The way you dress is a reflection of what you are on the inside. Your dress and grooming send messages about you to others and influence the way you and others act. When you are well groomed and modestly dressed, you invite the companionship of the Spirit and can exercise a good influence on those around you.
Well... the truth is, how we dress does impact the way we behave. A guy in a tux is most likely going to act a little differently than when he is dressed in jeans and a t-shirt ready to work in the garage. A woman ready to go to work may act differently than when she is weeding the garden.
And... do people judge us by our appearance? Yes they do. Unfortunatly this is true. (See Gaz's post above).
What is difficult for me is the idea that we SHOULD judge others based on one's appearance... and that we need to dress a certain way to APPEAR to be a good person... or that we must appear a certain way to "exercise a good influence on others". And the idea that the "spirit" comes when one is well groomed and modestly dressed is nonsensical to me. I guess the spirit doesn't care for the indigenous societies. :-( And the world is filled with people who do not have the luxury of being "well groomed." I guess they are out of luck too. :-(
I just have a difficult time with the excessive (in my opinion) concern with appearance. The world is obsessed with appearance... can't a church rise above this?
truth dancer wrote:Well... the truth is, how we dress does impact the way we behave. A guy in a tux is most likely going to act a little differently than when he is dressed in jeans and a t-shirt ready to work in the garage. A woman ready to go to work may act differently than when she is weeding the garden.
And... do people judge us by our appearance? Yes they do. Unfortunatly this is true. (See Gaz's post above).
What is difficult for me is the idea that we SHOULD judge others based on one's appearance... and that we need to dress a certain way to APPEAR to be a good person... or that we must appear a certain way to "exercise a good influence on others". And the idea that the "spirit" comes when one is well groomed and modestly dressed is nonsensical to me. I guess the spirit doesn't care for the indigenous societies. :-( And the world is filled with people who do not have the luxury of being "well groomed." I guess they are out of luck too. :-(
I just have a difficult time with the excessive (in my opinion) concern with appearance. The world is obsessed with appearance... can't a church rise above this?
~dancer~
Agreed. I was rereading Packer's "unwritten order of things" talk, and it just seemed so unnecessarily prescriptive, from the way funerals are held to how it "bothers" him the way names are typed up in church programs. This recent talk suggests to me that sometimes these leaders just type up a laundry list of things that they dislike and then pronounce over the pulpit. I'm still trying to figure out what the hell he's talking about when he says "teased" hair that looks like it hasn't been combed.
Maybe the reason they say things like this is because they can.
What's ironic about the Church's appropriation of this 1950s, "Leave it to Beaver" model of appearance is that the model itself is largely a phony invention manufactured by TV producers from that era. Anyone who has watched an episode of Leave it to Beaver or My Three Sons or any of the other shows from that period knows full well that the programs are portraying a very whitewashed, sterile, fantastically problem-free world which does not exist beyond the TV screen. When you compare this to, say, John Cheever's short stories from the '50s, it becomes clear just how much of a repressive fantasy this BKP-endorsed model really is.
Has anyone identified the decent/harmless white shirt and tie wearing person in the picture i posted above?
WK: "Joseph Smith asserted that the Book of Mormon peoples were the original inhabitants of the americas"
Will Schryver: "No, he didn’t." 3/19/08
Still waiting for Will to back this up...
It's not that we are supposed to look like people from the 50s; we are supposed to look like IBM employees from the 50s.
Well, for the guys yes for women....well, more like Tupperware representative from the fifties! :-)
I actually saw a special on Tupperware on PBS... I couldn't get over how much it looked like the LDS ideal. It is like the church got stuck in that era!
~dancer~
The only thing different is that now that teased hair is on the evil list, we can be spared the Beehive hairdos. I wonder if the rebellious ladies from the Tabernacle Choir will still try to sport this 'Do from the Devil?
harmony wrote:What I want to know is why are we all required to look like people who are caught in a 50's time warp? Why is the church always so much more concerned about outward appearances than they are about inward character?
One more instance when we have failed our God.
Well I think they are concerened about inward charecter as well.
Mister Scratch wrote:What's ironic about the Church's appropriation of this 1950s, "Leave it to Beaver" model of appearance is that the model itself is largely a phony invention manufactured by TV producers from that era. Anyone who has watched an episode of Leave it to Beaver or My Three Sons or any of the other shows from that period knows full well that the programs are portraying a very whitewashed, sterile, fantastically problem-free world which does not exist beyond the TV screen. When you compare this to, say, John Cheever's short stories from the '50s, it becomes clear just how much of a repressive fantasy this BKP-endorsed model really is.
I had tortured childhood. I remember it as Leave it to Jeannie and I Dream of Beaver.
