Things as They Really Are: Modesty
By Bethany Tolley
This post is part of a series called Things As They Really Are.
I have a clear memory of putting a necklace, made with yarn and paper, around my neck. The ends of the yarn were tied to the top corners of a piece of white poster-board. The poster-board was cut into a rectangular shape with the name of Christ written in black Sharpie. “When you get baptized, you covenant to take upon you the name of Christ,” a teacher said, as I slipped it over my head and settled the large rectangle against my chest. I patted it so that it would lay flat against my tummy, but the thick poster-board refused to be tamed. I’m not sure what age I was, but I understood that the teacher wanted me to realize that being baptized, and covenanting with God to “take upon me the name of Christ,” meant that I literally walked around every day with His name on me.
A few years back, I read an online article that made me rethink my baptismal covenants and how directly and unexpectedly they tied into the doctrine of modesty. I was so moved by what I discovered that decided to blog about it. While I pondered modesty, the picture of that yarn necklace came back into my mind.
I asked myself the question: “How does modesty help me keep my baptismal covenants?” This spurred a review of what covenants I made at baptism. First, I covenanted to take upon myself the name of Christ (Pieper 2018). Why did I get His name? Because by being baptized I was also reborn into Christ’s family (Mosiah 1:12; 5:79). What did I do now that I carried Christ’s name? I covenanted to help, comfort, love, guide, and bear other’s struggles and burdens. I also covenanted to stand as a witness of God in all things and in all places even until death (Mosiah 18:9).
It became clear to me that modesty had very little to do with what I looked like or what I wore on the outside except if it interfered with me carrying Christ’s name. But this wasn’t the end. I encountered arguments in my research. For example, many claimed that how we dress has to do with self-expression and personality, and that propriety interfered with these.
I asked myself the question: “Can my self-expression get in the way of me carrying the name of Christ?” I was led to scriptures and the topic of priestcraft. Priestcraft is a person “setting themselves up for a light unto the world that they might get gain and the praise of the world” (2 Nephi 26:29). Priestcraft includes the things people do to get praise, riches, and honor (Alma 1:16). My conclusion was that the scriptures said nothing against personality or self-expression except when the intent of the person’s self-expression was to draw attention away from Christ and onto themselves for a selfish reason. Even if a person’s dressed “modestly” internal intent could still convict him/her of priestcraft. Priestcraft was immodesty.
Perhaps the most violent argument I encountered was that we, as individuals, should not have to be responsible for the thoughts or actions of others. In the 2nd Article of Faith, we learn that we are not responsible, or punishable, for the sins others commit. However, we are responsible for what we think, and our intent. If our intent when we dress, speak, and act is to draw attention to ourselves and to get the selfish praise and attention of others; if our intent is to serve selfish needs over acting as a witness of Christ; that is what we are responsible for. In the end, it matters far less where our hemlines end or what phrases are plastered across our t-shirts, as long as they don’t distract others from the very real name of Christ that we have covenanted to carry.
Modesty isn’t about others; it’s about us keeping our baptismal covenant to take upon us the name of Christ. Why then do we have norms of propriety and dress? Because those norms have been established by our culture as appropriate (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints n.d.). In some countries, there are far more severe and strict norms of propriety; and in other countries there are far less strict and very open norms of propriety. But “to stand as a witness of God in all things and in all places” means to have as our intent our desire to hold up the light of Christ and to carry His name. We often do that by meeting those required norms. The norms themselves aren’t the definition of modesty. The norms are what we adapt to in our desire to be modest.
Bibliography
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. n.d. “Dress and Appearance.” For the Strength of Youth. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Pieper, Paul B. 2018. “All Must Take upon Them the Name Given of the Father.” ChurchofJesusChrist.org. October. Accessed 03 26, 2021.
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