Preaching in a Bikini

Mandy E. McMichael writes with honesty today on the now infamous Carrie Prejean and the tradition of Christians in pageants:

Before Prejean expressed her convictions about marriage, she preached another, perhaps louder sermon. Prejean donned a bikini and an evening gown in which she walked across the stage to be judged on her appearance. Thus, despite the ways in which pageant participants reinterpret their pageant opportunities as religious ones, a tension remains: women are not only judged on their community service platform or their ability to do well in an interview, public appearance, or talent performance. They are also judged on their bodies, and it's difficult, if not impossible, to get around that.

Interestingly, there is a sort of apologetic contestants use in defending the apparent hypocrisy of claiming Christian faith but also donning a swimsuit:

While there are countless ways that Christians involved in pageants respond to this portion of the competition, contestants handle moral questions about the swimsuit competition in three ways. Simply put, some contestants grin and bear it. They recognize that competing in a swimsuit is required. It's the shortest part of the competition and in some ways the easiest. It's only 30 seconds. Other contestants reinterpret the swimsuit competition as a way to display that they have taken seriously God's commandment to treat their bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit. They claim that since their bodies are God's temples, they should care about their physical condition. It is akin to how athletes talk about their extensive training. By taking seriously God's command to love him with their whole heart, body, soul, and mind, these contestants assert that they are glorifying God by caring for their bodies. Finally, some contestants view the swimsuit competition as a way to make a faith statement. Take, for example, Miss Utah 2007, Katie Miller (Miss America). Miller, a Mormon, made headlines a couple of years ago with her choice to wear a one piece swimsuit. She also followed a strict modesty code in all phases of the competition. Fewer contestants have chosen this route as more and more contestants see that winners sport two piece swimsuits, but the one piece is still an option.

She concludes:

Whether their response to the swimsuit competition is lament, reinterpretation, or faith statement, all of the contestants don a swimsuit of some sort and walk across the stage in it in order to get one step closer to the crown. Moreover, all of them seem to find a way to reconcile this with their religious beliefs, and some even find the means to celebrate it. Prejean preached a kind of sermon before she even opened her mouth. But what kind of sermon was she preaching?

Perhaps this is further proof that for some Christians right belief will always trump right practice. Or perhaps it's more simple than that. Perhaps we see in her a bit of ourselves: the contradiction with which we all live. Carrie Prejean is neither a paragon of virtue nor a vile temptress. Rather, she, like all of us, lives in the messy space where secular and sacred intersect. She, like many of us, copes with inconsistencies between her beliefs and her practice daily. Most of us are simply fortunate enough not to have our lives subjected to public scrutiny. We could all learn from Prejean the importance of considering the types of sermons we are preaching (and encouraging) with our lives.

Whole thing.

Exit question: Does McMichael's conclusion, that Prejean is just an exemplification of how hard it is to be a Christian in the world, hold water?