...apparently I said something that he found offensive with the following post as he threatened to report me. Did I say anything offensive, if so what?

Daniel




Quote from offended:
"I visited the website you posted (CNC website) and was offended by the very fact that there is a picture of a naked adult which seems to be leading a naked child. That is indecent and immoral from any perspective. The picture represents (at least to me, and, I'm sure, to others) one of the great evils in this generation, and that is pedophilia."

my response:
I'm sorry that you find a painting of a man, his wife, and their two children on the beach offensive. This is something that I cannot comprehend. How is it that a man, created in the image of God finds offence in other humans created in the image of God? Much less a painting of them?

It is good to be concerned about pedophilia, so an I. But I'm not going to hide myself and/or my children in a closet to make sure they are safe. A few years ago the state of Virginia passed a law that stated that parents must attend along with their children at the naturist youth camps. I think we can both agree that is a good law. However, my point is the youth camp in question had a 20 year track record and never had a report of anything untoward going on. A couple months later, the Baptist Bible camp down the road had 6 incidences of pedophilia within a 1 week period. Which beggs 2 questions, 1)what was the naturist camp doing right for 20 years? 2)why aren't parents required to atend the church camp as well? I know the answer to question #1 That camp is assocciated with a national org known as the American Association of Nude Recreaction (AANR) AANR requires background checks on everybody that attends their camps and have several more adult councellers per child than you will find at church camps. I have never been to one of these naturist youth camps, but I understand that the counceller to child equation is equal or slightly more councellers than children. I think we can agree that that ratio would be good to prevent pediphilia, since there are so many others watching.


Quote from offended:
"It seems to suggest this is an acceptable practice that children should be taught to follow. Wrong on both counts."

my response:
Children don't need to be taught this, they are born this way, they have to be taught to wear clothes all the time no matter how uncomfortable it gets.

By the way, this individual actually told me that I needed to repent from being a Light of Jesus Christ to the naturist world. Ah, the lengths that some people will go to defend their preconcieved ideas.

Daniel

Daniel,

While I disagree with your detractor, I am not surprised.

The first thought was that I wonder if the individual has a problem with this particular issue (not nudity), either as a victim or as someone fighting the sin itself.

The second thought I had also applies to the discussion that you and ramblingman have been having. That is, what is our God? Is our God the Creator of the Universe or is it our doctrine or theology. People that hold to their theology as an idol will not change, even when evidence points a different way.

This is a little rough and may not be well said.

Wow bornnude, that is a great question:
"That is, what is our God? Is our God the Creator of the Universe or is it our doctrine or theology. People that hold to their theology as an idol will not change, even when evidence points a different way."

What is our god? (note litte 'g'). Is God our creator or our theology? The way we discuss God, you would think God will conform eventually to the majority of our opinions. Whoever wins the argument, that is how God will be in the end.

That is a scary thought! Since most of the opinion shows God as a dictator, a being who cant wait to throw people into an ever burning hell to be tortured for thousands of years over mistakes they make in their 60-100 year life span. How unmerciful, how revengeful, how....human.

We look at each other and are disgusted by the sight of each other, and as a result, we are disgusted at the very site of God, our own Creator!

I was thinking while still in bed waiting for the alarm clock to go off (got up earlier than that anyway) and thought about the verse "we must change the way we think". And I just realized (thump on the noggin) that this verse simply means "repent". Repentance is not just saying "I'm sorry", but actually changing the way we think about God, our relationship with God, and our relationship with humanity.

This is a good example of someone who needs to repent! They think like the world does about God. Christians today have this idea about God that is very much like the worlds ideas (paganism). God is some sort of far off being who needs to have us do a dance to please him, some sort of works to appease him.

Instead, God wants us to join him in his dance, in his life, in his circle of love.

God is reaching out to humanity, asking us to change the way we think, in other words, repent. We must change the way we think about God.

Boyd Allen

I read Boyd's post and thought I had better point out one thing.

I should not change my theology or doctrine because my pastor, or boyd or anyone else for that matter says so.

The only reason it should change is because it doesn't align with the whole of scripture. Boyd's church did that (20 years ago now if I remember right).

This is also a process I have been going through. It is one of the reasons for my previous post using the Creed's. I feel that those creeds strip our faith to the minimum it takes to live a Christ centered and filled life.

They don't say anything about issues like nudity, technology or you pick your favorite pet peeve. They state the simple truth of the Gospel (I believe the Gospel spans Genesis to Revelation).

Then start reading (or listening to) Scripture -- build up what you believe with that as the basis not what your pastor, church leaders, John Calvin, etc said.

Looking at scripture as a whole is amazing. Yesterday I heard Lev. 26 and was reminded how similar it sounds to Revelation.

Honestly, it will take a couple of times (at least) through the Bible to get this process started. This is why we are always encouraged to read.

The whole of scripture is the fall of man and God's rescue plan to restore that relationship.

Bornnude,

I have strongly disagreed with some on this forum, but not about everything by any means. Even a stopped clock tells the correct time twice a day and all the regulars here are far more accurate than stopped clocks.

Sure we are all outraged at the guy who equates family nudity with pedophilia, but you were wise to see beyond this to the root cause of the problem:
allowing someone else to mediate the word of God to you. We ignore at our peril the Bible's admonition that there is but one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. I Tim. 2:5
Catholics are accused of this more than most, but I have seen Baptist and Independent churches tell people to sit back, relax and let the pastor do all the interpretation of scripture for you. In effect, Protestant churches that used to make a principle of the priesthood of the believer have too often abandoned this.

I belong to a church that accepts the principle of apostolic succession and a limited acceptance of church tradition at least during the early centuries A.D., but church tradition should never trump the Bible. Jesus and the Apostle Paul warned us against this, Paul foretelling that the future Church would abandon sound doctrine and Jesus warning about the Pharisees of his day.

Theology is important. Without it we would worship a golden calf rather than the living God. But the key issue is, "What is the source of our theology"? Does it stem directly from scripture and a grounded rooted faith or it based upon something our neighbor half remembered of what his granddad thought he heard a preacher say once?

I do want to hedge my remarks just a little. The oral tradition of the early church is not infallible, but even many Calvinists believe that the practices and commentaries of the early church fathers can give us important insight into scripture. Nude baptism was practiced widely even as early as apostolic times. This speaks volumes. If mixed gender nudity were sinful, then the apostles themselves would have had plenty of opportunity to prohibit it. This did not happen! Nude baptism passed down unchanged for several centuries after Christ with the full blessing of the church. Christians also participated in nude mixed gender bathing at the public Roman baths in many parts of the Empire and the church generally did not forbid it. Only at a few places where the public baths were scenes of public sexual immorality did the Church elders suggest that people not go. In modern times, it would be like a naturist pastor suggesting that his congregation avoid Hedonism resort but giving his blessing to a visit to Cypress Cove.

Daniel, perhaps you should ask "offended" if he has ever showered with his son...? lol

LOL...He's not on speaking terms with me. Somehow he didn't like the fact that I used scripture to show that nudity is allowed after all he could do is make accusations of a matter that he knew nothing about. Which is fine by me, he asked me a question on the public forum, I answered. He got offended and PM an accusational message, I answered with scripture. He got mad and started throwing a fit about how offending my response was...I guess he didn't think the accusations in his PM wasn't over the line, but answers from scripture is? Oh well, all i can (and all I ever could) do is pray that Christians will start to study the Word of God and allow the Spirit to interprete it to their hearts.

Daniel

Amen, Daniel, and may it happen "Soon, and very soon"!

Others are watching, and the very way we support naturism in a Christian way, the more we will be appreciated by the masses who are put off by the "traditional" approach this man used.

Too often, people like this end up destroying a potential Christian by this very method this man used. And then this man gets offended when you use scripture.

Just because we don't like to wear clothing doesn't mean we take off our thinking caps too! Maybe we will bring in new Christians simply by our non-clothed attitude. You might say "disclosure" becomes discothesure?

Boyd