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Herbert Armstrong: TO BE ENFORCED! Ruling On Women's Dress

Herbert Armstrong writes:

And I want to say, before quoting from the former article, that God’s ministers are quite frequently embarrassed, while preaching in the pulpit, by women wearing too short skirts that do not cover their knees, sitting with their knees spread apart at least eight or ten inches. Usually the careless ones are middle-aged or elderly women. Just once, I believe, have I personally noticed this inexcusable carelessness on the part of a college girl. This happens REPEATEDLY. Personally, I have not wanted to publicly embarrass these women. But if, after this article has appeared in print, such carelessness occurs again in my sight, I shall personally reprimand such women regardless of the painful embarrassment it may cause them ! 

Apparently the "men" who masqueraded as ministers were having issues with elderly women spreading the legs in front of them during sermons.   What kind of nonsense is that?

To show these apostate elderly women who is in charge, HWA says that they are to be told ONCE and then punished if they do it again.  Armstrong was like most other patriarchal men when it came to women in the church.  Women were nothing more than "children" in his sight, under contestant need to be controlled and disciplined. Women are too stupid to know right from wrong and need a REAL man to tell them what to do.  Of course only real men could be found within the Church of God.

In our teaching on child rearing, based on God’s Word, we teach parents to speak plainly JUST ONCE-and then punish. The women guilty of this neglect are old enough to know better, but they are our spiritual children, and I am instructing all ministers to PRACTICE WHAT WE PREACH, and ENFORCE this ruling! 

Herbert was especially disgusted by women's knees.  What could be more revolting?

It is embarrassing to me, personally, when I see a woman in constant embarrassment tugging away at her skirt while she sits, to make it cover her knees when it simply is not long enough to cover them. Or, as so often happens, now, because her skirt comes merely to her knees when sitting, but leaves them completely exposed, she continually tries to pull her skirt tightly around her legs just above the knee, fastening the skirt underneath. between her legs and the chair.

So what was a poor woman to do in the church?  Herb has the answer: 

Women who care more for what GOD thinks than what this rotten, filthy, doomed WORLD thinks, will immediately let out any skirts shorter than that. Those who care more about what THE WORLD thinks than God will mark themselves as PART OF THE WORLD and NO LONGER MEMBERS OF GOD’S CHURCH. 

So what else ticked off HWA?  Tight skirts!  Women who wore tight skirts deserved to be SPANKED! Now we know here Spanky Meredith got his deviate passion from.  Meredith frequently bragged about how he spanked his wife and daughter when they were rebellious.

Since the last article on this subject, the Ruling has been so flagrantly ignored or disobeyed that the time has come TO ENFORCE this Ruling. God’s Ministers are instructed to act accordingly. 

And THIS INCLUDES THESE TOO TIGHT SKIRTS. 

By that, I mean these skirts taken up just below the hips, so they FORM-FIT the buttocks, clinging tight behind and under the place where they OUGHT to be SPANKED! I know that nearly all skirts are made that way today. 

It seems that HWA thought most women in the church were walking harlots. 

Candidly, when I see a female with a skirt tight enough to call attention to the shape of her hips, especially when tight below the hips and under the buttocks, I know that she is either care- less and needs sharp admonishing or else she is wearing it deliberately to attract male eyes and arouse lust toward her in men’s minds. 

 It's not the men's fault their tongues hang out in lust, but the women's fault for making the men sin. 

HWA continues with his desire that women be spanked because they are nothing more than common  prostitutes:

Do you want to know my personal reaction when I see such an example? It makes me feel that such a girl or woman needs either a good lecture driven home by a sound SPANKING of what she so brazenly displays, or to be classed as a fallen woman and a common prostitute. 

THAT IS PLAIN LANGUAGE! I mean it to be plain, and I want the women in God’s Church to know it is coming from God’s Minister, who speaks by Christ’s authority!

Recently some of our girls and women have been wearing skirts that are entirely TOO SHORT! Often I have felt I ought to speak personally to some of you. If this article does not quickly correct this EVil-AND IT IS A N EVIL! -God’s ministers will be instructed to begin speaking personally and in a manner that ought to cause a deep sense of shame and produce a very red face on any girl or woman who invited such sharp rebuke from a Minister of God! 

Even Herbert's god is embarrased by those knees:

When many of you women wear skirts as high as (and now above) the knee, and which completely expose the knees when sitting, your skirts are an abomination in GOD’Seyes. I wonder, frankly, if God doesn’t blush when HE sees you! Are you women who do this, deliberately trying to tempt men into breaking the spirit of God’s law against adultery? Are you trying to make yourselves adultresses ? Are you not breaking the very spirit of that law, yourselves? 

Again, its the women's fault, not the poor over-sexed men.

Lest we think Herbert only looked at knees; he also was disgusted by breasts.  It must have been a real struggle for him and other ministers to have to preach every week looking out at all of these spread legs and boobs hanging out of dresses.

More than once I have seen a few of our women, in evening dress, exposing entirely too much female breast-with neckline cut so low as to show a goodly portion of breasts, with a crease in the middle. On one or two occasions, I have instructed Mrs. Armstrong to speak to such women, telling them plainly that their necklines are too low. 

Women’s breasts, in plain language, were designed by God to nurse babies- not to be flaunted immodestly to arouse lust in men. 

Can you imagine the catatonic fit HWA would go into today when he saw a woman nursing her baby!

Herbert has this final thing to say:

In the matter of too-tight skirts around the hips, the excuse often is that the girl has taken on weight-and she protests that she cannot help it. But she can help it, and if she is to remain in God's Church or enter into God's Kingdom, she must-one of two ways: either don't remain over weight (fasting and proper diet will cure that quickly). or let the seam out.

It is the over-emphasis of lust-arousing portions of the female body that MUST BE CORRECTED.

The only over-emphasis that I have ever seen in the church has come from the top down.  Men who can't control their lusts or perversions.

Male cult patriarchy it its finest!

You too can read this absurd article here: TO BE ENFORCED Ruling on women's dress