I'd Been Wondering About That

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I'd Been Wondering About That
According to the absolute monarch of Swaziland, women wearing pants is the cause of the world's ills. I'd been wondering about the cause of all the stuff that keeps jumping out at me from the front page of the newspaper. Now I know. Just so you'll have the precise quote, here is what King Mswati said in a May 29, 2003 speech: "The Bible says curse be unto a woman who wears pants, and those who wear their husband's clothes. That is why the world is in such a state today." With that issue settled, the king pressed on to lesser matters. The veritable sovereign of an impoverished feudal nation of about one million souls - a nation in which all opposition parties are banned - also derided the world's movement toward human rights. "What rights? God created people, and he gave them their roles in society," he explained. "You cannot change what God has created. This is an abomination before God." True enough friend, there is an obscure Old Testament text about men and women creating gender confusion by dress at Deuteronomy 22:5. It's probably what we'd call cross-dressing today and has to do with blurring one's sexual identity. But there's nothing in the Bible that makes trousers male and skirts female. In the times of Moses and Jesus, men wore what we would call a skirt or robe as their customary attire. So enough already for the King's skill as a Bible student. But he does illustrate the tendency all of us have to confuse the trivial with the significant and to excoriate the former while ignoring the latter. I wonder if Swaziland's poverty is more directly related to women in jeans or rulers in luxury? Denim or disease? Pants or government corruption? It's easier and more acceptable to the king's audience of conservative church leaders in his nation of monopolized thought to damn minutiae than to cure real problems. Companies do it by stressing dress codes over accountability for top-level management. Churches do it by inventing legalisms to regulate everything from hair length to mowing the lawn on Sunday to playing card games. Families do it by screeching about loud music or weird taste in clothes instead of creating such healthy relationships that adults and children can talk about what really matters. I guess what I'm really trying to say in what I'm sharing with you today, is that maintaining institutions and shoring up personal privilege at the expense of truth and healthy relationships dishonours God and insults people. Maybe that's why Jesus warned us about straining out tiny gnats and swallowing camels whole. That's something to think about, isn't it! Have a great day!

According to the absolute monarch of Swaziland, women wearing pants is the cause of the world's ills. I'd been wondering about the cause of all the stuff that keeps jumping out at me from the front page of the newspaper. Now I know.

Just so you'll have the precise quote, here is what King Mswati said in a May 29, 2003 speech: "The Bible says curse be unto a woman who wears pants, and those who wear their husband's clothes. That is why the world is in such a state today." With that issue settled, the king pressed on to lesser matters.

The veritable sovereign of an impoverished feudal nation of about one million souls - a nation in which all opposition parties are banned - also derided the world's movement toward human rights. "What rights? God created people, and he gave them their roles in society," he explained. "You cannot change what God has created. This is an abomination before God."

True enough friend, there is an obscure Old Testament text about men and women creating gender confusion by dress at Deuteronomy 22:5. It's probably what we'd call cross-dressing today and has to do with blurring one's sexual identity. But there's nothing in the Bible that makes trousers male and skirts female. In the times of Moses and Jesus, men wore what we would call a skirt or robe as their customary attire. So enough already for the King's skill as a Bible student.

But he does illustrate the tendency all of us have to confuse the trivial with the significant and to excoriate the former while ignoring the latter.

I wonder if Swaziland's poverty is more directly related to women in jeans or rulers in luxury? Denim or disease? Pants or government corruption? It's easier and more acceptable to the king's audience of conservative church leaders in his nation of monopolized thought to damn minutiae than to cure real problems.

Companies do it by stressing dress codes over accountability for top-level management. Churches do it by inventing legalisms to regulate everything from hair length to mowing the lawn on Sunday to playing card games. Families do it by screeching about loud music or weird taste in clothes instead of creating such healthy relationships that adults and children can talk about what really matters.

I guess what I'm really trying to say in what I'm sharing with you today, is that maintaining institutions and shoring up personal privilege at the expense of truth and healthy relationships dishonours God and insults people. Maybe that's why Jesus warned us about straining out tiny gnats and swallowing camels whole. That's something to think about, isn't it!

Have a great day!