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I have been going through different author’s writings on the subject of women’s apparel for the Facebook group Breaking Out. Today I am taking quotes from Larry L. Booker’s book What a Difference a Line Can Make. There are a few pastors that came out of the church that Larry Booker was converted in, including my ex-husband (we are no longer in the ministry). I don’t have anything personal against Larry Booker (just to set that straight). He is a good man who means well but we have a difference of opinion here.

He asks “Why do your women always wear dresses?” (pg 111) And he answers it by saying “For the same reason our men always wear pants and do not wear dresses.”

Larry Booker mirrors the opinions of the authors that I have quoted before him and they all use the same logic. He talks about a time in our world when women didn’t wear pants and that this was true for all of society. Then he says “God’s word never changes.” There is only one conclusion a person can come to when one statement is made after the other and that is that somehow, women wearing pants and God’s word never changing are somehow linked but he doesn’t say quite how or why at this point.

He then talks about a comic, Dennis the Menace, (pg 112) and how Dennis says about his mom in pants “Aw, Mom, you don’t even look like a mother in them things.” He goes on “This cartoon joke wouldn’t even be funny in our modern society. People of today would look at the cartoon, scratch their head and say ‘I don’t get it'”…..So, here he admits that our society doesn’t recognize that pants are only men’s apparel now. “The cartoon makes sense only to those who remember a different era or to those who remember God’s word!” This comment doesn’t really make sense. The cartoon does make sense to those of a different era….or those who hold to that same era for definitions of women’s apparel.

He then goes on to talk about “even though society has accepted women wearing men’s clothing, it still does not make it right in the sight of God.” (pg 113) So here Larry Booker defines all pants as men’s apparel and he also says society has accepted women wearing men’s clothing rather than saying, like many would, that our culture has shifted to accept women’s pants as women’s apparel. He says basically that all people who define this differently than he are breaking God’s word and that those who define women’s pants as women’s apparel are somehow insisting that God’s word actually does change, even though that has not been expressed by anyone that I know who thinks pants are okay on women.

He quotes Deut 22:5 (pg 113) and then says “To ignore this injunction, or to sweep it under some mental carpet as being an archaic, Old Testament dictate, is to err greatly and gravely.” What he is, in effect saying, is that if you disagree with his opinion on how to apply this scripture to your life that you are ignoring this injunction or sweeping it under the carpet. He gives no room for differing opinions on the matter.

He then goes into the word abomination and lists all the things that are abominations……idolatry, child sacrifice, prostitution and sodomy, cheating and lying, a proud heart etc. He then says “an abomination never changes with time, men’s and women’s cross-dressing is not even an issue of modesty; it is a moral issue with God.” He uses circular logic here as the authors before him. The bible never defines skirts as women’s apparel. Larry Booker defines skirts as women’s apparel. Then, he says by implication, if you disagree with his definition you are therefore guilty of being an abomination before God.

Then, he writes about transvestites (pg 114) and equates their behavior to be the same thing as women wearing pants. He says he almost vomited walking by some transvestites and that he firmly believes this is the same way God feels about it….”a woman dressing like a man.” Therefore, in a culture that clearly has no problem with women wearing pants as women’s apparel, he says that women wearing pants is the same thing to God as transvestism. In other words, men intentionally dressing as women are the same as a woman wearing pants made for women, in a culture that does not recognize women wearing pants as transvestism.

Larry Booker then goes on to talk about doing what’s right, in spite of how we are feeling. (pg 115) Wait a minute. Aren’t we, as women, told we are supposed to feel a certain conviction over this? “We are going to be judged by what the Bible teaches, not how we feel.” Isn’t he really saying we are going to be judged by Larry Booker’s opinion and not how we feel? Aren’t we, as women, supposed to be convicted in our hearts about what is right and wrong and aren’t we able to tell if God is leading us a certain way? Or are we supposed to throw our own thoughts and opinions out the window for fear that we are incapable of being able to find God’s will for our own lives?

Think with me for a minute on the danger of this. What if we decide to follow Larry Booker’s opinion when we didn’t feel the conviction of God because we were told to do what’s “right in spite of how we feel”. This can cause mass confusion. Are we to follow God? Or man? Are we able to discern and be convicted of the right path from God or not? If we, as people, are not allowed to discern right from wrong in our own hearts and minds and we practice that, this is how spiritually abusive churches begin and how people learn to follow men and some even end up doing some very crazy things simply because they are told to. If someone truly feels convicted and agrees with this application for their own lives, that is fine, but they need to recognize that it is an application of Deut 22:5 and an agreement with an application of scripture that they are practicing and that different people may apply this scripture differently according to their own conscience.

He says “We are going to be judged by what the Bible teaches, not by how we feel.” (pg 115) But if the Bible teaches not to wear that which pertains to the opposite sex and you obey that according to your conscience and your own culture that doesn’t recognize pants as exclusive to women, does that make you an abomination to God? According to Larry Booker the answer seems to be yes and he gets there, not by giving a biblical definition, but by giving you his definitions, opinions and logic. His definitions and opinions are not bible. What they are are his applications of biblical principles.

The problem is the circular logic gets passed from person to person. Those in the movement may or may not have a personal conviction that they should wear skirts and at that point it becomes an oral tradition, something that people do because they are told they shouldn’t go by what they think or feel because it’s wrong. The negative aspects to this, aside from the fact that some women unwittingly follow a man’s opinion because they believe they shouldn’t concern themselves with their own feelings on the matter out of fear of disobeying the bible, is that they believe that if they do what may truly be in their hearts (which for some is wearing pants) that they will be an abomination unto God.

Women in this case are not following their conscience or their God given convictions. This causes an imbalance in the Christian walk because if a woman believes a man’s opinion over her own conscience, she loses her ability to discern right from wrong for herself and begins to rely too heavily on what she is told. This is the danger and it is a real one, one that has taken it’s toll on many. It’s not in the wearing of skirts or the not wearing of skirts, but the battle is in the mind.

I am including photos of the excerpts if you want to take the time to read all of it for yourself: Page 111, page 112, page 113, page 114, page 115, page 116.

Getting Out the Old Books: The Literal Word by M.D. Treece
Getting Out the Old Books: Guardians of His Glory by Gary & Linda Reed
Getting Out the Old Books: David F. Gray
Getting Out the Old Books: Joy Haney
Getting Out The Old Books: Larry L. Booker
Getting Out the Old Books: Power Before the Throne
Getting Out the Newer Books: Wholly Holy: The Vital Role of Visible Devotion
Search For Truth On Holiness

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My last email to the pastor from part 1 was May 3. Four days later, I received a response at church. The pastor stopped me at church and said he would be getting with me about coffee.

Tonight I went to a business meeting, just to observe. Before the meeting, I ran into the pastor and told him I was invited by one of the other ministers. He visited with me for a bit about our emails, telling me that he did want to visit. He said he didn’t feel right about throwing certain words out but was concerned about their impact. I affirmed that I understood there were many understandings of some words, and that I wasn’t trying to throw anything out, but wanted his definitions of certain words because they are so often misused. I explained that there were some things that were so misused that I needed to redefine them, to study them out, and had come to a quite different understanding of them than this group might believe, but that it was for my own safety. I also explained that sometimes those words and the definitions by which they were misused had to be gotten away from, not only to maintain any understanding of them but to maintain a belief or faith in God at all, or that some verses had to be studied and new understandings developed in order to even read the Bible.

He talked about being a shepherd again tonight. I don’t see that in the Bible – the comparison of pastor to shepherd. And he mentioned “they that must give account” (Heb 13:17). He has no idea what that verse means to me or how triggering it is. I don’t think he understands it the way it was taught in my former church. I don’t think he has any idea.

So, somewhere in the near future, coffee is waiting, and maybe some explanations that I’m not sure I’m ready for.

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I want to explain why I think the teachings in ‘Created to be His Help Meet’ book by Debi Pearl and the ‘Marriage God’s Way’ DVD by Michael Pearl are completely heretical at least in situations like mine was, and worse, dangerous for abusive marriages.

In ‘Marriage God’s Way’ Michael Pearl lists something he calls a “Moral Earnestness Test” on the screen showing all the difficult passages of scripture for women using the King James Version. He then does some commentary between verses and I’ll write whatever I can remember and/or what I understood his comments were. And then maybe I’ll add some personal comments underneath.

**Trigger Warning**

Michael Pearl’s “Moral Earnestness Test,” not necessarily in order:

• Proverbs 31:11 – The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. {Michael Pearl taught that a woman should never spoil her husband’s reputation by saying anything negative about him to anybody.}
• Ephesians 5:23 – For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
• 1 Timothy 2:11-15 – Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
• Ephesians 5:22 – Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. {Wives should submit to their husband just like they submit to God.}
• 1 Peter 3:1 – Likewise, ye wives, [be] in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; {If they are not interested in Christianity, don’t try to evangelize them.}
• 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.
• 1 Timothy 2:12 – But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. (I understood that to mean it was sin to try to apply the great commission, to contend for the faith, to correct my husband in any way whether privately or anywhere.)
• 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 – But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman [is] the man; and the head of Christ [is] God. {Michael Pearl said that this means in the chain of command, my husband is god to me.}
• 1 Corinthians 14:34 – 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. (So it was inappropriate for me to ask the pastor anything about the teaching. I had to ask my husband about it whether he heard the lesson or not.)
• Colossians 3:18 – Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.

I just wanted to add some words and say that after seeing all those Bible verses scrunched together in that way, it is enough to keep a new young Christian wife very oppressed and confused, thinking I had to pick and choose whether to obey God’s Word or my husband. And to try to do both was really hard because I felt unequally yoked and in my zeal my husband would make fun of me. I hated being made fun of.

Don’t get me wrong. I was often rebellious to this system when I just had enough which was probably every day. Then I’d just keep trying to work the system. It felt like the rest of the Bible couldn’t possibly be for me. When I’d try to apply my personal studies I felt like it just didn’t work with my circumstances being married to a man who at the time seemed annoyed with my Christianity. This made me start feeling like I was losing my saltiness.

I couldn’t ask anybody for help because then that would require me to probably share something negative about my husband which would make me fall short of Proverbs 31 womanhood. I was stuck in bewilderment for many years just picking and choosing what seemed convenient at the time living with a confused conscience for a long time never trusting my head too much.

To be continued.

Marriage Trouble Part 1
Marriage Trouble Part 2
Marriage Trouble Part 3
Marriage Trouble Part 4
Marriage Trouble Part 5

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He was a stray alley cat, not more than two. I caught him making friends with my house cat… sort of. My cat wasn’t nearly as interested in friendship as the stray, and the stray was probably more interested in food than companionship. I decided to befriend the cat.

Making friends with a stray cat isn’t easy, even with tuna or liver to tempt him. It takes patience to befriend a stray.

The stray wasn’t approachable, but he would sit and watch as I interacted with my cat, and slowly, seeing that I didn’t hurt my own cat, he began to come closer. If I’d tried to catch him or pushed for contact too quickly, he’d never have trusted me. He was where he needed to be at that time, 5-10′ away, distant but interested. We have to accept strays as they are, not as we want them to be.

He came in. I left the door open for him. He had to know I wasn’t there to diminish his freedom, but that he was welcome.

His decision to let me touch him came as a happy surprise. Within months he’d become a normal house cat, with some outdoor tendencies. I always let him come and go. He was still cared for, even if he went out sometimes. He was loved.

One day, he jumped on the counter. I picked him up gently, and he began twisting in panic. He thought he was going to be thrown. Then I understood his deep distrust, and it broke my heart. His fear didn’t make me love him less, but more. He’d overcome so much. I respected his fear and never picked him up off the counter again. We communicated “no” in other ways that worked just as well.

Tommy died about a year later. We had moved, and he never got completely used to his new surroundings. He was terrified of the changes, and I didn’t listen to his fears, thinking he would adjust. The night before he died, he sat on the front step with me, leaping and catching bugs between raised paws in a beautiful, joyful dance. The next morning he was gone. But even in death he taught me… it doesn’t matter how long or short a time someone is in our lives, they are there for a purpose. It’s not our place to require them to stay with us. It’s our job to love them, not keep them or hold them too tightly. A life well loved is a life well lived, no matter how long or short. It’s my purpose to love others well.

I’m not a stray, but I have the same tendencies as Tommy did:
It takes time for me to trust you.
Unconditional love and acceptance will create trust.
I’ll actually stay longer if you leave the door open for me. Don’t pressure me to conform or to stay. Don’t make me feel obligated.
I have fears that should be recognized and respected. Don’t love me less for them, love me more.
If I need to leave, let me go. This is part of loving well.

Tommy is gone. I’ve been the care taker for probably 30 cats since. Some have gone, four have stayed. One of those four is missing part of his tail, has scars down his back from a reckless interaction with probably a raccoon, and has a permanent limp. And he’s one of the most loving, trusting cats I’ve known. So one more:

Don’t judge me by my scars. I’m beautiful in spite of them.

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A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment for all who do so are an abomination unto the Lord your God.

This scripture has been used by many legalistic churches, particularly the United Pentecostal Church, as proof to enforce their stand against women wearing pants. Although the scripture doesn’t state the word pants or skirts because this scripture was written many years before the western culture even began. This is a perfect example how the UPC will take a scripture out of context and it’s culture and twist it around to what they want it to mean, especially when in the days of Moses everybody wore gowns and robes.

So let’s start at the beginning, Genesis to be exact, this is the beginning of biblical clothing, the beginning of any clothing. Genesis 3:21 after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and hid from God because they were naked. God was upset by their disobedience and killed an animal and used its skin to make them tunics and dressed them.

He didn’t make a fuss over how he dressed them. It doesn’t say he covered them from neck to ankle or that the sleeves were a certain length, or whether Adam wore pants and Eve wore a skirt, no, he dressed them in tunics.

Now back to the book of Deuteronomy. After carefully studying this book that was written by Moses before the Israelites entered into Canaan, you find it full of a lot of commandments that seem strange to the modern mind. For example, if a man discovered a bird sitting upon eggs, he might take the eggs but not the bird (22:6-7). Different kinds of seeds could not be planted in one’s vineyard (9). The Hebrew farmer was not to yoke together an ox and a donkey for plowing (10). A Jew was forbidden to wear a garment containing two types of cloth (wool and linen – 11), and so on and verse 5 was only mentioned one time in the middle of a group of miscellaneous commandments almost like an after thought that Moses had.

God told Moses to write down His commandments regarding the worship of the strange gods of the Canaanites several times and told the people of Israel to utterly destroy all implements of worship when they possessed the land of Canaan. (Deut. 6:14, 7:5, 12:4, 13:1-5 and 20:17-18)

When you come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD; and because of these abominable practices the LORD your God is driving them out before you. (Deuteronomy 18:9-12)

According to history of the culture and practices of paganism, Deuteronomy 22:5 is an indication of cross-dressing in certain heathen ceremonies that was deemed to be a cure for infertility. This was done by the Canaanites, which God strictly forbade the Israelites to participate in and ordered them to completely destroy them all (Mariottini).

You shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded; that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices which they have done in the service of their gods, and so to sin against the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 20:17-18)

“I could cite several other passages in Deuteronomy where the word “abomination” is used as a reference to a religious practice that existed in the religion of the Canaanites and several other nations in the Ancient Near East.” (Mariottini) But let’s move on to another point to note is the order of the words: “the female is referred to first, then the male” ( Mariottini).  “This is the reason Deuteronomy 22:5 prohibits Israelites from wearing garments of the opposite sex because these were the special garments female and male cultic prostitutes wore in the service of Asherah” (2 Kings 10:22; 23:7). ( Mariottini)

“Archaeology has shown that the exchange of roles in pagan cults, that is, where male acted as female and vice-versa, was common in the Ancient Near East.” (Mariottini). “Theodore Burgh, in his book Listening to the Artifacts: Music Culture in Palestine said (p. 69) that in ancient Mesopotamia, transvestites, men dressed like women, played and danced in the cult of Ishtar, performing erotic dances and pantomime.” (Mariottini)

“The Biblical text was not written in a vacuum. The Biblical text was written within a historical and cultural context. When the Biblical text is divorced of its cultural and historical contexts,” as some legalistic religions tend to do, “the text is made to say that which it never intended to say” (Mariottini).

Many countries today may practice the pants as male dress and the dress or skirt as the female dress. “But Deuteronomy was not addressing a cultural issue …in the twenty-first century or in any other century. Deuteronomy was addressed to Israel as it struggled with Canaanite culture. Deuteronomy was written to address the many religious problems that were plaguing the worship of God, problems that compromised Israel’s uniqueness as a chosen people and problems that undermined Israel’s mission to the nations.” (Mariottini)

While it undoubtedly is true that God wants some sexual distinction apparent in men’s and women’s garments, it is not legitimate to say that all women’s “pants” are wrong, or, for that matter, that Scottish “kilts” are sinful for the men of that culture.

Also as a reminder, we are no longer bound to the commandments of the law, Jesus Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. ( Gal. 3:1-14, Eph. 2:14-18, Eph. 2:19-22 and Col.2:14-23).

A woman can be feminine in a modest pant-suit (1 Tim. 2:9-10), and men can still be masculine in a robe-like garment (as in some Near Eastern countries today).

Two principles should be borne in mind. First, the Christian should dress appropriate to his gender. This distinction, incidentally, is apparent in all cultures. Second, the godly man or woman should dress modestly, and not in a manner that would solicit sexual interest.

“Deuteronomy 22:5 is not prohibiting women from wearing pants. In fact, the word “pants” does not even appear in the Bible. Well, that is not totally true. The word pants appears twice in the Bible: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1 NIV). But these are pants of another kind” (Mariottini).

Works Cited: Dr. Claude Mariottini, Professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Seminar

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