More on Skirts

[Aquila]

I knew a man who grew up in an ultra conservative UPCI church. Things preached were:

No pants on women
No shorts on men
No makeup
No beards
No short sleeves
No open toed shoes on women
Sandals permitted on men
Dresses and skirts to the ankle
Dresses and skirts could rise no higher than mid calf while sitting
No colored hosiery
No jewelry, not even a wedding band
No watches unless leather straps
No television
No secular music or radio
No internet unless one installed BeSafe Online, with Senior Pastor and Pastor set as recipients of online reporting
No secular sports
All men must wear suit jackets to service
No cut hair on women
No hair in men that was over the ears or below back neck line
No extreme of hair style
Women were not to wear their hair down
Ladies neck line was to be two inches
No high heeled shoes
Tithing mandatory
Sheaves for Christ mandatory
No change of job, schooling, or major purchase without pastoral permission
All services mandatory for leadership
The husband was the absolute authority of the home. Domestic corporal punishment was strongly encouraged

Any one of these things could send one to Hell.

This man even increased the standards by requiring that his wife wear a head covering or cloth scrunchy over her bun. Nor was she to wear red.

Divorce was rampant in the church, but it was kept discrete. It would take hours to explain the pain, suffering, emotional, psychological, and physical abuse that took place in the church and in this young man's marriage, which eventually fell to pieces as he tried and tried to pray and enforce the rules and gain the winning combination to make it all work.

The divorce was eye opening, to say the least. He now can see the man he had become. He can see how void of love he truly was. He can see that he was never like Jesus. He can see how the abusive advice he was given doomed his marriage from the start.

He finally found Jesus. Today, he knows what grace truly is. Today, he understands that there isn't a secret combination of standards to success or holiness. Today, he knows that love is truly all you need. He opposes legalism with all his being, knowing that it only conforms one into the image of a church, and not Christ Himself. It is an idolatrous form of self worship.