This is one in a series of blogs about the human body. The oversexualization of culture has a significant influence on the church to the point where many are ashamed of their bodies and their sexuality. I would encourage you to check out my blogs about modesty and lust as a foundation for this blog.
Many Christians believe that the unclothed human form is inappropriate in both practice and consumption. There are also many Christians who participate in or consume forms of the unclothed body particularly through media and art. Statistics also show us that many Christians are addicted to or frequently consume pornographic content.
As I grow in my faith, I’ve learned that a lot of “issues” aren’t as black and white as I used to believe, and the area of nudity is one of them. I don’t think avoidance of nudity at all costs is healthy because it creates a negative association with the human body and sex. While God created the body to be sexual, it is not intended to be a sex object. Culture has made the body about sex, and therefore, we participate in this idea when we avoid it at all costs. The Bible itself contains nudity, starting in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. If you fast forward to the time of King David, he danced before the Lord to the point that his clothes were coming off and his wife became jealous because there were young women in the crowd when this happened. Another instance was when God specifically commanded the prophet Isaiah to live naked for a period of time as a live illustration of what God was saying to the nation. What about Jesus? Some believe that he was completely exposed on the cross. In all fairness, there are also Biblical examples of shame associated with nudity, such as when Noah got drunk and naked and his sons covered him up. My point isn’t to say that nakedness is good all the time; what I am trying to say is that there are examples in the Bible of people exposing themselves that are not considered sinful.
Game of Thrones is a wildly popular HBO series infamous for its gratuitous violence, sex, and nudity, and many Christians watch the show. As established in previous blogs, if the human body isn’t some scary thing that should be avoided at all costs, can we really say that watching a show like GOT is wrong? The show is renowned not for its graphic content but for its story and production quality. For many years, Christians have focused on content and not quality, which is why many Christian music groups and other Christian media endeavors such as movies have been status quo at best and sub par at worst (thankfully this has evolved somewhat). I believe that God is glorified in high quality art just as much if not more so than content which contains a spiritual message, and if these two are combined, it has the potential to be one of the most powerful and compelling experiences that an individual can have. Some of the most renowned works of art in the history of the world contain nudity and are based on the Bible (Michelangelo’s sculpture David being one of them).
What about the validity of Christians participating in nude forms of art or media? There are many Christians who do remove their clothes for fashion, modeling, or media, and there are many who choose not to do so. Both can be a light for Christ with their respective convictions, and I believe that God calls people to do both. If you have concerns about a Christian actor or actress removing their clothes for the purpose of onscreen sex, then consider this. The book of Song of Solomon is extremely graphic in its depictions of the naked human body and even sexual acts. It would be impossible to accurately represent this in film without being sexually graphic. For this reason, I believe that sexual expression for the purpose of storytelling may be permissible.
I don’t want to draw a bunch of lines and say “this is ok” and “this is not,” as we could spend all day reviewing various scenarios. What I am trying to do is remove the negative stigma from the human body so that way Christians don’t freak out at the sight of nudity or exposed skin whether in person or on screen. Let me also be clear and say that I am NOT endorsing pornography, as this is a destructive habit in many peoples’ lives with an industry that exploits those who are onscreen and generally devalues and degrades people (particularly women). If you are a recovering porn addict, choose your entertainment wisely. For me, I don’t have a specific conviction about viewing or not viewing nudity. If it is shown in a movie, I take it as a part of artistic expression. The most important thing to remember is to listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit in your life and the convictions that he gives to you.
The Edgy Christian 
While it is obvious that we, here in the West, live in a porno-prudish society, where we “porno”, hypersexualize certain body-parts, and “prudish”, compulsively-demand that those body-parts be covered, how did we get this way? Is the church responsible, or are we, as Christians, responsible? If the Church is responsible for us becoming porno-prudish, where did it gets its dogma? If we, as Christians, are responsible, where did we get our ideas? What if both the Church AND Christians are responsible? What if a careful-study of Church-history reveals that it hasn’t always been this way? Maybe a better question should be: “What does the Bible say about nudity and sex?”, because the Bible is supposed to be our ultimate-authority about Faith and Life? What if the “root-cause” of all of this is a faulty, un-biblical “theology of the body”, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden?
I will leave you with these questions to ponder, and if you want to know more, I can point you to some good, Biblically-sound resources.
Blessings!
Steve
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[…] Nudity October 26, 2016 […]
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This whole piece was amazing from start to finish. Wish I was this eloquent when I try to explain this concept and line of reasoning to others. I’m a Christian, and also a nudist, and people seem to have a weird time reconciling that. I’m just going to bookmark this and use as a reference for the future.
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Thank you for your kind words! I do want to make it clear that my intention for writing this piece was to suggest that Christians are too uptight when it comes to revealed nudity through art, entertainment, perhaps even occasionally in person (a great example of this was that I recently was at a public beach where a woman removed her top, and my wife and I did not freak out about it). With that being said, I am not a nudist and I did not necessarily have that in mind when I wrote this piece. However, I am more than happy for you to have this piece bookmarked for your reference. Thanks for reading!
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I really appreciate this post, and your sex, modesty, and lust posts.
I’m a recovering fundamentalist and one of the things I’ve deconstructed and am working on reconstructing is Christian sexual and body ethics. I feel like my purity culture upbringing, with all its rules, guilt, shame, and fear, was such a damaging force, especially in my formative years. So much condemnation for being a normal human male! Not to diminish personal responsibility, because there is plenty, but I give purity culture a lot of credit for pushing me into and keeping me in bondage to pornography addiction.
I’m not saying everything fundamentalism teaches about sex and the body is wholly wrong. There are elements of truth. But I’m convinced a healthier, more constructive, more positive, more Biblical view of sex and the body would bring so much freedom to both young people struggling with “purity” and marrieds with sexual issues. We should be asking “is it loving to God and people?” and “is it beneficial?” rather than weighing people down with legalistic rules and fear.
It’s time we admitted the Bible doesn’t actually provide a neat and tidy Joshua Harris style sexual ethic. It’s time to question some of the taboos and assumptions. I think you are getting much closer to the heart of God with these posts. Thank you!
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Wow that’s amazing. Thank you so much for sharing! Would you mind if I share this quote (or maybe portions of it) via social media?
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I’m thankful for thoughtful articles like this. For over 30 years, my wife and I have occasionally gone nude while hiking, swimming, using hot springs, backpacking/camping, and have even stayed in a handful of nudist resorts and clubs.
We were, and are, charismatic, conservative Christians – Bible college graduates. Our first such experience was at a resort in the Washington State San Juan Islands, where there was a clothing-optional hot tub and adjacent sauna. At first we were in our swimsuits and everyone else was nude. NO one was leering or even paying any noticeable attention to the other, nude, men and women. We were the odd ones out.
Onto the deck by the pools came a cute young woman (we were middle-aged) in a hot-pink bikini. Pretty much every eye gravitated to her – rather than to the fully-nude people right alongside! Lesson learned: the swimsuit was DESIGNED TO ATTRACT ATTENTION to the covered parts – and it did so. Pure nudity was LESS attention getting and, in fact, MORE MODEST than the hot-pink bikini.
We looked at each other, shrugged, and took our suits off. Embarrassment, if any, lasted mere seconds.
Since then, we’ve continued to occasionally go nude, with or without others around, and never where we’d shock or offend people. It’s been fun, and free-ing, and NOT a lustful experience.
We’ve witnessed for Christ while nude, too – in a wilderness hot spring, and at dinner in a nudist resort. Was Christ repelled or absent when we were nude? Of course not. Did those people need to hear the gospel? Of course, yes.
Our Western Christian culture has accepted nudity in medical situations (my wife is an RN and regularly sees naked people), emergency situations (think firefighters and EMTs), etc. – so the issue is not nudity per se, it is where the nudity is seen – and those acceptable contexts are more or less arbitrary, absent sexual intent. A Christian from France or Spain or Switzerland may have a different view than the average American or Canadian Christian, for instance.
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