Topless

Americans coast to coast are campaigning to decriminalize "going topless." After all, most men enjoy gazing at the women and most women enjoy being gazed at. What's the problem then? The problem is that one's nakedness belongs to his/her spouse. Leviticus 18 carefully details the forbidden Canaanite customs beginning with uncovering the nakedness of someone you are not married to. God teaches us that it is a shame to expose your nakedness in public (for example, Isaiah 47:2,3). Any one that has come under the influence of the Bible knows that clothing is not optional in public. Even the ignorant peoples of ancient Rome, Greece, and China wore clothes. The more common practice among pagans was that of the Native Americans, African Bushmen and Aboriginal Australians who had no qualms about going topless.

The demon possessed Legion haunted the graveyard naked, but when Jesus cast out the demons, and the man was in his right mind, he clothed himself. Only small children and idiots are innocent when they expose themselves in public.

Television and movies are turning us into a voyeur society that has no shame in gazing on the nakedness of strangers. Young women working as sales ladies in the stores wear their blouses in such a way that they may on occasion lean forward, bend or squat before their customers or co-workers and show them their nakedness. Men with no chivalry or respect enjoy the spectacle. A man of honor is embarrassed because she has exposed him to nakedness that does not belong to him. If she is a maiden, her nakedness, like her maiden virtue, belongs to her future husband if she ever marries.

Many of us complain about the coarsening of what is acceptable in public. Well- dressed men and women openly use vulgar words as well as curses and profane language in mixed company, without apology. It is assumed that they are in the presence of immoral women and men. Maybe it is because the daring dress styles and worldly postures leave the impression that all of us are immoral and vulgar and therefore there is no need to restrain the filthy language. We routinely see their hips and thighs and generous portions of the chest.

Our faith is expressed in our manner of dress and the care we take to cover ourselves from those who have no right to see our nakedness.