Trust your intuition—healthy communities depend upon a jealous friction between the authority of the parents in the home and the authority of community leaders outside the home.
I grew up attending a small, geriatric Protestant congregation. As a result, I missed most of modesty culture and the modesty talks. My parents would say “You’re not wearing that” and that was it. I rarely remember a mention of appropriate attire from the pulpit, but now it makes sense since the median age had to be 55.
"Our efforts at holiness and indeed the true states of our souls are hidden, tempting us to fashion outward signs to convey just how holy we are."
I suspect that this comes into play when a representative of an institution violates the virtue the institution tried to enforce in place of the parents. After the violation, The institution thinking more about maintaining its image, and about protecting its role as promoting a virtue, has a weapon meant to help it repair its "sense of self": encouraging the silence of others.
Its possible that whenever an institution or community overfocuses on promoting modesty, its main move after a representative goes wrong is to say, "It couldn't be!" and "what will the outsiders think?" and sometimes "She should keep her mouth shut instead of destroying his reputation!"
I grew up attending a small, geriatric Protestant congregation. As a result, I missed most of modesty culture and the modesty talks. My parents would say “You’re not wearing that” and that was it. I rarely remember a mention of appropriate attire from the pulpit, but now it makes sense since the median age had to be 55.
Some good food for thought here!
"Our efforts at holiness and indeed the true states of our souls are hidden, tempting us to fashion outward signs to convey just how holy we are."
I suspect that this comes into play when a representative of an institution violates the virtue the institution tried to enforce in place of the parents. After the violation, The institution thinking more about maintaining its image, and about protecting its role as promoting a virtue, has a weapon meant to help it repair its "sense of self": encouraging the silence of others.
Its possible that whenever an institution or community overfocuses on promoting modesty, its main move after a representative goes wrong is to say, "It couldn't be!" and "what will the outsiders think?" and sometimes "She should keep her mouth shut instead of destroying his reputation!"