Quote:
Originally Posted by Alter Ego
Getting back to this...
3. The UPCI Position on Holiness and Separation from the World. The General Board had an extended discussion of the importance of maintaining our identity as a holiness movement and upholding our positions in this area as stated in the Articles of Faith. There was a consensus that we need to reaffirm these teachings, and the general superintendent will write a letter to our constituency to express our commitment to them. At the same time, the General Board concluded that it is not enough simply to reaffirm our position, but we must implement practical ways to teach biblical holiness. To accomplish this goal, various means will be employed, including publications, General Conference, Global Impact, and other methods. On a related note, the General Youth Division presented some exciting plans for Youth Congress in 2009 that will incorporate this goal in a positive way while avoiding some problems and concerns that have occurred in the past. The General Youth Division will also develop platform guidelines for Youth Congress and Bible Quizzing participants.
It is telling that the UPC is now a movement that is consistently looking back. Always focused on what was. Anxious to emulate traditions of yesteryear in the hope that the same blessings our ancestors recieved will somehow transfer to us - if we follow their pattern perfectly.
We forget that, in the early stages of our movement, we were rogues, cutting edge, wild. Our worship was considered far outside of the mainstream. But we looked just like the rest of the world. Look at a group picture of any street scene in New York between 1900 and 1960 and you will notice that there is very little difference in "the church" and "the world."
Pentecostal men wore the same sort of suits as wordly men. The same hats. The same hairstyles. Our women looked no different that wordly women.
It wasn't until the sixties and seventies that we became so rigidly set against "worldiness." If you will notice, we are stuck in a time warp. Our ladies and men still look like that pre-sixties culture.
The cutting edge aspect of Pentecostalism has been replaced with dead, dry tradition. Tradition that strangles the movement of God in our fellowship. Tradition that is an insidious enemy that subverts fulfillment of the great commission.
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And for all of our moaning about being separate (which I would argue has little to do with our look), it is amazing that beehives were acceptable in the sixties and seventies. Leisure suits and unkmept hair was acceptable in the seventies. Poofs were okay in the eighties, perfectly reflecting the "big hair" styles of the day.
We pretend that we are separate in our look but we fool ourselves.
We are not "separate." We are fruity. We only hold on to a few silly rules that are as useless in combatting sin as a leaf is fighting a whirlwind.
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