Hello World,

Pastor Stewart-Allen Clark of First General Baptist Church in Malden, Missouri has been all over the Internet for a sermon he delivered last month in which he addressed a variety of ways that wives can remain attractive to their husbands! His sermon has caused so much controversy that apparently he is on leave from his church!

I’m not sure that I saw the entire sermon, but from what I saw, Pastor Clark begins by complimenting former First Lady Melania Trump. “Now look, I’m not saying every woman can be the epic — the epic – trophy wife of all time like Melania Trump. I’m not saying that at all. Most women can’t be trophy wives, but you know … maybe you’re a participation trophy.” As he said this, a photo of Melania Trump appeared on the screen behind him as he spoke. Politics aside, I do believe that she is attractive. He went on to say that men are “visual” and that many wives let themselves go. I agree that men are visual. Statistically speaking, I don’t know that many wives let themselves go, but I’ve heard it joked about by many comedians that they do… He went to say, “You should take great pains to look like the woman he fell in love with.” So far, I don’t see anything controversial about that. We all age, but aging is not synonymous with being unattractive.

And my mother told me that my grandmother told her at one point, after not seeing her for a while, that she should take better care of herself as a married woman. She advised my mother to step it up in terms of her looks and not take my father’s attraction for granted. My mother said she began scheduling more regular hair appointments after that conversation. My mother told me this years before I got married, but I definitely remember that conversation as a married woman. And truth be told, I like to be attractive for my husband, but I like being attractive for me even more. I stay tryin’ to “preserve the sexy” for my own sake.

The next topic, the most controversial one, he brings up is weight control. Now I must say, as he was speaking, I could not help but take notice of his protruding belly that was neither camouflaged nor slimmed down by his black shirt.  He mentioned that his wife managed to lose at least 30 pounds after each of the three children that she had. He said he even went to a Weight Watchers meeting with her, and then he said that his wife said, “Food never tastes as good as skinny feels.” Now when he said this, I thought for sure he would say something about his weight at that time but he didn’t. Weight is a personal matter, but for the sake of our health, we all know that we have to manage our weight. I believe that men are attracted to women of varied sizes, but if our weight is impacting our health or even our happiness, it needs to be addressed. And that is true for men as well. His biggest mistake when it comes to this topic is that while he was addressing the wives, he should have made a point of addressing his weight. He mentioned 1 Corinthians 7:4 which addresses that the bodies of a married couple belong to each other so it would have made sense to discuss himself just a bit since the sermon was geared to wives.

He also talks about the importance of wearing makeup, attractive hairstyles, age-appropriate flattering clothing, sexual intimacy and allowing husbands to be their wives’ “knight in shining armor.” None of his advice took me by surprise because I’ve either heard it from other people before. Yes, there were some biting jokes that were included, but sometimes people are too easily offended.

I would say more, but I don’t have the time. Check out the sermon for yourself here…

And I will also say this: I hope there was a female pastor or speaker who addressed husbands because husbands can do various things to remain attractive, externally and internally, to their wives as well….

Any thoughts?