"I come from a country where you don't wear clothes most of
the year. Nudity is the most natural state. I was born nude and I hope
to be buried nude."- Elle MacPherson, Australian
model and actress.
Christianity &
Naturism
I personally am a convinced Christian
who accepts the Bible as the "Word of God." But I cannot bring myself
to use the scriptures to beat others over the head, nor to seek to
misuse them to demonstrate things for which they were never intended.
Furthermore, I have never heard of any definitive decisions on the
part of any of the so-called established churches with regard to the
active practice of nudism.
Thus, in the spirit of charity and
love spoken of by St. Paul, I find that it is increasingly possible
for us as believing, practicing Christians of all denominations, to
join together in the practice of nudism for the physical,
psychological, moral and spiritual benefit of us all.
The discussion of the Bible and
nudism is especially interesting today, with the cleaning and
renovation work being completed at the Sistine Chapel. After centuries
of shamefulness, in which the papacy ordered Michelangelo's nudes to
be covered with garments and robes, Pope John Paul II has given
permission to the restorers to return all of the 40 or so figures to
their original state of nudity. Thus we shall have before long the
greatest display of full frontal nudity in one of the great churches
of the world!
If you are a believer in eternal
life, how do you think you are going to appear in that physical state?
How are you going to meet Jesus Christ, his Mother, and all the
saints? Obviously you are going to be nude, in the glory of your first
creation, and so shall all the others about you be bare of any
adornment, no longer needed for any reason. Jesus, his Mother, the
saints all nude! Shocking, scandalous, blasphemy!
I mention this to make the point that
nudity and the human body are not to be rejected as something evil and
disorderly. We have made of clothing an absolute fetish, not merely a
need of covering and protection of the body under certain
circumstances. No one can reasonably object to the necessity for body
covering at certain times and places. Even clothing as decoration
perhaps has a place, for it does appear in all social structures that
humans wish to decorate their bodies, whether clothed or naked.
Unfortunately, we are today faced
with serious and dangerous excesses on the right and the left. It
often seems that the excesses of the one tend to animate and foster
the excesses of the other. But there is, to my knowledge, no organized
libertarian group that is a true threat to the valid rights and honest
liberties of the broad middle.
On the right, however, are a number
of organizations -- powerful, influential, and financially strong --
that for whatever motivation, seek to impose their beliefs,
convictions, and objectively erroneous interpretations on all others.
This is not to say we should be
tolerant of every conceivable conduct, especially those harmful to us,
our children, and our honestly acquired property.
But we have seen, in the very recent
past, how some of these self-proclaimed authorities have fallen far
from the state of perfection in which they had placed themselves, and
in their preaching they have duped many good people into contributing
to their personal and very questionable way of life.
Does it not seem strange that here in
the United States, a nation to which millions have fled to escape all
kinds of tyrannies, we have now apparently come full circle, and we
find a tyranny that threatens us, a group seeking to dominate the vast
majority who only wish to be left in peace to practice ways of life
that do not harm others?
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