Plainness: A Biblically Grounded Lifestyle

Plainness: a biblically grounded lifestyle. You know, this term "plain" that we kind of throw around, we t I think sometimes, you know, we'll ask, "Well, is he is he a plain person?" Or, or, or are they plain? Um, and we it's kind of an in-group sort of language, but, you know, a lot of, um, uh, in the field of scholarship and so on, people who study, um, plain groups refer to them as "plain sex," which is always a curious term, I think.

Um, and so I've done some research about this whole term and what it means and everything. And the term "plainness," where do we get the word "plain," and what does it mean? Um, I think as far as I can discern, the term "plain" or "plainness" actually comes from the early Quakers.

Uh, and they were concerned about, um, issues surrounding dress, about, um, adornment, um, about pride, and, uh, and the demonstration of pride and, and of lust and so on. And so they, very, very early in their history, began to teach against those things. And out of that came a particular sort of style that they refer to as being plain. All right?

And in, um, the early friends also had disciplines. These were books which, um, were arranged by topic, and they had instructions to their members as to how they were supposed to live. It's they're actually rather interesting reading, at least I found them so.

But there is a section there is a little entry that has to do with the uh, it's simply called "Plainness." And this is from the 1806 Discipline of Philadelphia Meeting of Friends, though the actual, um, thing here predates goes back probably to the early 18th century.

And it says, "Advise that all friends, both old and young, keep out of the world's corrupt language, avoid manners, vain and needless things in fashion, in apparel, buildings, in furniture, in houses, some of which are immodest, indecent, and unbecoming, and that they avoid immoderation in the use of lawful things, which, though innocent in themselves, may thereby become heartful; also such kinds of stuffs, colors, and dress as are calculated more to please a vain and wanton mind than for real usefulness."

And then it goes on to say, "And let tradesmen and others, members of our religious society, be admonished that they be not accessory to these evils; for we ought to take up our daily cross, minding the grace of God which brings salvation and teaches to deny all ungodliness and worldly lust, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; that we may adorn the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in all things, so may we fill His blessing and be instrumental in His hand for the good of others." Now, you'll see embedded in this section on plainness Titus 2:11 and 12, okay, "The grace of God which brings salvation and teaches which brings salvation and teaches to deny all ungodliness and worldly lust, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world."

That's one of the key texts, I think, that both Quakers early Quakers used, and then I think we'll see also then that Mennites used also when it talked about when it talked about this idea of plainness. But, um, I think when we think about plainness, we're thinking about stripping down nonessentials.

Okay? We're stripping down nonessentials, getting rid of unnecessary adornment or adornment period, um, not, um, not doing things in such a way as to call attention to ourselves. And that's all connected then to the idea of pride. My I blessed, um, Cedric this evening when I heard that his, his, uh, children's lesson was going to own pride because I'm going to talk a lot about pride this evening because that's a very keen, keen point when it comes to what is plainness trying to do? What is it trying to accomplish? And in its essence, it's a battle against pride. That's what it is. It's a battle against pride.

Now, this evening I want to kind of look at a number of things. First of all, I'm going to look at the biblical basis for plainness. Then I want to look at sort of a historic, uh, view of the whole subject. And then I'm going to finish up with maybe some reflections and thoughts about our current situation and this whole thing. So, um, Titus 2:11 and 12, um, is a key text because we are taught that we are to live we are to deny ungodliness, and we are to deny worldly lust, and we're to live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world. And that impacts the jobs that we have. It impacts the houses that we build.

It impacts the cars that we drive. It impacts the clothes that we wear. It impacts the places we do, we go, and the things that we do. All right? And that's why I've titled this "A Biblically Grounded Lifestyle" because it is a lifestyle. It is a way of living. And I think that's very important. The other thing I just want to make a comment about is that, um, plainness is a lifestyle, but it is not a static lifestyle. Okay? It's not a lifestyle that, um, that doesn't change. Uh, it doesn't change fundamentally, but it may change in some of its expressions. And it may also change as it encounters new challenges that maybe previous generations had not encountered.

Okay? And so it has to adapt. It has to address those challenges. But the fundamental principles remain the same. All right? So let's look at some scriptures that I think apply to this whole idea of plainness, this thing of stripping down, not being adorned, not being ornamented, um, not having things that are unnecessary, things that actually then will also work against us in our Christian life.

Titus 2:1 to 8, "But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine, that the age of men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience; the age of women likewise, that they be in behavior as become of holiness, not false accusers, not given too much wine, teachers of good thing, that they may teach the young woman to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded, and all things showing thyself a pattern of good works and doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, and sincerity, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you."

This is the theological basis for a plain lifestyle. That's what we're trying to accomplish, to live soberly and righteously in this present evil age, to put our face against the way the world is going because much of how the world is doing, much of what its goals are and so on, is not is not trying to encourage faithfulness to God, is not trying to encourage chastity and purity. It's actually doing the opposite. And, you know, none of us have to spend very much time seeing advertisements and other things that there is an appeal that is being made there to the flesh.

Okay? And an appeal that's being made for pride. And that takes us to two other texts of 1 John 2:15 to 17. 1 John 2:15 to 17, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passeth away and the lust thereof, but he that doth the will of God abideth forever." And then 1 Peter 3:2 to 4, "While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear, whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning, of plating the hair, of wearing the gold, or of putting on apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart, and that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price."

Now, if any of you have the New King James Bible, you will notice that it does something rather curious with this passage. It says, "Do not let your adornment be merely outward, arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel."

And that word "merely" is a very interesting gloss. It's not in the original. It's something that the translators or the revisors who did the New King James Bible inserted in there, and it makes a really significant theological difference between what the original says. The original says that our adornment is not to be outward.

It's not to be outward, but it's to be inward. Okay? It's to be inward. The New King James says, "Don't let it be merely outward." So the implication is, well, your adornment can be outward, but just make sure that it's inward too.

I think that does a great injustice to the text and to what Peter is trying to get to us there because there needs to be a rejection of outward ornament. And he gives some very specific cases here and so on. But I think that's just an indication of how evangelicals try to really soften this kind of stuff, and they try to wage against it. I think it pays it kind of ties into their whole emphasis on "heart religion" without the necessity of living a lifestyle that's pleasing to God. It's kind of that same thing we talk about where it's a save-me gospel.

Salvation is by faith alone without necessarily any change in being. Okay? So here Paul excuse me. Here Peter does address outward things, how we look and how we do. And John talks about where does this all why do we have this problem? He talks about the lust of the eye, the things that we see. Okay? And it's through our eyes that we see things and that we take in information.

And we see we might see something that causes us to lust sexually. It may cause us to lust in the sense that we see what other people have, and we want to have that too. And then it also talks about the pride of life, the fact that we want to lift ourselves up. We want to make ourselves important and hopefully more important than other people around us. And, you know, that is a that is a response of that that that whole pride of life thing is a response of people who are not secure in their position in Christ.

If you're secure in Christ and your significance and who you are is based on your relationship with Jesus Christ and your place in His kingdom and the role that He has given to you to help advance His kingdom, okay? If that's where you get your value and your significance and your importance, you're not going to be looking for it outside of that.

Okay? You're not going to be lifting yourself up because you are actually as high as you possibly can get. When you become a child of God, what higher status could we have? Okay? The irony of that, of course, is that as children of God, we are called to be servants of one another. We're called to to lower ourselves and to take the lower seat, and not to exalt ourselves, and to take the lowly path as Jesus even as Jesus did.

Okay? Remember, God gives grace to the humble. Okay? So that's the biblical foundation of the whole idea of plainness. Plainness is a rejection of worldly lust and pride, and it's an embrace of inward beauty. I remember a number of years ago when we had moved to Delaware that we were visiting a church there. We were trying to figure out where to go to church, and we were visiting this one church. And a couple a couple, I would say they were probably in their 50s, maybe older than that, invited us to their place for lunch. We had a very nice lunch and everything.

And while we were there while we were there, the wife's sister came. And this sister had walked away from God, from the church, and she had lived a pretty hard life. Thankfully, she had gotten converted recently. Her sister's family were rejoicing about this and so on.

But you could see those two women side by side, and you could tell they were sisters because the family resemblance was quite marked.

Our host, a plain woman, long hair, modestly put up, well-covered, modestly dressed, saw that. But there was also something about her countenance. She had a softness. She had a gentleness. She had and she was an old woman. She was actually a beautiful woman.

And that inward beauty that she had cultivated over the years actually expressed itself outwardly, in her countenance, her face, and so on. She was a lovely woman. Her sister, on the other hand, looked hard. And you could see the impact of that of the path she had chosen on her countenance too.

And that was just a very I just remember thinking about this. This demonstrates to us what happens when we walk away from God and we pursue our own way. All right? But women, sisters and I think this is true for men too who pursue godliness and demonstrate that in their inward life as well and how they express. There is a beauty about that that is beyond compare.

And you know what I have noticed is that women want to be beautiful, and they're meant to be beautiful. And we are to appreciate that beauty. But the beauty that God wants and the beauty that we should value and the beauty that we should encourage is that inward beauty that expresses itself in chastity and modesty and quietness and sincerity.

You know?

Now, that takes me then to Mennonites. This is the beginning of the history lesson. Christian Burkholder was a Mennonite bishop. He migrated to the New World when he was eight years old with his mother and siblings. His father had died in Europe. And he was ordained a bishop, a minister, and then a bishop in Lancaster County. And around 1792, he noticed that there were a lot of other religious movements around who were kind of poaching on Mennonite young people, and they were losing some young people and so on. This caused him a concern.

And I think he knew that there was a need for renewal, but he also knew that there was a need to explain to the young people what it was that the church of their parents and their grandparents and so on was about. What was the what was their reason for being as opposed to being Baptist or Presbyterian or Methodist or whatever or Lutheran or Reformed? And so he wrote this little booklet called An Honrae da Andejungen in English. That is an address to the youth. And in my mind, it's the best thing that was written during the 18th and 19th century. And there are very few things, I think, that is actually even in the 20th century has surpassed that as just for a very good theological statement.

But in that booklet, he talks about repentance. What is true repentance? And he says, "The fruit of true repentance grows as a result of a changed mind. For the mind of human nature is proud and conceded, but the mind of a penitent soul is humble and cast down. As the mind is, so is the fruit. A person without a changed mind sets his affections on things above." Excuse me. "A person with a changed mind sets his affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Christ Jesus is above. He is our head. He is meek and lowly in heart."

And the key words here and of course, he wrote this in German. I'm reading from an English translation. But the key words are proud and humble, pride and humility. Okay? And in German, it's hochrückig and dümmrig. And pride and humility was a major way that 18th and 19th century friends looked at the Christian life.

We were to reject as Christians, we were to reject pride and anything that was connected to it, and we were to pursue a path of humility. All right? And this comes up time and time again. This was their rationale, their so rationale for plainness. So plainness, in their understanding and I think it's a good understanding, plainness was an expression of humility.

Pride was the opposite. Okay? Pride is lifting yourself up, calling attention to yourself, trying to find significance in what you wear, the things you own, the things you do, and so on. Whereas a humble person strips all those things off, and his focus is on pleasing God and living in a way that is chaste and modest and quiet.

Okay? And meek. He goes on to say, "A person who is lowly in heart cannot bear any fruit such as pride, whether in words or in deeds or in putting on of apparel. Never suffer pride to reign in thy mind or in thy words, for from it all perdition took its beginning. If the heart is filled with meekness" and actually, that's the term humility there, de mut, "with the meekness of Jesus, then a good young tree grows there which cannot give corrupt fruit. Corrupt fruit grows from an evil seed which the enemy has sown into the human nature. It has its beginning in the mind and the thoughts of the human heart and has already produced much evil fruit, especially through the lust of impurity in which a wretched man indulges as if drunken."

So Burkholder understood that in our human nature that and it was because of sin. In our human nature, there was something evil that was planted. But when one had the new birth, when one repented and in true humility turned to Jesus for help, Jesus planted a new plant in their human nature. And the Christian life consisted of watering and nurturing that new plant, the new man, as they would use, and starving the evil tree to the point where eventually, in the course of life and so on, that good, strong tree would crowd out the evil one, and it would become weaker and weaker as a person grew in grace.

Now, so we have so I think to understand when we talk about plainness and so on, we're actually talking about a life that rejects lust and pride and is interested in impurity and humility. That's what we're looking for. All right? Now, the Quakers, you know, their language was English. And so, like I said, they were the ones that I think kind of coined this phrase, plain.

American Mennonites were German-speaking. Most Mennonites were German-speaking, and they wrote and they talked and they preached and they published in German until about the middle of the 1800s when there was a transition going from German to English. All right?

And so I was looking for what's the earliest use of this term plain among American Mennonites. And the earliest that I could find was in 1864. And this is in an article in 1864. John F. Funk, a Mennonite out in Indiana, started a newspaper, a periodical called The Herald of Truth. And it became a very important periodical. It was eventually he published it once a month, eventually published it twice a month, and it then he actually toward the end, he published it every week.

But and he published it in both English and in German because there's still a lot of Mennonites who preferred reading German. But there were other Mennonites who couldn't read German that well. So he did both of them. And so oftentimes, not entirely, but oftentimes, there's the same articles in both the English and the German editions. And so the earliest that I could find and remember, this starts in 1864. In September of 1864, there's an article by an M.R. a person whose initials are M.R. I don't know who this guy is, but he's from Saltersburg, Pennsylvania, and the title of the article that he writes is To the Young. So it reminds you of Christian Burkholder.

One of the things that I have noticed and you have it with Christian Burkholder, you have it is that there's this concern. There's this concern that we pass on the faith. Okay? We pass on the faith to the next generation. And there's also this concern that maybe the next generation isn't getting it as well as we hope they would. Okay? And so we need to kind of go over this again somewhat. We need to emphasize it. We need to work hard at this.

And so this M.R. from Saltersburg, Pennsylvania, writes to the young, "I can tell you from my own experience that a young Christian's life is a happy one, not happy in carnal pleasures and worldly sports, though some delight in such happiness, but it will not last long, but happy in the sweet consciousness of the love and favor of God through Jesus Christ. Some wonder how anyone can have pleasure in dressing so plain, but a true Christian will have no desire to follow the vain, fleeting fashions of the world in dressing. Our pleasure is not in earthly things, nor is it in spending our time with such as care not to talk about spiritual things. Our pleasure lies alone in Jesus, to do His will and to please Him.

Our conversation is in heaven, and hereby we know that we are the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him." Now, if he's using this term plain, okay, in 1864, and he's writing an article, I think we can assume that it's a term that his readers were familiar with.

Okay? It's a term his readers were familiar with. They knew what he was talking about. They had a sense of that. And of course, here he connects it to dress. And of course, dress is an important aspect of plainness because it's the thing we carry around in our bodies every day.

We get up every day, and we put clothes on. All right? And it does not matter.

There is no way that we can ignore the fact that dress speaks volumes. That's why there's a fashion industry. It communicates. It expresses identity. All right? It makes an appeal to certain things. It can be all wrapped up in our perceptions of ourselves and our significance and importance.

Okay? It can be a way of attracting other people to us and so on and hoping that they see that we are significant and important. You know? That's why we have all the we have an industry that is obsessed with fashions.

All right? And also, it's interesting, an industry that really creates identity that people want to identify with. But that industry is motivated by lust and pride. It's motivated by lust and pride. That's the appeal it makes. And as Christians, we need to counter that with an emphasis on humility and on chastity and purity. That's what we need to do.

All right? And how we dress and how we look, okay, is part of that. It's not everything, but it's part of that. All right? And so he's identifying here. So I looked in the Harald de Warheite, the German edition, and this article wasn't there. So I couldn't figure out what I saw. Well, I had wondered, well, what's the German word that they were using for plain? Well, I did find it. I did find it in November of 1864. There's a report about the conference meeting in Elkhart, Indiana.

And in that conference meeting, the conference body, the ministers, adopted some instructions. And there's a dozen or more instructions. But the one that they adopted was one on dress.

And it says that the brethren and sisters observe, according to the doctrine of Christ, to be humble and plain in their manner of dress, excluding therefrom all needless ornaments, hoops, laces, jewelry, artificial flowers, and other things which tend toward pride, such as wearing the hair after the fashions of the world and all its idle and useless follies.

So in the German version of this article, it says that it talks about humility, de mut. Okay? And then it talks when it comes to plainness, it uses this term, einfach. Einfach. It's just a German word. You look it up in a German dictionary. It means plain, simple, humble, modest.

It has all those meanings to it. All right? And so I think and that was a term that they were used to talking about. They were used to talking about, you know, about humility. They were used to talking about they were used to talking about de mut, and they were used to talking about hochmut, which is high-mindedness or pride.

And here we have this word, einfach. Okay? Which is translated as plain. And then we also have this phrase in English, the fashions of the world. And in German, it's the moden der Welt. Okay? So that was very interesting to me. Now, that may be of interest only to a certain few people, curious souls like I am about things like that. But this is what they were weighing in against.

Okay? See those hoop skirts? These great big things like this. You know, I think you'd have to have a wide door to go through them. Okay? The hairstyles, the men's dress. Okay? Quite the dandies, aren't they? Quite the dandies.

All right? Now, the styles have changed. The styles have changed. So there are some similarities. Okay? The styles have changed. But I think that we can recognize that these people are not dressing in such a way as to not call attention to themselves.

They're dressing in such a way to call attention to themselves. All right? And they're making an appeal. Okay? They're making an appeal to other people based on, quote-unquote, physical beauty and physical attractiveness and so on. They're quite the men are quite dapper-looking, aren't they?

All right? The women are quite elegant in their appearance. This is kind of the image and so on. And it's this kind of stuff that in 1864, the Mennonites were saying, "We don't want to have any part of this.

This is the world. This is part of the fashions of the world. And it's proud. It exalts itself. It draws attention to itself. It says, 'Look at me.'" And so on. And it's not interested in the cultivation of the inward being.

Now, as I looked at some other things, I found out that this term, einfach, actually goes way back, way back. This is a quote from the 1568 Swiss Brethren Agreement, a number of articles. It's an ordinance. It's a, we could say, maybe a standard and so on. One of the issues they're talking about here is about dress. And it says, "Tailers and seamstress shall hold to the plain and simple style and shall make nothing at all for pride's sake. The brethren and sisters shall remain steadfast by the present standard of our regulations concerning apparel and shall make nothing for pride's sake. Furthermore, shaving off the beard or trimming the hair of the head in stylish ways shall not be permitted."

You know, Solomon said there's nothing new under the sun. This is the 16th century. They were having problems with people being proud and expressing themselves in proud ways and of ornamenting themselves and of doing strange things with their beard and their hair.

Okay? And so they felt they needed to address it. I mean, this is early Anabaptism. This is early Swiss Brethren. And the term is dem schlagten um infallichen brach. Infallichen is a form of infach. And of course, we have hochfracht. Hochfracht is related to hochmut. It's a different version. And ordinance is, as a term simply means order or regulations and so on.

So it's right there, very early on. Now, I want to look at some examples here of dress. Like I said, it's not all dress, but dress is an important marker. Here's an example of fancy and plain coats. Okay, now one of the things you'll notice about anybody know who that guy is over there in the far corner?

That's Handel. Yes, that's George Frederick Handel. Okay? Lived in the middle of the 18th century toward the end and so on, a famous composer and so on. And he is wearing a straight-cut coat with a, you know, and so on, with a standing collar. It was actually hardly a collar there to it.

And so on. And if you see on this side is another picture, just a little later, okay, but not too far. This is Martin Beam, who was active as a Mennonite bishop in the 1760s and 70s. Now, he was caught up in the German awakening and revival and so on. And he was, because through that, he made common cause with some Lutheran and Reformed people and said, you know, "We are brothers." His fellow bishops had a little problem with that because you're making common cause with people who baptize babies. You're making common cause with people who think it's okay to go to war and to swear oaths. That's not who we can have fellowship with.

But because he had a particular kind of religious experience and these other folks had a similar kind of religious experience, he thought, "They're my brethren." And so he left the Mennonite Church, and he became a bishop in what became known as the United Brethren Church, which we have churches of those around there. But he never changed his dress. He never changed his dress.

He dressed like a Mennonite. Now, you can see that there's a similarity between those things. It's straight-cut and so on. Do you see any dissimilarities?

Okay? Well, for one thing, the handles have these great big cuffs that go up to about the elbow, and there are these nice fancy buttons. And he has a shirt that is quite fancy and so on. He has a vest on that's a brocade vest. This is a very stylish straight-cut coat.

Martin Beam is wearing a very simple. It's not going to be the it's not going to be kind of a reddish color. It's probably going to be a brown, maybe a gray, not a black. Not a black. Because black was a very expensive color. Because to get black in the 18th century, you had to dye it. Indigo was the dye. You had to dye it numerous times to actually get a black because indigo is actually a dark blue. And you dye the cloth numerous times until it comes out and looks black. And so black was considered to be a cloth or a color a cloth that was dyed black was an expensive cloth. And so plain people did not wear black.

They wore brown. They wore gray. And sometimes they wore something called drab, which was a dye that was made out of walnut hulls. Can you imagine what that would be like? Okay? Not the most attractive color in the world. John Woolman wore undyed clothes. He wore white. And part of that was a protest against using things like indigo and so on. All right? So it's cut similarly, but his style has no ornamentation to it. It's plain. Whereas Handel's style is ornamented, even though it has this straight cut. All right? Now, we have this interesting thing happening from about 1800 on to, I'd say, the 1830s and so on.

You see the man on the far right. He has a standing collar. But that standing collar is getting higher and higher and higher as the styles go. You know, it just gets higher and higher and higher. And then it gets too high.

It gets up to the ears. And it can't get any higher than that. And so what do they do? They lay it down. They lay it down. And you can see that in the next one. That's a picture from about 1810, 1815. And he still has kind of a standing collar in the back, but this thing is laid down. All right? And then it's buttoned down here, and you have this thing.

And then later on, they roll that collar over, and it becomes a rolled collar. In fact, when we lived in Lancaster County and went to Millwood Church, the old people would talk about whether you wore a straight-cut coat or whether you wore a rolled collar. Your coat had a rolled collar, which a lapel coat. All right?

Now, Mennonites said, "That's silly." The Quakers said, "That's silly." The River Brethren said, "That's silly." The German Baptists said, "That's silly." And it's also something that came in as a fashion statement because you couldn't get it any higher. I mean, climbing up to your ears was a fashion statement. Couldn't get any higher, so you rolled it down. And over the 19th century, the lapels, you know, they got bigger. They got smaller and so on and so on. But, you know, I've always thought about it. Does it make sense to have a coat that, you know, you have this thing rolled over like this? It buttons on down here like this? And, you know, I think the most sensible coat a body can wear is one that goes all the way up to the throat, and you button it up.

Okay? Without ornamentation. That's my personal opinion. But Mennonites said no to that. Now, when it comes to women, okay? Plain and fancy women's dress. This is 19th century. All right?

The lady over there in the far corner is a Mennonite lady by the name of Catherine Funk-Rice. She was born in 1797. She lived to be over 100 years old. She was from Washington County, Maryland. This is your genuine original Washington County Mennonite.

Okay? That's what Mennonites dressed like in the first half of the 1800s and probably dressed very similar to that before that. All right? Now, this woman is wearing a serious covering, isn't she? She's wearing a covering that seriously does the job.

Okay? She's wearing a full skirt and top, and then she has this cape over top of it. There's no ornamentation. Okay? It's stripped of any adornment, and it is covering her body. She's modest. She's chaste. And she appears to be a fairly humble person. Now, we know that it's possible to dress plainly and not be humble inwardly.

Okay? We know that. That can happen. That can happen. But so that's how Mennonites would have looked in, let's say, the first half of the 1800s. Now, in contrast to that, okay, we have this picture of a sort of matrony woman. She's wearing she actually has her head covered too, doesn't she? But that's a fancy covering, isn't it? And you'll notice how her hair is. Her hair is kind of boofed up a little bit. It's very noticeable. She has a fancy collar. She has fancy cuffs. She is quite the lady, isn't she?

All right? Now, she's probably covered adequately enough. It doesn't look like her clothes are that tight or anything like that. But it's a little bit different picture that you got than Catherine Funk-Rice. And then on the far thing is a young woman from about the same period and how she's dressing.

And I think we can see there that she is I mean, one of the things that's interesting is that in the 19th century, they're still covering an awful lot. But styles vary at various points. You can actually cover your body and still be in modest depending on how you cut the dress, how you cut the coats, how you cut the pants. It can "cover" your body, but it can still be revealing. And this is a little bit like that.

A period before this, about around 1810, 1815, the style for women's dresses were they wore these things that basically looked like a tube. Okay? And they had really high-capped sleeves here, you know, maybe covered the shoulders, but that was it and so on.

And they were very, very revealing. It's interesting that that then changed.

Now, another testimony this is another Peter Burkholder. This is actually a nephew of Christian Burkholder. His family moved down to Virginia in the 1790s, and he became a bishop in Virginia. And he wrote a series of essays or articles called Nine Reflections. And a lot of it has to do with an explanation of the Sermon on the Mount.

Okay? But in it, he's also here talking just like Christian Burkholder is about what does it mean to be somebody who has a renewed mind, who is born again. All right? He says, "For as long as a man is unrenewed and unchanged in his mind and is yet in a state of nature, he is prone to conform to the world. And that not only in one thing, but in many things. Some seek to excel in manners and modes of the world, and some strive for honor and renown, others for high offices, and others for to amass worldly riches, and again, others by adorning themselves in costly apparel, all of which is highly esteemed among men and may be comprehended in the words of Christ when he said, 'For that which is highly esteemed men is an abomination in the sight of God.'

But here, perhaps, many will object and say that these things are not sinful, that the wearing of costly apparel and decorating according to the modes and fashions of the world is no harm, just like the translators of the New King James Bible said, you know, don't let your adornment be merely awkward." Okay?

But to answer this objection, I will appeal to Christ and his apostles. For Paul said, "I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting, in like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefaceness and sobriety, not with broidered hair or gold or pearl or costly array." The same is testified by the apostle Peter when he says, "Whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of platting the hair and wearing of gold or putting on of apparel. What shall we say to this? Shall we say it does not matter what kind of clothes we put on or in what manner we adorn our body, then we must annul the doctrine of the apostles and think their admonitions vain and incorrect?"

And that is exactly what most professing Christians do think. Okay? That's what they think. That is the difference between Anabaptist and Evangelicals. Evangelicals can say, "The important thing is that we are saved by faith alone." And too much emphasis on how we live could very easily get us into legalism, and that is the thing we want to avoid by all cost. Okay? Whereas Peter Burkholder is saying here, "The apostles didn't say these things just for the fun of it. They said it for us to listen to and to follow and to obey. They were speaking the word of God."

All right? Now, in 1874, Deacon Michael Heggy, who was a deacon at Mary Mennonite Church, he kept a record book um for much for probably about 45 years. And he recorded baptisms and ordinations and deaths and so on. But sometimes he would make some comments. And in 1874, he has this long lament. He's observing what's going on in society, and he makes this has this lament. He says, "The people have climbed very high in their high-mindedness." And in German, this is the word Hochmut. Okay?

And it's in the term high. Hoch is high. It's a synonym for pride. They've climbed very high in their high-mindedness, not only in their clothes, but also in their farming, in their planting, in their driving, learning as well as in their Christianity. And their make-nothing spirit has gone so far that nothing was high-minded anymore for them, with dancing, with playing, with music, with fiddles, in all manner of costly clothes that require three times as much cloth as what they used to.

Okay? But I want you to notice here that, you know, he talks about clothing. He's going to say some other things here about clothing. And also, Christian Burkholder talked about this too. It's not just clothes. Plainness is not just clothes.

Plainness encompasses all of your life. Here he says, "They are high-minded in their driving." What's that have to do? Buggies. Horses. Okay? What now? Cars. Trucks. Okay? These can be expressions of pride. Okay? And then amusements, dancing, playing, music, the fiddles.

Okay? Even in their farming and their planting. Okay? They can be high-minded. And, you know, we're reminded what Jesus said about the man who, you know, had a great harvest, and he decided that he was going to, you know, build storehouses and and and so on. We're also reminded in the Old Testament where it warns against adding field to field.

Okay? And it warns against it against becoming prominent in the world. Now, he does have quite a lot to say about women's fashion too. Women wore false hair on their heads in a variety of ways. Isn't there something today that's called extenders, hair extenders? Yeah. Like I said, there's nothing new under the sun. Some looked absolutely fearsome with their hair. Then, besides that, they carried ornaments on their heads with all kinds of feathers from birds, wings, and bird tails, and even entire birds as well as plumes and things like that. They made false breasts for themselves to wear, false hips and false backs so that their way of walking was disgusting, their shape distorted, and horrible to look at.

They were hardly shaped like human beings anymore. And, of course, this is the period in which women are wearing these bustles. And it's actually a little cage, a wire cage that's covered with cloth. It's part of their dress and so on. And there's a couple of examples of that. And those are not the most extravagant examples.

Okay? They're not the most extravagant examples. The other thing that's happening, and this is due to the Industrial Revolution, and this is also due to why this has become more and more of a problem, because with the Industrial Revolution in which we are moving from making things by hand to having them be made by machines, the first industry that is impacted by that is the cloth industry and cloth production, which had been a very laborious process. And it was a process that was so laborious that clothing was expensive because it was expensive to produce. Ordinary people did not have very many clothes. If you were rich, okay, and you could afford lots of changes of apparel, okay, that was one thing.

But with the Industrial Revolution, with the production of cloth through machines that drove the price of it down, and all of a sudden, cloth is cheap. And then on the heels of that, we have something called the sewing machine.

And so women, and all of a sudden, fashion, which had been sort of the prerogative of the rich, becomes something that everybody, ordinary people, become interested in. And there are fashion books with examples. Godi's fashion book, you know, puts out every year the latest styles from France.

And women, you know, in Amberston are getting those books and pouring over them and trying to make clothes like that. All right? And it also means that there's more printed material. There's printing is the printing of material becomes more extravagant, large prints and everything like that.

It's a really interesting thing. And then he said, "Men also," just in case you're wondering, he doesn't let the men off the hook, which is what many people do. "Men also dress up their hair, but in a different way. Some have long hair on their heads. Others have it shorn off so short that they look almost bald. The hair on their faces, they let grow in many ways so that it was shocking to look at, and it became revolting to have to eat with them. Yet it was very popular with the world."

You think about it. Okay? What's one style these days? Shave it all off. Okay? And then we have this thing called the fade. You know what a fade is? I just learned that, I mean, I heard of her about fade before. But, you know, you can have high fades, low fades, and medium fades. In fact, there are numerous styles of fades.

And they've made their inroads in our circles. It comes straight from the world.

So it does.

You know, one of the things that sort of troubles me is that when among our plain people, we have people that are paying more attention to what the world is doing and taking their directions from that than they are taking it from their brothers and sisters in the church who are living lives of humility and modesty and plainness.

Who do they want to be identified with? Well, I would have to say that maybe at the best, they're having a struggle as to who they want to identify with. At the worst, they're trying to identify with the world. They're going incognito as Christians.

Okay? And I would say it's a bigger problem with the boys, with the men than it is with the women. And that's because we tell the women what they have to wear more. We define that more.