Theology of Decorum: Perspectives on Women’s External Appearance among Evangelical Christians-Baptists in the Lateand Post-Soviet Periods

Abstract

This article uses oral history interviews to examine the memory of believers from Evangelical Christian-Baptist (ECB) churches regarding the requirements for women’s external appearance as a reflection of their personal piety. While discussing believers’ memory of the late Soviet period, the article demonstrates that these congregations focused almost exclusively on women. The conviction that believers were not to reflect the “outside world” in appearance was actually a double standard for women, since women’s fashion choices have been much more dynamic than men’s in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. The article discusses the historical and social significance of the emphasis on women’s appearance, arguing that both a high view of scripture and a nostalgia for the “Soviet past” perpetuated the patriarchal norms held by both men and women in ECB congregations. The authors then utilize a series of historical photographs from the 1940s to the 1970s to demonstrate the scope of the transformation of ECB believers’ memory, which did not always accurately reflect late-Soviet reality. The authors conclude that the extensive changes in the social order in general and in women’s fashion in particular in the post-Soviet period strengthened believers’ impulse to isolate themselves from the immoral “outside world.” By following the accepted norms for their external appearance, ECB women’s appearance becomes a marker of their faith and a visible sign of their piety that is so highly prized by their community.