The Picture and the Thousand Words

You know from the title what this is about.  Pictures can speak volumes and at a volume that make them harder to ignore than words.  I wish could reproduce for you the picture that was in a flyer that came to my home.

It is an ad for hair removal directed to women.  It’s headlined, “Have You Resorted to This?”  It shows a dark-haired woman of about 25.  She has feminine features: eyes, nose, cheekbones, lips, and eyebrows.  Her face is lathered with shaving cream.  She has a razor to her cheek and is about to begin shaving.

Realizing that some women do have a problem with facial hair, recognizing that some do indeed shave, the picture still screams out that a woman looks funny in shaving cream.  I doubt any woman would who does shave would let her picture be taken doing so.

This picture shows the incongruity of a shaving woman, yet we are to think nothing of cross-dressing men.  We are to say that is normal, that is acceptable, indeed that is admirable.  No that is at best funny and at worst shameful.

That is the Greek word St. Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 14:35: “It is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.”  The Greek word is aischros.  The NASB translates it “improper” here, but “disgraceful” in 1 Corinthians 11:6 and Ephesians 5:12, and “sordid” in Titus 1:11.  But the Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich Greek-English Lexicon translates it “ugly, shameful, base.”

Doubtless the cross-dressers and those in sympathy with them will say, “You see just as some poor women have a biological necessity to shave, so some men have a biological imperative to wear woman’s clothing.”  I can believe that in this fallen creation that no one’s biology is perfect.  But two caveats: Biology is not destiny anymore than fate, the stars, or one’s upbringing is.  Second, the shaving woman doesn’t flaunt her necessity but seeks to hide it respectfully.

Here though the biology argument runs afoul of Scripture.  No one should repent of being short, of not having hair in the right places (bald), or having hair in the wrong places.  But Scripture does call the effeminate to repent of their effeminacy.  If we embrace the picture of the cross-dressing male or church-speaking women, we are embracing something shameful.

What do you suppose the latter says about electing women to a board and a commission that speaks authoritatively to the church? Kathy Schulz and Dr. Gloria Edwards were elected to the synodical Board of Directors, and Dr. Andrea Pitkus was elected to the CTCR.  Embrace this and you will be unable not to embrace the shame of cross-dressing men and the homosexuality that goes with it.  Historically the one always precedes the other.  Check out the history of ordaining women and then gays in the Anglican, Episcopalian, and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. As Judea refused to learn from Northern Israel, so have we refused to learn.

 

 

About Paul Harris

Pastor Harris retired from congregational ministry after 40 years in office on 31 December 2023. He is now devoting himself to being a husband, father, and grandfather. He still thinks cenobitic monasticism is overrated and cave dwelling under.
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