| The CROWN of CHRIST - Understanding the Times in the Light of Scripture |
| The CROWN of CHRIST - Understanding the Times in the Light of Scripture |
ARCHIVE - May 2008
"Hannah Montana" is a sad
reflection on our godless culture.
"Hannah Montana" is a sad
reflection on our godless culture.
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Miley Cyrus is famous for all the wrong reasons. Her father Billy Ray is a
one-hit-wonder for his ubiquitous country dance song "Achy Breaky Heart."
And she is a star of movies and TV playing a high school girl who moonlights
as the semi-fictional pop singer "Hannah Montana". I write semi-fictional
because, if I understand correctly, she also tours and performs as this
character.
This month, the magazine Vanity Fair will be publishing risqué photographs
of this 15 year old young lady. They have already leaked on the Internet and
resulted in a controversy. Disney has required Miley to apologize; she claims
that she is embarrassed by "art" photos gone astray; her parents are
complaining that the people at Vanity Fair "took advantage" of their daughter.
Meanwhile, leftist advocates of social decline - for example Rosie O'Donnell -
defend these lascivious pictures (Larger Catechism Q. 139) as normal. Let's
all take a breath and consider how the church-going Cyrus Family of
Nashville, Tennessee ended up so "embarrassed". As the Bible says
repeatedly, we reap what we sow. One doesn't plant immodesty and peer-
fixation in the lives of one's daughters and reap biblical godliness!
A distinct decline in public mores reflected in immodest clothing has been
visible in western cultures for at least the last eighty years. Christians are
not Victorians. We do not desire a return of sadistic corseting and the false
femininity of walking with the minced steps of the "Grecian bend". But Miley
Cyrus/Hannah Montana hasn't been any model for Christian maidens - the
magazine photos are the natural culmination of her "look", not a violation of
her public persona.
The Apostle Paul warns us that women's fashion is not an indifferent matter.
In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with
shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or
costly array; 1 Timothy 2:9
The word Paul used for modest was καταστολη (katastole), which has the
etymological implication of a garment or garments that wrap around (stole)
and hang down to cover the body (kata- is Greek for down from or against) .
The virtue that the Authorized Version calls shamefacedness is, in our newer
versions, referred to as shamefastness, propriety, modesty or decency. It is
the character of a god-fearing young lady to dress modestly; her sanctified
shyness makes her keep two steps away from clothing that is gaudy,
revealing or lascivious. She is, one might say, "ashamed ahead of time", and
wouldn't be caught in front of the lens of a pushy magazine photographer.
The Scriptures also condemn the "youth culture" which treats peer-focused
immaturity as a social ideal. Christians should have a childlike simplicity (for
example not quite knowing exactly who "Hannah Montana" is when we see
her posters at the store) - but we must avoid a childish worldliness that
values the mirth and folly of our godless neighbors.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a
child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 1 Corinthians
13:11
Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children,
but in understanding be men. 1 Corinthians 14:20
Scripture expects each of us to humbly look up to those who are our
superiors in age, experience or abilities. This contrasts sharply with our
culture, which imprisons the grey heads in nursing homes and tells the
young people to emulate their immature equals - and to mimic frivolous,
shallow "idols" like Hannah Montana. God wants our children to look up to
us and learn from us His ways.
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them
when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and
when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them
for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine
eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy
gates.
Deuteronomy 6:5-9
God specifically instructs women that the flow of influence should be from the
older to the younger:
The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness,
not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That
they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love
their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to
their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Titus 2:3-5
No Christian parent should wish for their daughter to dress or behave like
Miley Cyrus - even if she is well on the way to being a billionairess. We
should pray and labor for our daughters to desire marriage and motherhood -
and to emulate godly women, not their peers.
Finally, let us consider what "Vanity Fair" actually is - a magazine
sarcastically named after the evil city of liars in Bunyon's Pilgrim's Progress.
In the famous Puritan allegory, the people of Vanity Fair lived for commerce
in empty pleasures, imprisoned Christian and martyred his fellow-traveler.
What believer would want to be interviewed and photographed for a magazine
named Sodom, Sin City or Auschwitz? But, sadly indeed, the Billy Ray Cyrus
family are Churchians, not Christians. Like so many Americans today they
have embraced worldly vanity, profited from it, and joined in the general
homogenization of folly and faith. When worship services look like pop
concerts, is it surprising that "Christian" young ladies look like prostitutes?
Of course, God will not be mocked. He will reward immodesty with disgrace.
Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and
walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as
they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: Therefore the LORD will smite
with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD
will discover their secret parts. Isaiah 3:16&17
Scott Rocca, Covenanter
one-hit-wonder for his ubiquitous country dance song "Achy Breaky Heart."
And she is a star of movies and TV playing a high school girl who moonlights
as the semi-fictional pop singer "Hannah Montana". I write semi-fictional
because, if I understand correctly, she also tours and performs as this
character.
This month, the magazine Vanity Fair will be publishing risqué photographs
of this 15 year old young lady. They have already leaked on the Internet and
resulted in a controversy. Disney has required Miley to apologize; she claims
that she is embarrassed by "art" photos gone astray; her parents are
complaining that the people at Vanity Fair "took advantage" of their daughter.
Meanwhile, leftist advocates of social decline - for example Rosie O'Donnell -
defend these lascivious pictures (Larger Catechism Q. 139) as normal. Let's
all take a breath and consider how the church-going Cyrus Family of
Nashville, Tennessee ended up so "embarrassed". As the Bible says
repeatedly, we reap what we sow. One doesn't plant immodesty and peer-
fixation in the lives of one's daughters and reap biblical godliness!
A distinct decline in public mores reflected in immodest clothing has been
visible in western cultures for at least the last eighty years. Christians are
not Victorians. We do not desire a return of sadistic corseting and the false
femininity of walking with the minced steps of the "Grecian bend". But Miley
Cyrus/Hannah Montana hasn't been any model for Christian maidens - the
magazine photos are the natural culmination of her "look", not a violation of
her public persona.
The Apostle Paul warns us that women's fashion is not an indifferent matter.
In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with
shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or
costly array; 1 Timothy 2:9
The word Paul used for modest was καταστολη (katastole), which has the
etymological implication of a garment or garments that wrap around (stole)
and hang down to cover the body (kata- is Greek for down from or against) .
The virtue that the Authorized Version calls shamefacedness is, in our newer
versions, referred to as shamefastness, propriety, modesty or decency. It is
the character of a god-fearing young lady to dress modestly; her sanctified
shyness makes her keep two steps away from clothing that is gaudy,
revealing or lascivious. She is, one might say, "ashamed ahead of time", and
wouldn't be caught in front of the lens of a pushy magazine photographer.
The Scriptures also condemn the "youth culture" which treats peer-focused
immaturity as a social ideal. Christians should have a childlike simplicity (for
example not quite knowing exactly who "Hannah Montana" is when we see
her posters at the store) - but we must avoid a childish worldliness that
values the mirth and folly of our godless neighbors.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a
child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 1 Corinthians
13:11
Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children,
but in understanding be men. 1 Corinthians 14:20
Scripture expects each of us to humbly look up to those who are our
superiors in age, experience or abilities. This contrasts sharply with our
culture, which imprisons the grey heads in nursing homes and tells the
young people to emulate their immature equals - and to mimic frivolous,
shallow "idols" like Hannah Montana. God wants our children to look up to
us and learn from us His ways.
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them
when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and
when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them
for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine
eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy
gates.
Deuteronomy 6:5-9
God specifically instructs women that the flow of influence should be from the
older to the younger:
The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness,
not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That
they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love
their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to
their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Titus 2:3-5
No Christian parent should wish for their daughter to dress or behave like
Miley Cyrus - even if she is well on the way to being a billionairess. We
should pray and labor for our daughters to desire marriage and motherhood -
and to emulate godly women, not their peers.
Finally, let us consider what "Vanity Fair" actually is - a magazine
sarcastically named after the evil city of liars in Bunyon's Pilgrim's Progress.
In the famous Puritan allegory, the people of Vanity Fair lived for commerce
in empty pleasures, imprisoned Christian and martyred his fellow-traveler.
What believer would want to be interviewed and photographed for a magazine
named Sodom, Sin City or Auschwitz? But, sadly indeed, the Billy Ray Cyrus
family are Churchians, not Christians. Like so many Americans today they
have embraced worldly vanity, profited from it, and joined in the general
homogenization of folly and faith. When worship services look like pop
concerts, is it surprising that "Christian" young ladies look like prostitutes?
Of course, God will not be mocked. He will reward immodesty with disgrace.
Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and
walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as
they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: Therefore the LORD will smite
with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD
will discover their secret parts. Isaiah 3:16&17
Scott Rocca, Covenanter