While holding a meeting in north Alabama, this writer had the pleasure of visiting in the home of an elder of a nearby congregation. His two teenage daughters were truly refreshing.    They did not attend their high school prom, did not swim with boys at the public pool, and positively never wore clothes that were immodest.   These were not strange girls.  They were pretty, popular girls heavily involved in all kinds of school activities. They were confident and courageous.   No doubt these girls will live rich, full, and joyful lives.

In "The Visitor," the Adamsville, Alabama church bulletin, Tim Rice wrote:

“A substitute teacher I know recently overheard some cheerleaders at school say some-thing like the following:   ‘I feel sorry for Jane [not her real name].  She is a member of the church of Christ.  She can’t wear short dresses.   Her parents would not let her go to the prom.  Why, even when her family goes on vacation, they don't go to the beach where the action is, they go off by themselves.   And she wears spandex pants when she goes swimming there.   She can’t go to any of the pool-parties we have because her parents don't think it's right to go mixed swimming.   She doesn’t smoke or do any of the fun things.   And she goes to church all the time.'

Will she be warped or rebellious?   Will her parents’ strictness cause her to snap or go wild?   Or, have we let the voice of the world convince us that chaste, conservative, and wholesome values ruin young lives?

The woman this writer married was raised like those elders’ daughters and ‘Jane.’  She is normal in every way.   She has always received great respect from world and church, male and female!   She has no difficulty faithfully believing the truth about the ever-present danger of producing lust through activities like mixed swimming, dancing, or brief attire (cf., Gal. 5:19; I Pet. 4:3; 2 Cor. 12:21; Webster's New World Dictionary definition of “lasciviousness”). She has adopted 1 Timothy 2:9 as her code of decency, being modest from the inside out and putting her emphasis on wearing the whole armor of God and not the bikinis, mini's, tight, and slight attire of the world!"

Yes, television and movies have desensitized us with half-clothed, unclothed, and up- close men and women, as if such were natural and acceptable.   The summertime dress code of the world suggests that we are free to do whatever pleases us.  The invitation of the devil's sermon is: “Come unto me, nude and uninhibited, and I will give you popularity, acceptance, and freedom.”   Woe to the Christian who swallows that lie!