Look and Stumble

I finally understand why Taylor's school newspaper is named "The Echo". It's because reading it each week is like a severe case of déjà vu. "Whoa! That is harsh and unfounded," you might say. Unfortunately, The Echo's online archives are not up to date, so I cannot pretend to have journalistic integrity and substantiate my argument. As for the harshness of my exposition, what else would you expect from Nate's Nukes?

The inciting article, entitled "Modesty: applicable to all" was published back in the April 27, 2007 edition of The Echo. Ever since that article (some six months later), the opinions page has been riddled with the incessant reverberations of, "In response to ______'s thoughts on immodesty," "1 Peter 2:11 says...," "people who wear bikinis go to hell," and my personal favorite: "the shirtless cross country team turns me on and I live in Sammy, what should I do?" Things have gotten so out of control that there has been talk about moving Taylor within the frigid Arctic Circle to ensure that everyone wears copious amounts of clothing.

This ordinarily wouldn't bother me if the opinions were insightful, but the vast majority of them preach the same tired Bible verses (usually taken out of context), reek of responsibility avoidance, and display flat-out ignorance on the part of the writer. Let me lay it out for you: I don't care if Taylor is a Christian institution - you cannot expect everyone around you to protect you from yourself. Practically what does this mean? Quite simply, unless you gouge out your eyes with a half-bent spoon from the DC, you will be visually stimulated by that hot guy/girl that roams around campus. But even if you convince said hottie to wear a snowsuit around campus, something else will fill that desire - pictures on Facebook, raunchy Axe commercials, the checkout clerk at Wal-Mart - whatever. The point is you must take responsibility for your actions. If you believe that shirtless males or tank-top clad females on campus cause you to "stumble" then sign up for an accountability group, close your eyes, or stay in your dorm.

I already sense your objections to what I just proposed. "How can we expect to maintain a Christian atmosphere at Taylor if anything goes?" I ask a far more important question: How do you expect to survive outside of a Christian atmosphere when you graduate within the next 4-5 years? If you think that Miami Beach is going to don wetsuits the week of your vacation, you are more naïve than I first thought.