Are there any dress restrictions for Christian women?

[Daffy123]

I know Christian women have to dress modestly but what does that entail. There is a church going Christian at my work and she often wears dresses and tops with no sleeves and short skirts

What does the bible say?

[BristolRover]

a sleeveless top or short skirt would reveal her underwear - the mormon garment has substantial sleeves and legs. You can see it through Mitt Romney's shirts q often.

[Ninehoursahead]

Our (Anglican) church is in a beach town in Australia. People come to our evening service straight from the beach in Summer, usually just throw a pair of shorts or a dress over a bikini, no-one ever says anything. Our minister preaches in thongs (flip-flops) most weeks.
I'm not surer why you want to know OP...

[nicename]

OP wants to either prove a point ('funny forrin nonsense' - which is a bit odd is s/he lives in the UK) or have a fight. It's too hot for either.

Today we have summer dresses and, agaon, Hawaiian shirts in the office. Maybe Hawaiian shirts are church 'uniform'?

[Ninehoursahead]

Nicename, one of the guys in my old office in a Christian NFP used to wear Hawaiians all year round. He actually found a couple of long sleeved ones to wear in winter!
In our church office today we have a miniskirt with leggings - not sure where that lies in the modesty spectrum!

[nicename]

I must tell the boss that they do long sleeved ones!

[NinjaLeprechaun]

Observant Jews (as opposed to Jews who observe their religion) will cover themselves from their collarbone to their knees, the tops of their arms from collarbone to elbow, and married women cover their hair (some Orthodox women shave their heads and wear expensive wigs.)
This comes from the same text that's in the Old Testament in the Bible (I forget which verse or verses) and some of the more fundamental Christian sects will follow their own interpretation of the same rules.

One difference I've noticed is that Jewish women have absolutely no issue with wearing very trendy, colourful, or designer styles, while the Christians will generally opt for the plainer versions. Although, again, this doesn't apply to all of them.

[livelablove]

This discussion reminds me of Romans 14 which I was reading, in which Paul discusses freedom from the(mosaic) law, mainly relating to eating but what he says could be easily applied to dress. He basically says we are free to do as we want, but we should not criticize others who believe they are honouring God by sticking to the older, stricter laws.

[AMumInScotland]

And, as usual, a nonChristian believes that Christians are supposed to view their Bible as a book of instructions that must be obeyed, even the rules laid down for the people of Israel in the Old Testament.

I don't sacrifice doves at the Temple. I eat cheeseburgers. I wear poly-cotton shirts.

Even modern Jewish people have moved on from many of those rules. Why exactly should Christianity be stuck in a time warp?

[AMumInScotland]

Well, St Peter had a vision which told him that it was no longer necessary to obey the dietary restrictions, which was a pretty big 'okay' to being flexible about how to treat the Old Testament.

And for all Jesus saying it still applied, the things he did, like healing on the Sabbath, showed that he didn't feel constrained to follow the letter of it.

Some Christians do tie themselves in knots to say that we have to take it all very literally, and that God wanted every word of it to be just as it ended up (the original rather than any specific translation). However, most Christians in the UK today are liberals rather than Biblical fundamentalists, and take the view that the Bible is a collection of books which tell us about the lives and experiences of Christians in the past, but that it was never intended to be an instruction manual.

[AMumInScotland]

Well, I'm not trying to convince you of anything, am I?

Quite a few people think that the central messages of Christianity are a lot more important than the cultural trappings that were a part of it in the place and time when it first emerged.

And they choose to believe in it and live their lives by it.

Why does that give you a problem?

[AMumInScotland]

Who are 'they' exactly? I'm a Christian, and I don't do that. Neither do the vast majority of the Christians that I know, up to and including clergy.
So someone more specific than 'Christians' must be the problem. Apart from a handful of Bishops in the House of Lords, I don't know of anyone who gets to force their opinion on others. Some people try, but they mostly get shouted down. But plenty of people do that with their opinions, not necessarily opinions that have any basis in a religion.

[Beastofburden]

If we go back 100 years, I am sure that there were many dress codes among "respectable" folk which involved covering up; and they would have also have been seen as "dressing modestly" as per the bible, because dressing otherwise was seen as not socially respectable. And in those days, being respectable and being christian, certainly in the UK, were the same thing.

Now there is not the same correlation between dressing a certain way and being respectable. People in boob tubes and thongs are not seen as being not decent women with a moral code; they are just people wearing stuff- unless they are somewhere so inappropriate, like a funeral or a nursery, where it looks as if they are being deliberately provocative.

I might say that it's a bit old-fashioned for a faith to be overly linked to what people wear. I think all faiths are concerned with whether people are moral beings; but in today's world it isn't valid to use dress as a short-cut for telling if someone is a moral being.

Maybe in more formal communities there is still a "christian" form of dress. Does anyone know about Africa? I do see Sunday Best being a thing among people I see going to church in the UK, where a lot of the congregation has an African heritage. But I also see that among the younger people that is also changing.

I think it's a good thing, myself. I don't like the idea that women's morals are judged on how they dress. I'm glad that Europe, on the whole, has moved on from that attitude.

[capsium]

BigDorrit

your Jesus character supposedly stated that the old testament still applied, so why do you think you know better than him?

So according to you, you believe Christianity preaches a strict dress code for women. When Christians on this board say this is not so, you complain,

they insist that their opinion of what their book says overrides anybody else's ideas, and force them on to the rest of us. And they don't even agree on what those central messages are...

But how can an inconsistent set of ideas be forced onto anyone? Surely the ideas being inconsistent, as you claim, would give you less to be concerned about with regard to ideas being forced on to you?

Yet you seem to be arguing the Bible has a message which is quite clear,

As usual, most Christians are either unaware of what their bible says, or pretend that it doesn't say it;

...and one you do not like.

Could it be you want this to be the case, as it supports your (inferred) idea that Christian belief is somehow undesirable and that the church is bad, so to speak, forcing undesirable ideas onto you.

[Beastofburden]

to be fair, cap, there is a lot in the bible that people don't follow any more, and it can be very confusing to know which things still matter to which people. Especially when I am trying to understand someone who sincerely feels that the bible prohibits gay relationships, I am confused by the attitude to other biblical rules that are no longer followed.

[capsium]

Beast

to be fair, cap, there is a lot in the bible that people don't follow any more, and it can be very confusing to know which things still matter to which people.

I think what exists, within modern Christianity, is that there are more people able to read the Bible and study it's historical context, to find meaning in it and what it actually means in their own lives. Previously less people were able to do this, they were reliant on the church leadership, to convey the Bible's message to them, as they saw fit, and I think there were political motivations in some of how they conveyed this.

BigDorrit

I'm deliriously happy that women don't feel they have to wear what their religion states.

They are saying their religion does not state this though...

[capsium]

Big

No they are saying the Bible's message can be interpreted, misunderstood or twisted.

[capsium]

BigDorrit The word can be infallible (although this is disputed by some) but people's interpretations of it and understanding of it's meaning, can be fallible.