Image. Three children of a Depression-era migrant worker in Michigan, 1940.
Americans were not always so clean and shiny, our teeth the envy of the world. One Brit traveling in the Midwest in 1819 described Americans as “filthy, bordering on the beastly.”[1] He could not get used to “dirty hands, heads, and faces everywhere.” Settlers “seldom shaved” or washed their faces, and almost never changed their clothes.
We were a dirty lot. But because so few lived closely together in big cities, the lack of hygiene did not contribute to the spread of disease as it would today. Nevertheless, concern about disease eventually led to a greater emphasis on cleanliness. Clean water, flush toilets, and soap would soon defeat cholera, dysentery, and hookworm. Then toothbrushes and fluoride stopped the wholesale rotting of America’s teeth. Once we discovered hot showers and fresh breath, a billion-dollar personal hygiene industry was born.
A book reviewer put it this way: “Americans are known worldwide for their obsession with cleanliness—for their sophisticated plumbing, daily bathing, shiny hair and teeth, and spotless clothes”[2]. The reviewer goes on to note that post-war advertising for soaps, mouthwashes, toothpastes, and deodorants conveyed the message that cleanliness would lead to success. Soon
“Cleanliness shifted from a way to prevent disease to a way to assimilate, to become American.”
But you can take cleanliness too far, as anyone with an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder knows:
“At the height of my crisis, I was spending up to ten hours each day in a continuous cleaning ritual. I couldn’t break my rituals to eat or drink, so I lost weight and became unwell. On top of that, I limited my food and water intake so that I didn’t need to use the bathroom throughout the day …
I had to scrub everything, my body, the surfaces—in sets of eight … But soon eight became sixteen, which became thirty-two and so on.
I’d scrub my body until I fainted in the shower, clean my bedroom until I had repetitive strain injuries. My OCD told me that my fingernails had to be cut as short as possible in case of germs, so I cut them until they bled. I used boiling water and bleach products on my bare hands, so they were covered in ghastly rashes and blisters that I hid from friends and family.”[3]
This account is unusual, but probably more common than we know. Even Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth becomes obsessed with cleaning. Though a fictional character, it is interesting to note that this cold-blooded murderer, who accuses her own husband of being too feminine, too “full of the milk of human kindness,” is calculating enough to plan a series of murders and get away with them. But her mind will not let her have any peace, and she goes mad trying to wash imaginary blood from her hands.
The Bible does not say, “cleanliness is next to godliness.” John Wesley said that.
In fact, common sense requires that even the godliest among us will be dirty at times. Nevertheless, there is a deep association in our culture between cleanliness and purity. The Old Testament established that association through repeated instructions to wash people, to wash things, to remove things from the camp, to remove things from the city, to wash yourselves and your clothes and, in some cases, even after washing you must stay away from others until evening.
Do you ever wonder whether there might be a correlation between promiscuity and personal hygiene? In other words, do we try to wash off our immorality?
Does our modern culture try to address guilt, shame, and promiscuity with soap, sanitizer, and shaving?[4]
God understood our interest in cleanliness and used it to explain to the people of Jerusalem how sinfully dirty they were:
“Woe to the bloody city, to the pot full of scum, scum that cannot be washed away” Ezekiel 24:6.
God says to build a huge fire, hot enough to melt the pot, because only a fire that melts brass will be able to burn away the scum.
Jerusalem “hath wearied herself with lies, and her great scum went not out of her. Her scum shall be in the fire. In thy filthiness is lewdness, because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged. Thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness anymore” Ezekiel 24:12-13.
The city—and by that, we mean the PEOPLE of the city—are so sinful they can no longer clean themselves. Only the fire of judgment can burn away the scum. In other words, only God can burn away the sin of Jerusalem. Only God can clean this filthy city. And only God can clean us! Come to Jesus. He can wash away all your sins. He can make you deeply, truly clean!
AΩ.
[1] CHASING DIRT: The American Pursuit of Cleanliness, by Suellen Hoy.
[2] From a review of CHASING DIRT: The American Pursuit of Cleanliness, by Suellen Hoy https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Dirt-American-Pursuit-Cleanliness/dp/0195111281
[3] https://www.rethink.org/news-and-stories/blogs/2023/05/from-ocd-crisis-to-a-joyful-life-georginas-story/ Georgina, the writer of this story, eventually found help in medication and therapy.
[4] I am not speaking here of the writer above wrestling with OCD. That is a deeply complex mental health problem; such things cannot be healed with an off-hand remark by someone with no medical or mental health training (me).
Household Words: 