Every morning on my walk to work I pass by the entrance doors to a popular nightclub. It's become impossible for me to walk past the large red building without it affecting me — the cold, damp air that leaks around the edges of the towering gold doors fills my lungs with the smells of the club. Sweat, alcohol, stale cigarette, and a mix of a hundred different colognes fight to tell the stories of the night before. It is, in the best way I can describe it, the scent of Babylon.
I'm not sure what part of the stories carried in the smell has such an effect on me. There is nothing inherent to dancing or meeting new people or having a cocktail that strikes a negative chord within me. I, in fact, do all these things. And so it must be something greater, or deeper, or more important than all of these acts that we as "good Christian women" are supposed to run from.
Why should we run from "dressing like sluts"1 when behind our modest clothes there is a heart that believes it has to give something away before it's worth protecting?
What good is choosing water over wine if we have minds that believe we aren't funny or interesting enough to hold a conversation without it?
Why stop dancing if our bodies (or our minds) give into their fleshy desires anyway?
And so my lungs choke at the scent of Babylon — that place where satisfaction of physical desires and devaluation of things that have been declared holy2 supersedes that which truly matters in this life.
I recently attended a two-day event held for the women of STATUS called I Am Her3. It was the first Christian women's event I've ever left without feeling like all of my problems might be solved if I would just fasten an extra button and bake cookies for Africa. It was nice to hear that I could (and really, was supposed to) be both strong-willed computer programmer and wife. That I could get married without closing the book of my dreams and following his. That modesty was not just about giving our brothers in Christ a break from all that stumbling.
The issues that come up again and again in circles of Christian women (and don't get me wrong — they should continue to be discussed) are not solvable by band-aid remedies like covered midriffs and appropriate behavior. It is, if I may put it so simply, an issue of value. Not of some standard of family values and etiquette set by June Cleaver, but of worth.
How much value do we give our bodies?
Our hearts? Our minds?
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1 I'm crediting Jenna for that phraseology
2 Read Daniel 5:1-4, 13-28. And check out Beth Moore's Daniel study.
3 I begged the amazing women who put the event on to change the name to "I Am She" but had no luck. Ah, well… You can't win 'em all.
