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Sure, it’s about the heart, that goes without saying,”

Well, I wish that were true. I’ve had many of these conversations. It seems that for followers, for example, of Michael Pearl this thought (it is about the heart) is quite revolutionary. They immediately think that if you aren’t nailing down a very precise standard, then you are embracing rebellion and anarchy.

They are very wrong.

A skirt can always be longer. Eventually a skirt becomes too long and a woman can’t walk...of course for some of these legalists, even that would be good because then these women wouldn’t be out there walking around tempting men.

I don’t think I actually agree that in all instances figuring out what’s biblical isn’t hard. If by that we mean simply, love God and seem him first, then so far so good. If you love God and Christ enough, then you will be driven to the basic law (the decalogue) and you will see the truth and beauty and righteousness in that. And that is good. We should love the law...but not as an end in itself...but because we love God and God gave us the law.

But I don’t think laying down additional particularities is easy at all, or even desirable.

For some - like the Gothard/Doug Phillips/Michael Pearl followers - it is “obvious” that you don’t listen to Christian popular music, that you don’t watch or read Lord of the Rings, that women shouldn’t wear make up and so on and so on and so on and so on. The proliferation of these lists becomes oppressive and life-denying. Unlike the Gospel which is liberating and life-giving.

Re: Lady Gaga. Of course dressing like her is wrong. But if you tell your daughter not to dress like that, but God doesn’t capture her heart, then you may think you have won the battle, but you have lost the war. Get the heart right and you don’t have to worry about the outward.

That seems to me to be what Paul says again and again. It rings true in my life, and in my observations of life, including life in the church.....

What do these people do with the Godly men who wore the same attire that women wore - robes in Moses and Abraham's time - just that the robes that men wore were different, and vice versa?

Sarah wore gold and silver jewelry.

What would they say? “Repent thou sinner Sarah!”? I don't think so. I believe that God would not concur with that sentiment were it uttered.

What do they do with God asking Godly men and women to bring what His Spirit stirred in them - and they brought forth nose rings, rings, bracelets, etc - to be melted down and used for the Tabernacle?

As how do they define “contemporary” Gospel music?

I guess we will have to go back to Southern Gospel... :(

You know that God gave to Moses Southern Gospel music on Mount Sinai, don't you? /sarcasm.

The Pearls are not legalists. You’re making a huge, inaccurate generalization. I know many Gothardites and people who read after the Pearls, and your characterization of them is bordering on straw-man. A student of the Bible, who isn’t trying to make it fit into a seeker sensitive, postmodernist paradigm, will see that this stuff matters to God. Pre-1960’s Christians didn’t have any trouble with it.

Sorry, I don’t have much patience for this debate because I know we’ve jumped the shark, and there’s no going back. Most of the people teaching standards have abandoned them. It’s a waste of time to bother with it anymore. As Christianity goes, so goes the country. It’s not holiness that is decimating Christianity, it’s worldliness.