In a Yahoo group I moderate, someone asked: "How did nudity become a religious issue anyhow? The only place in the Bible that I see nudity condemned is the thing with Noah and his two sons. I have never figured out what was going on there."
I thought I would post that here and see what kinds of responses I'd get. In the mean time, here's how I responded:
> How did nudity become a religious issue anyhow?
If you ask this question in a Christian naturist forum, I have a feeling you'll get a variety of answers. Unfortunately, we may never know how it actually became a religious issue. One thing I will say is that I think nakedness, not simply in a physical sense, is central to Christianity. For instance, the Bible starts with First Adam naked in the Garden, while the Second Adam (Jesus) died naked on the cross (and rose again -- naked). Of course, nakedness is what the whole story of Adam and Eve is about -- discovering that we are all naked before God, and not just physically.
> The only place in the Bible that I see nudity condemned > is the thing with Noah and his two sons. I have never > figured out what was going on there.
The story of Noah doesn't actually condemn nudity. Christians who oppose nudity try to read that into it though. What it does condemn is people taking advantage of others, especially when the person is in a disadvantaged or helpless condition. That is what the story is about.
I don't see nudity being condemned by the Noah incident. It's another example (like Michel's condemnation by God for complaing about David's exposing himself) of someone complaining about another's nudity and being condemned for complaining. In the Noah incident, it was Noah who condemned his son. Noah was not condemned for his nudity. He was drunk and (some say) possibly was having sex. From the written account, he was simply passed out from drinking and was naked. His son blabbed about it and told others, who came in and covered him (probably so no one else would see their father and blab about it). I don't see it as a condemnation for nudity.
The Adam and Eve story of their fall is also not a condemnation of nudity. They were ashamed that they'd sinned. All of us would have been. Eating the apple of knowledge made them realize that they were naked, not like the animals who had fur covering. They were uncovered before God before whom they were ashamed for having sinned.
I think the thing that brought anti nudity thing into being is the misreading of the awful translation of "do not have sex with..." in Lev. 18 as "do not uncover the nakedness of..." in the KJV and NKJV versions.
Somewhere in the last 2,000 years, people realized that clothing could make them look better and show position, etc. Once you start covering something up, it starts to become a sexual thing to see it once uncovered. This started happening probably when the making of clothing started becoming low cost enough for the poor to afford a bit more than the "cloak" that many of them seemed to only have in Biblical times. At that time, people valued clothing so much that they cast clothing aside in doing their physical labor, in order to preserve the clothing, just as Jesus did when he washed the apostle's feet. I can envision his making his pronoucement, during or before the foot washing incident, that seems to be only recorded by Thomas that we aren't allowed to follow him unless we can trod underfoot our clothing and stand unashamed.
Another thing we need to understand is that clothing was a part of status. Slaves, outcasts, very poor (practically slaves and outcasts) were often naked.
The man at the tomb who ran to Jesus and cried out "What have you to do with us?" was an outcast, which is one reason why he was naked.
Think of Harry Potter and the "house elf" who in the book, was practically naked, but did wear rags because they had no "rights" to decent clothing, if any at all.
In the last book, the house elf was given clothing, which meant he was free and an equal.
That is why Jesus took off at least his outer clothing, if not most of them, is to show the sign of a servant or slave during the foot washing.
Its interesting that when rich and poor people are together, they judge each other by their clothing. Poor are resentful or jealous of the rich, and the rich feels they are superior over the poor. "Clothes makes the man" is the slogan.
But if a person is naked, they both despise and feel they are better than the naked person, so the poor puts just as much self righteousness over the naked as the rich does over the poor.
Then the Equalizer came along. Jesus Christ. All are naked before God. But we (religious zealots) say "As far as we are concerned, everyone is naked. So the less naked people sit in front of the bus and the mostly naked people sit in the back of the bus and the totally naked people gets kicked off the bus." (But otherwise we are all naked before the Lord.)
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."
That is a very good question. And needs to be answered.
Christians made it an issue. Nudists were doing fine until Christians made it a big deal, condemned it, and now we got to defend it.
Technically speaking, it is Christians who have to prove it to be wrong, and they somehow manage to get it across the peoples minds that it is wrong. It certainly doesn't help when society has a fear of nudity as well and actually supports Christianity in this point, not that they agree as to why we should wear clothing, but that we should, for one reason or another.
So now we have no other choice than to run large programs to help educate both the Christians and non-Christians as to why "no clothes".
Its for the same reason we have naturist resorts. Because we can't go our normal lives in the nude. We are forced to "hide" behind bushes and fences. We didn't make that decision, society did.
Now we got Christian nudists who are making a religion out of it (which Christians seem to do with most everything) and that is what I am trying NOT to do! But we are here to help people understand that wearing clothing is not a religion any more than going nude. That wearing clothing will not save you or condemn you, nor will going nude.
Where it does become a problem is when you do make a religion out of everything, including the Ten Commandments. When religion gets in between you and simply believing God, you put everything else before God.
And by "believing God", I don't just mean what is written in the bible. The bible is inspired by God, but we also realize that God has authority over the bible and He is the true Word.
The bible simply teaches us that God wants a relationship with us and that we must put our trust in God. "Be still and know God".
Clothing does not save you, nudity does not save you. Clothing does not condemn you, nudity does not condemn you.
Jesus took that condemnation away by his sacrificed blood.
If we want to make a "religion" out of something, simply build a relationship with God.
May all be bless by the fact that Jesus took care of everything.
Now start living like it!
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."
Hmmm...If we make a religion out of it, of course that's putting it ahead of the God we love and worship. But to make it part of our religion is a good thing. We sense too little of the sacred (the hand of God) in everything, including each other; and our love for God should reach into all the things we do: work, play, travel, nudity...
But then, I tend to agree with Walt Whitman (who apparently practiced a form of naturism but was by no means an orthodox Christian): "If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred."
Unfortunately, too many people let others do their thinking for them and tell them what's right and what's wrong without investigating it for themselves. People are content to have preachers tell them what the Bible says instead of reading and studying it themselves. People are told that nudity is sexual and therefore should be kept behind closed doors, and they believe it. They're told that nudity is harmful to children, and they believe it. People are taught that they should be offended and embarrassed by their own nudity and the nudity of others, and so they are. However, they have absolutely no idea WHY they are or should be. When asked why nudity offends them, all they can say is, "I don't know. It just does." Or they say that it's indecent because they were told it is. Like parrots they are repeating what someone says and have no idea what it means. People are like sheep and just follow the leader. It's like the old child's game "Simon says". Simon says, "Be ashamed of your body", and so they are. "Simon says, "Protest against public nudity", and so they do. They don't know why; they just do what they're told.
The sons of Perdition know this, that the flesh and blood of us all
is so prone to just tag along with what someone says, while the adversary,
even that same Satan which beguiled our first parents, Adam and Eve,
whispers into our ear to listen to them who are leading us down a dark
alley of blindness to the beauty which God said through his own word
in Genesis: Maybe, if we blasted on bill boards across this
nation the words in Genesis, that God created the body very Good,
hey, maybe that might change the hearts of alot of people.
on my website, truthislife.freehostia.com/ I attempt to address
key issues related to the Christian viewpoint, more especially
what Jesus did in that regard, his birth, his baptism, his crucifixion,
his ressurection, his acension, and what most people do not know,
his acceptance of the body, which is dead against those false
leaders of many Christian groups that actually know this, but are still
breathing out lies as to the truth of our bodies, made very good
by a perfect God. How Perfect is Perfect? To many of the false preachers
out there, God is far from Perfect in their eyes, and if we talk
about the body, it has one major flaw, our sexual parts. Not so in scripture,
as all the body of jesus relates to the gospel, and that it can not
be fully understood until we grasp the importance of the body itself.
The odd part about the animosity between religion and nudity is that it started the whole thing...
Adam and Eve!
Then you have the naked artwork on the buildings in the middle ages.
Finally, the American Nudist movement was started by a pastor. Granted he was an "adamite" so his theology may have been a bit off... He was still a pastor.
"Then you have the naked artwork on the buildings in the middle ages."
Uh, that was more Renaissance than Middle Ages. I hate to be picky, but the Medieval period up to about 1400 was as clothing-compulsive as the Victorian age.
"The only place in the Bible that I see nudity condemned is the thing with Noah and his two sons. I have never figured out what was going on there."
First of all, it wasn't two of Noah's sons. It was Noah, his son, and his grandson, the last of whom was the one actually cursed.
Although it isn't exactly clear, with a little understanding of the language used during the time of writing (here we go again...) it's possible to understand why the grandson might be the one cursed over this whole thing- it's quite possible that he was the result of an incestuous relationship between Ham and Noah's wife. In that case the language would still be correct, since being Noah's wife her nakedness would be considered his, because she was his. This can be seen in those much-reviled Leviticus verses, where it states that a wife's nakedness is the nakedness of the husband...
Another fine example of the worth of actually knowing what the bible says, what those things meant at the time of writing, and not simply implying 20th or 21st century understanding to the language, or even taking it at face value.
I have never understood why Noah would curse his grandson for what his son did. Also, it wasn't nudity that was condemned there, but whatever Ham "had done unto him" as it says in the King James In Gen. 9:24. It's not clear what Ham did other than make fun of his father's drunkenness and naked state. The fact that the other sons walked in backwards and didn't look at him makes it appear that it was wrong for them to see their father naked.
If Noah were swimming in a nearby river with his sons, chances are they all would have been nude and none of them drunken. Nudity would not be degraded in that context.
By contrast, Noah was the only one nude and he was the only one drunk. Ham not only gloated at the sight, he went to share the news with his brothers intending to mock his father further.
Shem and Japeth found a way to completely distance themselves from Ham's mockery of Noah's one-time folly. Walking backwards with the garment expressed their total unwillingness to condemn their father's moment of weakness.
As for the curse on Canaan, Ham's son, Noah was speaking prophetically, not on his own, not speaking vindictively.
The evidence seems to be that Canaan was not directly involved in Ham's mockery. Instead, it seems that he may have been merely a victim of his father Ham's wicked legacy. In a broader sense all of humanity lost its birthright when Adam sinned. Jesus, the second Adam came to redeem our birthright and restore his children to all the rights and privileges that pertain to the royal line of the family of God.
I contend that nudity in this particular context was shameful, but only because of the circumstances, not the nudity by itself.And ultimately Ham bore the greatest shame.
I think you have properly addressed why nudity has become such a taboo among Christians. The misunderstandings from interpretation of Noah (a great submission exists on CNV which cites a lot of Jewish understanding of the passage) and Lev. 18 "uncovering of nakedness." I think those are two of the biggest contributors to the bad theology of the "Christian" perspective of nudity. I would also add the corruption of the flesh and understanding flesh to be bad/evil from puritanism also adds to this confusion.
There is also a lot of misunderstanding among Christians as to what the scriptures in Leviticus say. Many interpret it to mean that social nudity is wrong when it's actually talking about incest and NOT about nudity itself. Unfortunately, the King James (and maybe others) make it sound as though it's sin to see anyone nude.
Without doubt, as spiritual nakedness is far more serious
to God than Physical Nakedness.....if we should offend
people when they do not want to see us, that is not as
bad when God sees our Sin that we know is wrong and still
do it anyway.
The Scriptures are rife with examples of pure nudity, and
little if any major christian movements are paying attention.
I actually believe God wants us to be transparent to those around us. That is the equivalent to being "spiritually naked" in their eyes.
I don't know if God objects to spiritual nakedness as you describe it. I know that he does see our sin and is willing to not count it for judgment because of Christ's death and resurrection. In fact isn't any attempt to cover that sin over, other than the blood of Christ also considered a sin?
