No Reason to Fret the Harry Styles Vogue Cover Unless Designed Gender Distinction or a Male and Female Item of Clothing

Prominent secular conservative voices repudiated British singer-songwriter Harry Styles for appearing on the cover in Vogue magazine in a dress.  Both Candace Owens (also here and here) and Ben Shapiro confronted his masculinity.  MSNBC defended Styles with the exact or identical argument used by evangelicals and fundamentalists for unisex apparel:  "Jesus wore dresses."   That I have seen, only secularists have renounced this fashion.  Zero of what we call the Christian public intellectuals say anything about it.  I don't hear any public Christian voices.  A very low percentage of professing Christians mount any defense of designed gender distinction.  Very little makes evangelicals and even most fundamentalists more angry than a Christian who stands for unique female and unique male items of clothing.

On the other hand, the world is very serious about what Harry Styles did.  That I know of, only Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro have said or written anything, and that you can tell by what's being written from the left.  The world has come to Styles's defense with great ferocity (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).  This is big to the world.  It means a lot to the world system.  It means almost nothing to Christians.  Why?  Christians stopped teaching and standing on biblical teaching on this matter a long time ago.   This is in a major way because professing Christians themselves will attack fellow Christians for talking about what the Bible says on this subject.  They will not defend the Christian who says what the Bible teaches.  They attack.  And then many, many just stay silent.  They might be thinking what I'm writing, but they will not stand with me for what I'm writing.

Among the leftist values bromides, denouncing Styles is breaking the law, "kindness is everything."  Only positive affirmation must be given.  If not positive affirmation, then smiling silence at least should be offered to be kind, according to the platitude.  Meanwhile, God Almighty seethes in heaven at this abomination.  He designed men and women.  He requires support of His design.  This is an attack on God as Creator, violating both written and natural law of God.  God is not happy.

Harry Styles is not the first contemporary male to wear a dress.  We've seen a rise in this trend.  However, women long ago started wearing pants, the distinguishing male item.  A majority of Christianity long ago capitulated on the biblical teaching of gender designed distinctions in dress.  Very few Christians will tell you with certainty what is male and female.  I contend that women wearing pants is as serious as men wearing dresses.  If someone is judging these matters based upon biblical or divine authority, it must be.

On various occasions and for various reasons, including preaching there, I traveled through the vicinity of the San Francisco gay pride parade as I pastored a church in the Bay Area.  They had several booths or tents for the purchase of the male skirt or dress.  I think that you all know that when a "transgender" makes his statement about being a woman, he wears a dress or a skirt.  He's not wearing pants.  Why do you think that is?  Hmmmm.  Jaden Smith, son of actor and rapper Will Smith, drew attention by wearing dresses in public a few years ago.  I've thought that it was only a matter of time that men will start wearing dresses on a regular basis.

Most Christian men will still say that it's wrong for a man to wear a dress, but they don't mount a biblical explanation.  It's just a preference.  They've actually been defending men in dresses for awhile.  They say something like, everyone wore robes in Bible times, to justify their wives and daughters wearing pants.  That's their argument.  It's not one that you can draw from scripture, but it has the purpose of defending a woman wearing a male item.  So now when a man wears the woman's item, it's that goose and the gander thing.  What can they say?  They've taken away their own biblical argument against male dresses or skirts.

Where have true believers argued against pants on women and skirts and dresses on men throughout history?  They go to Deuteronomy 22:5, 1 Corinthians 11:3-16, and Job 38:3 and 40:7.  I call pants the male item because of the language of Deuteronomy 22:5.   A good understanding of the Hebrew of the King James Version English, "that which pertaineth unto a man," is "male item."  It is more than just clothing.  Women should not wear what is a distinctly male item.  Men should not put on a woman's garment.  All who do so are an abomination unto the LORD thy God.  When I write on this, it isn't unusual that I get mocked by professing Christian men for writing on it.  They want to make sure that they stand up and take a strong stand for "women's pants."  This is very important to them.

I think that a dress or a skirt on men is still a bridge too far for most men, let alone Christian men, but the defense of that position comes from the Bible.  We need men to repent of their capitulation on this issue and to join churches outside the camp to stand upon the Word of God.  This is not just a matter of a gag reflex or a personal turn-off.  This is about creation order.  This is about the preservation of divinely originated roles.  This is to preserve the family, which is to guard the truth.

Before men starting wearing dresses, women began wearing pants.  Why do you think this is?  It isn't rocket science.  You know that.  You even know why?  Pants are a male item, so they symbolize authority.  I think this might be an insult to your intelligence, but when women started wearing pants, society as a whole opposed it, women too.  Pants were masculine.  Most people saw pants as rebellious for women.  They were bucking male authority.   This assumed there was male authority, represented by the terminology, men wear the pants in the family.  There is less repulsion and rejection of a dress on a man right now in our culture than there was at one historical juncture with pants on women.  Most of you reading this know that.

The dress that Harry Styles is wearing for the Vogue article is also frilly.  It is not just a dress, but a very feminine dress.  It is attempting to make an even greater statement of "gender fluidity."  If the statement was put into words, it might be, "There is no gender distinction."  A corollary to that is, "God didn't make me; I got here through natural causation."  The postmodernist or critical theorist adds, "It's a social construct."  Constructed by whom?  The Male Patriarchy.

Shapiro argues Jordan Peterson style, assuming that the Bible can't be used in the public square.  He tries to go all science, like a classic liberal.  He looks at animal life and genetics.  You can tell that he doesn't feel good about his argument, so he uses "moron" and "idiot" to add.  We Christians need to come in and just say it.  God wants male and female items.  We need to stand on them.  We shouldn't mock them.  God wants the distinctions, clear ones.  God created masculinity.  God Himself says, Gird up your loins as a man.  Go with what God says.  Honor Him.

There is, as you know, now such a thing as a dress that is more feminine than other types of dresses.  For instance, some women wear "business dresses" that project a kind of authority.  It's still a dress, but it's also indicating a work that also was once only masculine.  Women jumped from the feminine dress to the business dress to the pant suit.  Each of these steps were moving away from a God-ordained appearance and role.

Secular conservatives should not be the ones, or at least the only ones, saying something about the perversion divine designed distinctions between gender.  Ben Shapiro makes an argument, "It's just stupid!"  He's saying something.  It's stupid.  That isn't a good argument, but he's saying something.  This is an intelligent man.  We need to bring the biblical argument to the public square.  It is true.  It is science.  It is necessary.  Join in this.