American Council of Christian Churches
84th Annual Convention, October 21-23, 2025
Bible Presbyterian Church of Charlotte, NC
Resolution on Modesty
The English noun modesty comes from the Latin word modus, meaning a limit. At its core, modesty is the act of self-limitation in consideration for others. Noah Webster (1828) defined the adjective modest: “Properly, restrained by a sense of propriety; hence, not forward or bold; not presumptuous or arrogant; not boastful.” A Christian convert of our nation’s early revivals,[1] Webster waxed eloquent in his definition of the noun modesty: “That lowly temper which accompanies a moderate estimate of one’s own worth and importance. This temper when natural, springs in some measure from timidity, and in young and inexperienced persons, is allied to bashfulness and diffidence. In persons who have seen the world, and lost their natural timidity, modesty springs no less from principle than from feeling, and is manifested by retiring, unobtrusive manners, assuming less to itself than others are willing to yield, and conceding to others all due honor and respect, or even more than they expect or require.”[2]
This forefather of American education taught that the modesty of ladies is particularly glorious: “In females, modesty has the like character as in males; but the word is used also as synonymous with chastity, or purity of manners. In this sense, modesty results from purity of mind, or from the fear of disgrace and ignominy fortified by education and principle. Unaffected modesty is the sweetest charm of female excellence, the richest gem in the diadem of their honor.”
Modesty is a Christian virtue. Jesus taught His disciples to be modest with a parable: “When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honorable man than thou be bidden of him; and he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, ‘Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room’” (Luke 14:7-9). He admired the modesty of the woman of Canaan, who confessed: “Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat from the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table” (Matt. 15:27). No demon could vex her daughter after the Lord was pleased with her modest prayer, an exercise of her faith.
Immodesty is the vulgarity of godless unbelief.[3] In spite of the Lord’s marriage covenant with Israel, she betrayed Him with her immodesty. Trusting in her own beauty and renown, while forgetting the Savior who made her beautiful, the nation became unfaithful. Ezekiel’s analogy describes the LORD’s sinful bride with the betrayal of immodest dress, an immodest misuse of God-given treasures, the vulgarization of sacred oil and incense, the human sacrifice of children, and the whoredom of idolatrous fornication. The triumph of immodest vulgarity explained the destruction of the prophet’s homeland (Ezekiel 16).
A lack of godly modesty corrupts our land. Our nation dreams of a renowned prosperity for which God’s blessing is no longer needed. What success she has been given is devolving into a ripening reprobation (Rom. 1:18-32). The vulgar spirit of Woodstock has overpowered a former generation’s inherited sense of Christian decency and propriety; a loss only true repentance and revival can recover. A humble and thankful appreciation for transcendent beauty is rare in our world of immodest pagan ugliness. Church has been exchanged for recreation, the unborn for self-interest, and traditional marriage for the accommodation of perversion.
Therefore, the American Council of Christian Churches at its 84th annual convention, October 21-23, 2025, at Bible Presbyterian Church Charlotte, NC, resolves to order our lives “decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). In our dress, our manners, our speech, and our choices, we shall endeavor to seek not our own, but “another man’s wealth” (1 Cor. 10:24). With Timothy as our example, whom the Apostle Paul described as unique in his natural disposition for the care of others (Phil. 2:19-20), we shall seek to think and act on things true and honest, just and pure, lovely and of good report (Phil. 4:8), and we shall resist the conforming pressure of this world’s immodesty so that we may prove what is the good and acceptable will of God (Rom. 12:2).
[1] Noah Webster wrote the following in his letter to Thomas Dawes on December 20, 1808: “About a year ago, an unusual revival of religion took place in New Haven…and I was led by a spontaneous impulse of repentance, prayer, and entire submission of myself to my Maker and Redeemer. In the month of April last, I made a profession of faith.”
[2] Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828; reprint, San Franscisco: The Foundation for American Christian Education, 1983).
[3] See Robert Pattison, The Triumph of Vulgarity: Rock Music in the Mirror of Romanticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
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