thoughtful things and have behaved like perfect blog guests. Thank you, lovely people. 

Two interesting things arise from the whole coffee/trouser/haircut rant:

a)    the importance to Mr Anonymous (and perhaps to others in his denomination, although I will not extrapolate so far as to assume that they all share his views) of the outward appearance of a god-fearing woman, and the fact that what is on her legs or head is more significant than what is in her heart or mind; and

b)    the surprise expressed by some of my readers, secular and religious alike, that there should be such a dress code in any Scottish church in the 21st century (I'd assumed it was common knowledge), and that a woman's otherwise uncontentious fashion choices or hairstyles should draw any comment whatever in church circles or should be deemed to reflect on her character, morality, piety or fitness for salvation.

But if we're talking religiously sanctioned clothing options, we're getting into the realms of the veiling debate ... active choice or symbol of oppression? ... and that isn't somewhere I ever planned to go with my blog. Perhaps non-Christian religions are best kept out of it, since I don't have enough knowledge to comment wisely on the politics of the hijab or of tzniut compliance. However, the comments about trousers remind us that even here in Scotland there are some Christian groups that take a very strict view of what women should be allowed to wear, and of their conduct and their obedience to what a male-run church dictates.

Now, I'm all for modesty. It's been many a long year since any part of my body above the knee or below the collarbone was exposed to public view ... okay, maybe a hint of cleavage in the only dress I own (and can still fit into) that could pass for evening wear, but most of the time you'll find me fully buttoned up. If there was a shop called Frum Gear for Fat Girls, I'd probably buy my whole wardrobe there. But if I did have the figure to flaunt and I felt like flaunting it, I really don't see that that's any business of the adherents or leaders of a church to which I have never belonged, and I have to wonder how FP women and girls manage to do the gardening, play sport or climb trees while wearing a skirt, or how they feel when they don't want to get their knees frozen or their knickers revealed to the world on a particularly windy day but haven't the freedom to dress for the weather. 

I'm assuming here that that they're allowed to garden, play sport, climb trees and leave the house without a chaperone, but who knows? Now that I've started thinking about it, I'm thinking the worst.

If a man restricts what his wife and daughters can wear, what else is he stopping them doing? The FPs may have been following these rules for more than a hundred years, and may believe that they are honouring a tradition that is millennia older than that, but anyone who thinks that they're just a few oddballs and they don't matter needs to take a look across the Atlantic to the burgeoning Christian patriarchy movement in America, where quite staggeringly regressive movements such as Quiverfull and the Above Rubies ministry are raising up new generations of obedient Christian girls who will pledge to their fathers complete authority over their "purity" and every other aspect of their lives (until they marry, when their husbands will take over), who will receive no sex education and only the restricted curriculum in other subjects that is approved by their churches' home-schooling regimes, and who will remain in ignorance of their rights and of their capacity to do anything other than breed, pray and obey until the day the Lord returns to rapture up the faithful.

And their brothers are being brought up in the same households, expecting to lead and dominate and to get an obedient and unquestioning wife.

It's scary stuff and we should take it seriously. All of us, including the nice liberal churches who don’t like to rock the boat, should take it seriously.

A politician once said that we should understand less and condemn more. Mr Anonymous lives by this injunction, as we have seen, but perhaps more of the "mainstream" churches could take a leaf out of his book. I know that sounds as if I'm contradicting everything I’ve just written, but bear with me. What I mean is that, rather than just not being as extreme as the actively patriarchal, woman-hating, contraception-forbidding, education-suppressing churches on the right wing of the Christian spectrum, they could try exploding the myths that these sects and movements perpetrate.

And it's not all happening overseas. Only last week, news stories emerged about the misleading information offered to women visiting some pregnancy advice centres in the UK, and the issue isn't so much about their pro-life stance as about the tactics they employ, the lack of transparency about their funding sources and their unregulated access to vulnerable women who are being led to believe that they will receive professional and impartial medical advice. These aren't women who are members of the churches involved, but their bodies are still seen as a suitable site on which to stage a moral battle. The religious organisations backing these centres may believe they have God on their side, but since when did God require his servants to be insidious and underhand while they are about his work?

Churches who want to retain any credibility should publicly distance themselves from such groups and movements. They're giving Christianity a bad name, and "Sorry, not my department," just doesn't cut it as an excuse for inaction. But if churches, and individual Christians, keep silence and allow their fellow Christians to carry on unchecked, who can blame the secularists for tarring them all with the same brush?

Of course, some of the extremists are not devious or dangerous single-issue campaigners. Some of them are just outspoken trouser-fetishists with nothing better to do than inundate other people's blogs with their shouty comments. Those in the latter group are pretty harmless. Nobody needs to condemn them; they condemn themselves.

There may be FP folk reading this who are horrified to find themselves mentioned in the same blog post as some of these other groups, but if it hadn’t been for an FP adherent’s extreme reaction to my blog I would probably never have lumped them all in together or found myself associating what could be dismissed as an antiquated and mildly misogynistic attitude to clothing with a broader agenda to suppress women's freedoms in the name of religion. 

Until now, I’d always thought of the FPs simply as a slightly less fun version of the Free Church – a bit odd and cheerless, perhaps, and to judge by my visit last year not very friendly either, but nothing to worry about too much. Now, thanks to the comments from one of their worshippers, I see them as the thin end of a wedge whose fat end can look very sinister indeed. 

Let us take comfort where we can, though. The prospects for FP girls aren't so very bleak. Some of them grow up to become members of Parliament and hold their own opinions ... or at least those of their party, rather than those of their parents. 

But hey, maybe I've got it wrong. A single, childless woman with a mind of her own and several pairs of trousers to choose from ... in the eyes of certain people who call themselves Christians, I'm past saving and nothing I say should be given too much credence. Meanwhile, the justified trouser-haters of cyberspace can be assured of their place in heaven.

32 comments:

  1. I wonder what your next projrct is going to be? Scott in Aberdeen

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  2. I think the way that that male church adherent that you mentioned in your latest blog "its's the wrong trousers" has been treated by fellow human beings writing on your blog Soul Searcher is unchristian to say the least. There is nothing wrong in having an opinion, even if you do not agree with everything they say or write. Murdo in Stornoway Isle-Of-Lewis

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    1. Indeed, Murdo, there is nothing wrong with having an opinion, but this chap got very worked up and angry and he made himself look foolish as a result. He was also quite rude, and there was really no need for that. Soul Searcher is a tolerant creature and would have relished a calm and reasoned debate with him.

      On the plus side, he started me on a whole new direction of inquiry that I might not otherwise have explored. And from now on I shall think of him every time I don trousers.

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  3. Soul Searcher after reading some of his comments I quite understand why he got rather annoyed. In a previous comment on one of your earlier blogs he was told by one writer to "take his bile elsewhere". Now soul searcher you tell me if that comment is christian or not. I do not think it is christian for anyone to say that about someone's honest opinion. Murdo Stornoway Isle-Of-Lewis Moran Taing

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  4. Hi Miss Soul Searcher, I'm not one for internet debate as I have never been persuaded of its merits and helpfulness in personal experience. Misinterpretation becomes quickly cemented. Important matters and distinctions are easily garbled. Tone is readily read into the brevity of it all and things get heated easily on both sides, this is wrong and not to be excused. I think that this has happened with your correspondent. I'm very disappointed really that you have made so much of this individual's comments. I may be over reacting but it seems as though you have used the comments of an unknown individual with unknown motives and an unknown connection to the FP church in order to launch a broadside against the church as though your correspondent was reflecting its official views. I don't claim to be doing the latter myself but I can assure you that as an elder within it we are very clear that salvation depends upon God's grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. It is my prayer that your search will arrive at this. Your soul will never die and is infinitely precious compared to anything in this world. Christ alone can restore it and give free forgiveness for all your sin on the basis of his death. This is the main thing that we emphasise week in and week out. Obviously we also believe that the whole bible is also to be taken seriously as the rule for our life in order to show the reality of what we profess. Kind regards, Matthew

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    1. Thank you for your comment, Matthew. You are right to describe Mr Anonymous as "an unknown individual with unknown motives and an unknown connection to the FP church". I would certainly not expect such wild comments as his to issue forth from any official FP source, but he nevertheless seems to have taken it upon himself to defend your church's views in this uncharted world of the blogosophere. As such, he is a de facto spokesman for your church, whether officially sanctioned or not, and I'm sorry to say that it's people like him who perpetrate the chain-up-the-swings stereotype, which I'm sure you're thoroughly sick of.

      I have no interest in launching a broadside against the FP church. I visited one in Inverness last year and it wasn't the best worship experience of my life, but I've been to other churches that were far worse. I would venture that I understand better than most people what the FP church is about (I'm a former Free Church member myself), and I can admire your uncompromising, whole-bible approach to establishing a rule for life ... assuming, of course, that the bible is indeed the thing on which we should base everything, and that's a whole other can of worms.

      The FP church isn't the only one out there that's institutionally misogynist, and the prize for that probably goes to the Catholics if the criterion is to count sheer numbers of oppressed women. But my point in "It's the Wrong Trousers!" is that some churches have made female submission and obedience central to their ideal of virtuous Christian life and that women (and men) suffer unnecessarily as a result -- Quiverfull survivors and other cult escapees, for example, describe what they have suffered as "spiritual abuse" -- and that all churches, including the FP church, are to be condemned if they simply walk by on the other side and allow such harm to be done in the name of their god. As it is, their silence is deafening.


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  5. Soul Searcher. I whole heartedly agree and associate myself made by your correspondent MAV from Inverness. He speaks perfect sense. Everyone is entitled to his and her own opinion. D in Glasgow

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  6. Soul Searcher. I know ur previous correspondent blogger MAV, as I belong to the same denomination that he is an elder in. He also prior to becoming an FP was also a "Free Kirker", so soul searcher has alot in common with MAV. Douglas in Dunoon

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  7. Soul Searcher how about you do a feature on all the false religions on the go eg Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Hari Krishnas etc James in Livingstone

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    1. Well now, James in Livingstone (and indeed, Douglas in Dunoon, D in Glasgow, Murdo in Stornoway and Scott in Aberdeen), I did actually visit a
      Kingdom Hall, but not the Mormon church or the Hari Krishnas. My year of church visiting is over, and at the end of it I'm still not sure how to tell a false religion from a true one.

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  8. Well Soul Searcher from an outsider who is not a christian looking in at the situation, I reckon if you visited the all the religious groups that your previous correspondents have mentioned I reckon it would not take you very long to work out which religions were false religions and which religions were biblical religions.

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  9. Soul Searcher Have u managed to figure out the difference between a christian believer and a non christian believer yet? Sorley Staffin Isle-Of-Skye

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    1. Sorley! Where have you been these last six days? I’ve missed you.

      C’mon, give us a recipe for a fly cemetery slice (& all will be forgiven).

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    2. Aw, give poor Sorley a break, Anon#2. He's probably had his fill of fruit confections by now, but a fly cemetery fits in well enough with the earlier arachnid theme :-)

      And Sorley (or Donald/Douglas/James/etc), the answer is I can't figure out the difference at all ... but I'm pretty sure it's got nothing to do with trousers.

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  10. Soul Searcher But seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33. To the anon blogger if you can call him/her that whose looking for the recipe for a fly cemetery slice I have two things to say to you: (1) I think you have got me mixed up with someone else as I AM called Sorley and I live in Staffin Isle-Of-Skye, and (2) Try a recipe book you will probably find the list of ingredients that you are looking for there if you look carefully over your tangerine coloured glasses. Sorley MacKinnon

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    1. A Shomhairle, a laochain, gabhaibh mo leisgeul. There have been so many uncannily similar Anon comments just recently, as you'll have seen, so it's easy to get mixed up.

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  11. So I see Soul Searcher. What puzzles me is why wont the indiividual who wants the receipe for fly cemeteries not allow anyone to have their own opinion? It's so sad!!!!! Sorley MacKinnon Staffin Isle-Of-Skye

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  12. Hi Miss Soul Searcher. Just thought I'd let you know, that I heard from a friend over the weekend who told me that one of your previous "commentators" who signed off his contribution "MAV Inverness" just so happens to be giving a lecture on the work of the Society that he works part-time for. Have you decided yet what your next project is going to be about? Dave Fort-William

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    1. Good for him, but if you don't say when or where you're not going to drum up much of an audience.

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  13. I don't think you need to worry about Free Presbyterian young women being able to exercise independent judgment. A good number of young Free Presbyterian church members of both sexes are highly educated, doctors, PHDs, etc. While there are some superficial similarities to Above Rubies in terms of trying to follow Biblical and historic Christian ways of living, Free Presbyterians tend to be involved in their local communities and their nation, and their commitment to the "establishment principle" (as taught by the original version of the Westminster Confession) leads them to believe that providing a Christian education is a responsibility of the government. As such, and not necessarily logically in my opinion, they want their own children to be part of this as long as they possibly can, and many tend to be very sceptical of homeschooling and other perceived tendencies to isolation, keeping their penchant for isolation firmly within how they organise their church and worship. They are mostly very dignified and reserved people, so much so that people from outside their culture can find it difficult to understand their way of thinking. In 1989 when they were in the public eye in the media over the Lord Mackay affair, journalists were surprised by their dignity as compared with fringe groups from elsewhere in the UK of apparently similar opinions. Every decade a number of people from outside, whether southern Scots, English, or from around the world, often with a much more vocal attitude, do attach themselves to them, but many move on over time.

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    1. Thanks for your comments, Peter. What you describe is pretty much the picture I had of the FPs ... until Mr Shouty-trousers started ranting at me. Perhaps he is one of the vocal minority who will move on in time.

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  14. I very much doubt he would want an audience like the one you are thinking of Miss Soul Searcher, as I doubt it would be an enjoyable experience if while he was speaking, he had loads of hecklers shouting and bawling resulting in them having to be ejected as has happened on previous occasions. As for ur "description" regarding the individual who happened to disagree with your views on FPs, to describe him as "Mr Shouty-trousers" would seem to any right-minded thinker that in your eyes certain males are not allowed to express opinions of their own, and have to agree with what you believe. No way Jose. D in Glasgow

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    1. I think he's safe enough, since you don't mention the name of the society, the topic of the speech, the date and time or the venue.

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  15. I do not know the title of the speech he will be making. Its 2moro Wednesday 26 March 2014. I DO know the name of the Society that he is speaking on behalf of but it WOULD NOT be wise to reveal its name or the time he will be speaking 2moro evening or even Where he will be speaking as there are various different versions of the Biblical Society on the go at the present time. D

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    1. Well, well ... both mysterious and exclusive.

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  16. Everyone in the world has secrets Miss Soul Searcher why should that be a surprise to you?. eg when all those who write in to this blog do not know what its author actually looks like do they?

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  17. Surely Miss Soul searcher you are not advocating that undesirables should have been allowed to attend the meeting I mentioned in an earlier comment earlier this week! Tut tut tut

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  18. Miss Soul Searcher seems to have stopped blogging in recent weeks! I wonder why that is?

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  19. Is Miss/Ms Soul Searcher no longer working?

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  20. Soul Searcher is extremely quiet!!!! I wonder why that is?

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  21. To Anonymous of 28 May 2014 06:33

    Is there a part of "Soulsearch 2013" that you don't understand or haven't been able to grasp? Perhaps you are in a parallel universe and have no concept of how calendars work? The blog was undertaken in 2013 and not this year. At the beginning of March 2014, Soulsearcher indicated that their year of church visiting was over. It was clearly a personal project rather than work and the outcome was made known.

    It's a shame if you were late in coming to this party, you missed out on some good blog reports which were the opinion of one person. I personally enjoyed reading the weekly descriptions and found the process interesting. If what you've subsequently read since you found this blog doesn't meet with your opinion, then that's life! However, that doesn't give you the right to try and goad the Soulsearcher into responding to you, which from my perspective is what you are clearly attempting to do.

    Perhaps Soulsearcher is follow the adage of never making the mistake of arguing with people whose opinions they have no respect for? As Franklin D Roosevelt said "there are as many opinions as there are experts". One could say the same of churches?

    Time to move on and find something else to think about. There's a referendum in Scotland in September; will u be following your Church's position on that subject?

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    1. Thank you, Anonymous. My year of church visiting is indeed over, and I will not be goaded further. I'm glad you enjoyed my musings. As for the other "Anonymous", I'm sure he'll find plenty of other blogs to read ... and maybe he will even write one himself. If he did, I'd definitely read it.

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