Bound Tightly By the Good Book & God's Will

This fashion editorial from Zink Magazine, via Fashion Gone Rogue, is appropriate for our ongoing learning about women and religion worldwide, and also the Founding Fathers of America and their views about religion. 

The latter is my new area of study and I posted about Thomas Jefferson last evening.

I’ve made every effort to use Biblical verses from the King James Bible, because it’s the one mandated by the Southern Baptists.  Just this morning Timothy Egan wrote in an Opinionator from the NYTimes that the Idaho missionaries have damaged legitimate adoption organizations in Haiti and elsewhere.

Readers have complimented me personally on my attempts to fairly and accurately present the facts of the Haiti case, with Laura Silsby and Clarisa Coulter remaining in jail. My commitment to fair reporting and commentary has not ended.

I confess to being a bit ‘rattled’ this morning, when I read that Idaho pastor Paul Thompson, who followed Silsby to Haiti, wrote just before the earthquake:

“War is declared! In God’s Holy Name let us arise and build!”

Researching the term, I came to this blog post Men of God, Arise!

“Too long have we been waiting for one another to begin! The time of waiting is past! The hour of God has struck! War is declared! In God’s Holy Name let us arise and build! ‘The God of Heaven, He will fight for us’, as we for Him. We will not build on the sand, but on the bedrock of the sayings of Christ, and the gates and minions of hell shall not prevail against us.

“Should such men as we fear? Before the world, aye, before the sleepy, lukewarm, faithless, namby-pamby Christian world, we will dare to trust our God, we will venture our all for Him, we will live and we will die for Him, and we will do it with His joy unspeakable singing aloud in our hearts. We will a thousand times sooner die trusting only our God, than live trusting in man.

“And when we come to this position the battle is already won, and the end of the glorious campaign in sight. We will have the real Holiness of God, not the sickly stuff of talk and dainty words and pretty thoughts; we will have a Masculine Holiness, one of daring faith and works for Jesus Christ”. Listen to the words of C.T. Studd (1860-1931) in a reading from “The Chocolate Soldier” on YouTube.

Within this context and nine months worth of writing about women in developing countries and religion, and also American women’s place in different religious orders, I believe it’s fair to share my own thoughts from the Bible, when I see these photos from Zink magazine.

I admit to being increasingly ‘shaken up’ the more I read on this topic.

The provocative fashion editorial was shot by Herring & Herring, styed by Mykel C. Smith. Models in ‘Bound’ include: Damaris Lewis, Julia Goncharenko, Anais Pouliot and Clara Settje.

Corinthians 14:34-35

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. (34)

And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. (35)

Genesis 3:16

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Ecclesiastics 25:13

Give me any plague, but the plague of the heart: and any wickedness, but the wickedness of a woman.

Nahum 3:5-6

Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make the vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock.

Job 14:1-4

Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble. (1)

He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. (2)

And doth thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee? (3)

Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. (4)

More Reading:

Forniphilia | Women As Doormats and Other Art Furniture

Jimmy Carter on Religion as Agent of Women’s Oppression

Morality, Reason & God | Thomas Jefferson

Laura Silsby | The Art of Doing God’s Work in Haiti

More Haiti Adoption articles