Quote:
Originally Posted by Archlute  Quote:
Originally Posted by raekwon Quote:
Originally Posted by Archlute
The culture which prevailed before relatively recent times when it then became marginally acceptable for men to wear women's jewelry in public.
| Really? That's "our" culture?
I don't buy it. Actually, I have a tough time buying any sort of argument that claims that we live in some sort of singular culture. The fact is, culture is splintered along all sorts of lines -- generational, geographic, racial, gender, political, affinity, and the list can go on and on. Now, of course, Christ reigns over all cultures, and scriptural commands and mandates apply to all cultures at all times, but . . . I have a really tough time believing that whether or not a man "should" wear earrings if he wishes is one of them.
Also, the idea that earrings are necessarily "women's jewelry" doesn't make much sense to me. It's like saying denim jeans are necessarily "men's pants". There are certainly some earrings that are designed for women, but there are others designed for men. | Really? Show me a consensus or practice among any major social class or ethnic group in America before the post-WWII era that would have accepted men's earrings.
I think you are reading too much cheap revisionist history of the kind they push in modern university studies now that loves to revel in a the supposed diversity and pluriformity of culture/sexual orientation/etc in reconstructing historic circumstances and events. I remember taking a class on 19th century Western America whose main thesis was that prostitutes (that class of women who are "woefully under appreciated and under represented in our history books") were nearly the sole reason that the "West was Won". Just because one may have been born or raised in a modern American city where the culture has fragmented, and in many cases degenerated, does not mean that things have always been that way for large portions of the population, revisionist history aside.
If you want to talk about "your" culture, could you really say that your forebears going multiple generations back would have accepted the wearing of what was commonly understood to be women's jewelry by the men of their day? I really doubt you could substantiate that.
To be honest, I would most likely not give a positive vote at presbytery for a potential minister or ruling elder who wore earrings, because I believe that such dress represents a personal vanity, and a lack of sober-mindedness and respectability which is required by the Apostle Paul in emplacing elders among the congregation. Feel free to disagree, but these things are important in the representation of the church to the world, according to apostolic command, and no amount of post modern/emergent church/cultural relativism will change that. |
Wow. I guess it's a good thing that God knew who and who not to put on the examining commission when He called me to the office of Elder!
I find it interesting that, substituting a few words in that last paragraph, you've used a very similar argument to those who'd say that they'd never vote for an elder who used alcohol. VERY similar. But I don't know; maybe you feel the same way about alcohol.
Anyway, it's pretty obvious that we're going to disagree fundamentally on a few things, but I just want to make sure we're actually addressing what the other is saying instead of "arguing around" eachother. You've been a Christian for almost as long as I've been
alive, so I definitely appreciate your wisdom and education. Still, it seems to me that we're talking about different things when we talk about "culture". For instance, I'm having a tough time understanding where the pre-WWII era even figures in this discussion. Sure, it's interesting from an historical perspective, but we're talking about the propriety of earrings on men in 2008, in "our culture". All I'm saying is that the minute one says "our culture" in a discussion like this, anything after that point is useless without an agreed-upon definition of what "our culture" is. For instance, there's a huge difference in the culture that my church largely ministers to (urban, younger, bohemian, artistic, highly educated) and the culture that our sister PCA church fifteen miles away ministers to (suburban, older, more "working class", but also educated). We have a common bond in Christ and in the reformed faith, but the cultures of our churches are not the same. I'm not about to tell their elders that their khakis and polos or suits and ties are inappropriate (unless in jest). Neither should they tell ours that our jeans, goatees, Converse sneakers, or earrings are.
[I'm honestly a bit baffled that this is being argued as an issue of "morality" (unless, of course, we're going the "everything is an issue of morality" route).]