This is a hot button topic that has been getting plenty of attention recently for at least 2 reasons.

• Matthew West’s production of a single called “Modest is Hottest”
• The summertime is in full swing and it’s plenty hot outside.

As with most years, many of the lessons on modesty taught in our churches, can rapidly be deconstructed to targeting the ladies while the silence around the gentlemen is deafening. This lack of balance provides those with less awareness or understanding just enough surface knowledge that they feel qualified to make extremely hurtful statements around instances of sexual abuse.

The hurtful statement(s) being referred to: “what were you wearing” or “what was she wearing”

The question of, “what were you wearing?” should not be one that is uttered especially in our churches. Unfortunately, it has been heard far too many times. What an individual was wearing has nothing to do with another individuals decision to instigate a sexual assault.

Let’s consider what that question claims. It claims that one’s choice in wardrobe was directly responsible for someone else’s decisions. Have we not all learned by now that the only person you can control is yourself?

What a survivor was wearing has nothing to do with the fact that another individual chose to forcibly assault them. What about when the survivor is a child? Are we blaming the outfit (read parents) for what others did? There is no shortage of parents who have been asked what their child was wearing when their child was abused. What an incredibly insensitive question to ask. Unfortunately, this is one that will be asked by even the sweetest of people in a congregation that have had the privilege of being unaware of those around them who have experienced sexual assault who are unaware that 20% of those they sit with on Sunday morning have experienced sexual abuse.

There is a museum exhibit traveling around the country to different universities debunking the myth that what an individual wears has anything to do with sexual assault. Sure, some of the outfits in the exhibit could inspire the typical sermon on modesty, but many others would have been approved by a preacher should his daughter have been dressed in a similar outfit. The thought that what someone was wearing when assaulted was the cause of the assault needs to be done away with in our churches. An assault has NOTHING to do with what someone was wearing, it has far more to do with what was going on in the perpetrator’s mind.

Could it be that our churches have been horribly imbalanced in how modesty is taught? Where are the lessons focused on the inward issues that deal with modesty AND thought life been? Where have the lessons regarding “taking our thoughts captive” (2 Cor 10:5) been? Where have the lessons been to the men on what are they teaching their sons? Where are the lessons discussing appropriate thought life for the Christian male?

There is a place for balance in the teaching that goes on in our churches regarding modesty because it is both an internal and external issue. There is room to teach on thought life and external modesty. One addresses the external and the other addresses arguably the more hidden and important internal practices. Job addressed thought life in 31:1 in the ESV the word used is gaze. “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how could I gaze at a virgin?” In Matthew 5:21-30 in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ addressed the importance of our thought life. “Do not get angry” and “Do not lust”, were statements where Christ knew the origin of the outward sin that man commits. Should we not take note that we must focus on our inward thought life that nobody sees as well as what we do outwardly that everyone can see?

How many have heard a lesson pointed at the men addressing their thought life? We know there are scriptures to back a lesson such as that up. Have they been heard as often as the lessons on modesty aimed at the ladies? Why the deficiency?

With the statistics in the United States today being at a minimum 20% of the population having experienced sexual assault before 18, what are we telling the survivors in our pews? How is such an imbalance survivor friendly? It is not a stretch for a survivor to feel as if they are being blamed for what happened to them with such emphasis on outward clothing without discussion of what one’s mind is clothed with.

When teaching on modesty there is a lesson to be had for the external AND the internal.  Without balance our churches and families will continue to emphasize what our daughters and sisters are wearing without touching the corrosive thoughts going through the heads of so many boys and men who feel entitled.