I wish I got the National Geographic Channel, for numerous reasons. That is one of them. I would love to see that special. Perhaps they will release it on DVD, or you'll be able to watch it from their website. I would love to check that show out.
If I were sufing the satelite, and found this show I would think that witches were in good shape(physically) and the Naturist Christians were all over weight. I personally was disappointed.
Boyd, we were more than above the 8 Wiccans. At church, we had 26 in attendance. Only one person, my son who was too young for the series, left. Only the 15,000 Japanese were a larger crowd than us.
Of the 4 hours of taping the crew did, NGC used only about 15 minutes of the show. One might imagine just how little of what was said actually made the cut. Using common sense, I think most would agree that the message was clear that the series was not about our beliefs simply because our beliefs are not controversial. They wanted to focus on the differences between the groups.
The focus of the interviews from our side had little to do with nudity. Our goal was to present God and to tell the Good News. If they filmed us nude, so be it.
As for whether we were fatter than others, so be it. God made us the way we are and accepts us as we are. As you might have noticed in the tape, I was the example of the "fat nudist." I wear that honor as a badge.
My goal in doing the interview and the platform was to open nudists' eyes to God and for them to see Christ as their one salvation. Judging from the responses coming in from my web page, God succeeded.
I did see it. I don't know if I were dissappointed or not. After how we were treated in Belton by the local news and how we were treated on the news at CNC, this was done much better than I expected. Seems they did a huge lead in with the Wicas, and they seemed to be in pretty good shape. They also had a good turn out for their members.
The Christians on the other hand seem to be few in members willing to be on TV. Two of our CN spokespeople, Jim Cunningham and Allen Parker were featured and interviewed. That bunch in Vermont loves the snow!
I thought more emphasis should have been on the CN philosophy and not just a few notes on our beliefs. Seems that the Wiccas got better coverage.
I did not see the third part. Didn't want to see a man running through a crowd while people were trying to touch him (don't know why, some ritual).
What I did notice is that they emphasised large groups rather than how naturism is becoming a way of life that is not tied to rituals and spiritual beliefs.
Had they asked me, I guess I would have emphasized that we are not about rituals or making religious emophasis, but that naturism is natural and human and in our opinion, God has no problem with it.
There is more spiritual emphasis and religious baggage with clothing than there is with naturism.
I hope that they can find time to cover naturism as a whole, though it is a huge topic now. There is no way to cover the project in only one hour!
Even if someone manage to write a Naturism for Dummies or Idiots Guide to Naturism, it would still be slanted and very limited.
But I would say "not bad for a first time" on this subject!
Boyd Allen "May the Lord protect our nudity from the sight of those who will not benefit, and may he allow us to be seen by those who will."
When I saw the notice in FLF from Jim Cunningham, I scheduled my TiVo to record it. It is recorded now, but I haven't had a chance to see it. I thought they did an ok job with the first Taboo: Nudity, so I expect this one will be ok, too.
I've got it on DVR and plan on dubbing the CN portion to DVD. Aside from being sandwiched in between the witches and other bizarre stuff I thought the CN piece was fair though lacking in substantive sound bites from Jim and Allen. Unfortunately most people tuning into the show are looking for some titillation or to be grossed out a la Fear Factor. The whole Taboo series focuses on what they think the majority of people would find extreme and unusual.
I didn't pay attention to how fit the witches were or weren't since I couldn't stomach much of it and hit the fast forward button until the CN segment.
Previous Taboo episodes are available on DVD so presumably this one will be at some time in the future.
I expect that Wiccans are diverse in thought, but so are Christians.
I have met a couple of Wiccans at a naturist park and they introduced me to their particular flavor of Wiccan thought. It is obvious early on that Christianity is very different from Wicca and other earth religions. However, I walked away convinced that there is some common ground between them and naturist Christians.
When these people see the created world, they see it as possessing purpose and direction, regardless of whether it originally arose from random factors or innate intelligence.
They assert the need to seek to be in harmony with the natural order and of course that includes nudity, weather permitting.
For those who hear God's call, there could come a point where a student of nature might be open to recognize that nature was created by a god who lives outside of nature, indeed outside of time and space as well as within it. Many of those in the nature religions will continue to argue that the Biosphere (Gaia) is self-generating and approaching self-cognizance. But some of these people acknowledge the existence of spirit beings that exist independently of Gaia. Of course many of these people have strong prejudices against Christianity, sometimes due to error on their part, sometimes due to the same grievous errors that have made Christian naturists to be pariahs among our own brethren.
Let's keep our eyes open to see if any of the pagans we meet are hearing God's call and make ourselves available for friendly dialog.
Getting back to the subject of the show itself, I am pleased that Jim Cunningham and Allen Parker were the ones they interviewed among the Christian community. It is painfully evident that neither man is in perfect health and many of have observed that naturist practictioners as a whole are not as health-conscious as the founders of naturism. Is there some middle ground between Stoic and Epicurean to which modern naturists, especially Christian naturists can aspire?
I also am concerned about the graying of naturism and that includes Christian naturism.
A host of factors have served to dissuade families with children from attending naturist parks in the same numbers they did thirty years or more ago.
Part of the problem may be a polarization between an increasingly prudish Christian evangelical and Christian naturists who do what we always have. A generation ago, Christians and all Americans often enjoyed more everyday nudity that our generation tolerates.
I don't want naturism to become an overwhelmingly pagan activity and American Christianity to become an overwhelmingly anti-naturist body of believers.
I don't think that the reality is quite what the video portrayed, but it could be a portent of the future if we don't take action.
I found this comment interesting "When these people see the created world, they see it as possessing purpose and direction, regardless of whether it originally arose from random factors or innate intelligence."
To find order and peace from something that came from chaos and random explosions and banging around to get here.
But to believe that there are spirits that do have intelligence (Intelligent Design as goes the modern "politically correct" version) opens the doors to Christianity and our need to be there for them.
That is where I feel CNC should be. To be able to serve the naturist side where they already understand that there is a relationship between the creator and the created, and to serve the clothed Christian world where they also need to understand that the Creator is not ashamed of his creation, but loves them and wants the relationship to go much further than rules and laws.
On the one hand, we have people who fear the Creator and the other hand, those who fear the created, and then you have those who fear both.
That is why Christians today have little success reaching out to naturists, wiccas, and other "evil" people because they fear them too much and cannot build that relational bridge. They want to build that bridge without the help of the "sinner". The "sinner" has to be there to help build that bridge as well, and it will not look like the bridge that the Christian has in mind. But neither realizing that God is actually building it for both. So we don't recognize that bridge, because we don't recognize that God is in that sinner giving them the tools and plans as well as in us.
Boyd wrote: That is why Christians today have little success reaching out to naturists, wiccas, and other "evil" people because they fear them too much and cannot build that relational bridge. They want to build that bridge without the help of the "sinner". The "sinner" has to be there to help build that bridge as well, and it will not look like the bridge that the Christian has in mind. But neither realizing that God is actually building it for both. So we don't recognize that bridge, because we don't recognize that God is in that sinner giving them the tools and plans as well as in us.
I agree with you (mostly). While some of the reason we can't build that relational bridge you mention may be fear, I tend to think that on the whole, we Christians are too busy believing that the log (sin) in our eyes are so much smaller than the spec in someone else's. This produces a situation where we can not build a relationship because we believe those "sinners" around us are too far below being reached for God.
I am heading off into metaphore land here so forgive me.
One of the beliefs that I have around nudism/naturism is that shedding clothing is the social equalizer as many have pointed out, you can't tell the lawyer from the bricklayer.
As Christians, we need to have spiritual nudity as well. What I mean by this is to strip off those spiritual coverings that hide our bad sides (sin nature). At that point, it becomes harder to tell those who have not found Christ that I am better than they are because I have.
We find ourselves with the apostle Paul on Mars Hill.
Some of those who practice earth religions will come to Christ.
It happened on Mars Hill, and our "Mars Hill" is your local naturist park.
Or as Kevin said at our CNC, "The naturist resorts are Christians 'ends of the earth' and our 'Jerusalem'".
We begin where they leave off, where they fear to tread.
We just have to remember that we cannot control what happens nor can we "save" them. We can only be there for them and allow God to do the real work through us.
