Clothing And Nakedness In The Bible
By Ian B. JohnsonSurprise! God Isn't Offended By Your Body!
The True Purpose And Significance Of Clothing In Relationship To God's Grace And The Christian Ethics Of Clothing
This series of articles is
neither "Christian nudist" nor opposed to nudism. Rather, these essays
are a study of the Scriptures regarding our bodies, nakedness and the purpose
behind clothing. They conclude that God does not command us to wear clothing
under all circumstances, but allows us clothing to help us overcome our
own shame in coming before Him and before each other, and that how we clothe
ourselves in any given situation is to be governed by the law of love.
They further conclude that the Scriptures that speak about clothing and
nakedness were not written primarily to reinforce a religious taboo, but
were written to teach us something very basic about ourselves and our relationship
with God. Other articles in this series quote at length and comment upon
the various Scriptural passages on the subject, while this article presents
a summary of the subject. It should be noted particularly, from the outset,
that, while my interest in this subject resulted from a local political
controversy and my study has led me to the conclusion that Christianity
and carefully-practiced nudism may be compatible, I am not a practicing
nudist and am not publishing these articles to promote nudism.[1]
Rather, I am publishing them to promote unity and to lead to a clearer
understanding of our salvation in Christ, and of the basis for true Christian
morality and ethics.
If We Wear Clothes Because God Is Offended By Our Sinful Bodies, We're All In Big Trouble
It is commonly taught that
God told Adam to wear clothes because, when Adam sinned, God became offended
by the appearance of our shameful human bodies and therefore likely to
strike us dead if He sees us uncovered. However, if this is true, we're
all in big trouble.
I am not a regularly practicing
nudist. However, I do confess that I undress to bathe, that I remove my
clothes in front of other men in the locker room at the gym several times
a week, and that I have occasionally in medical settings exposed myself
in the presence of women I didn't know when instructed to do so. Moreover,
I suspect that nearly everyone makes similar exceptions to their learned
moral rules about covering their bodies. However, if one really believes
that we must all cover our bodies because God is offended by them, these
exceptions create a problem. If God is offended by the appearance of our
bodies, it really doesn't matter that we expose them only in private or
in socially acceptable settings. Social acceptability doesn't matter. God
still sees, and He is still offended.
Indeed, if I really believed
that the appearance of my body offended God, I would not even do as one
particularly superstitious English monarch is said to have done — that
is, remained clothed at all times except the two times every year when
she took a bath, with a contingent of her most trusted knights standing
guard to prevent any unauthorized human from seeing her nakedness. No,
if my body is offensive to God, I must bathe only with my clothes on. Padlocks
on the bathroom door, the best knights in the realm standing watch, even
the entire United States Marine Corps encamped around my house, would not
convince me to do otherwise. No door, lock, castle or army can keep God
out of my bathroom. He still sees, and He is still offended.
This, however, leads to yet
another problem. If the Marine Corps can't keep God from seeing my nakedness,
my flimsy clothing can't do it, either. He sees what's under my clothing.
And on the spiritual level, He sees everything that's in my mind and heart,
despite everything I do to cover it up. "All things are naked and opened
unto the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do" (Hebrews 4.13, KJV). He still
sees, and He is still offended.
It follows, therefore, that
clothing as a means of hiding our nakedness from God was not God's idea.
It was man's idea, as explained below.
Clothing Was — And Still Is — Our Idea, A Strictly Human Invention
God created man, male and
female, naked, sinless, with no knowledge of evil and no dread of God.
Adam was more than just physically naked — he was also mentally, emotionally
and spiritually naked. He could walk and talk freely with God and felt
no need to try to hide anything from Him. He was likewise naked in all
possible ways with his wife, with whom he was truly one.
It was only after Adam and
Eve sinned, thereby acquiring that knowledge of evil which God had lovingly
denied them, that they felt a need to hide from each other and from God.
It was only at this point that Adam, or, possibly, Eve (the text isn't
clear on this point), insisted on sewing loin coverings out of fig leaves.
They then hid from God, apparently believing that if God couldn't see them,
He'd go away. Adam later told God that they had hid because they were naked,
and their nakedness made them afraid of God, but their peaceful communion
with God in the naked state before they sinned clearly shows that their
fear really resulted from their sin and not from their physical lack of
clothing. (They were deceived.) It is noteworthy that the part of their
bodies which the first humans felt compelled to cover after they sinned
was their genitals — the part that they would both have to use to fulfill
God's command to be fruitful and multiply, the only command God had given
them which they were still able to perform. Thus, sewing together the fig
leaves can properly be viewed as an act of rebellion against God.[2]
In any event, it is clear that clothing was Adam's or Eve's idea — they
sewed fig leaves together on their own initiative, without even any tiny
hint from God that He wanted them to do so.
God Accommodates Our Need For Privacy So That We Will Be Able To Approach Him With Less Fear
When Adam and Eve sewed fig
leaves into loin cloths, the concept of privacy was born. They sought an
area of privacy in which they could hide their sin from God. They also
sought privacy not to be reminded of His only remaining commandment (reproduction)
except when they found it comfortable to remember it. There were four problems
with this, of course: namely, that God still saw them, that their sin didn't
lie in the external appearance of their bodies, that God was therefore
still aware of their sin, and that they remained aware of God's command.
Nevertheless, God accommodated
their newly-discovered need for privacy in order to teach them about His
grace. First, God confronted their sin. When Adam and Eve hid, God didn't
go away as they had hoped or immediately strike them dead as they had feared.
Instead, He sought a full confession of what they had done and true repentance.
But He received only Adam's protestation that he was afraid of God because
he was naked, Adam's plea that he ate the forbidden fruit because the woman
gave it to him, and Eve's plea that she ate the fruit because the serpent
deceived her. Adam and Eve still wanted to cover their sin behind clothing
and excuses. Therefore, in place of the fig leaf loincloths they had made,
God gave them coats of skins that He had made. As many conventional theologians
have understood and taught, this killing of animals to make our first parents'
clothing taught that blood would have to be shed to cover human sin and
prefigured the death of Jesus. But at a much simpler level, it also taught
Adam and Eve directly that they could not effectively cover their own sin
but God would have to do that for them. Better yet, it showed them that
God was willing to cover their sin, and to create for them the sphere
of privacy they now needed, so that they would be able to come before Him
freely and without the fear that He would instantly strike them dead.[3]
Because Clothing Is So Important To Our Approach To God, Dress Codes Become Inflexibly Frozen Into The Religious Morality Of Most Cultures
Note that Adam and Eve clothed
themselves, covering those parts of their body directly related to the
command of God, in an attempt to hide themselves from God's wrath. And
thus was religion born.
People and cultures since
Adam's time have generally gone several steps farther than Adam did down
the path of religion. Individuals ask "What must I do to be saved?"
Cultures ask "What must we do to be saved?" We want to do
something to save ourselves from God's anger, and
invariably come
up with ritual observances and lists of rules which must be observed as
the solution to our collective problem. (We also tend to invent gods which
will, we think, be appeased by the prescribed acts of our religion, but
this is a topic for a separate essay.) The point to be made here is that,
having abandoned a living relationship with the true God, we invariably
seek in our own collective wisdom to devise rules and observances which
will gain us favor with the God we have chosen not to know. These religious
rules always include some taboos regarding clothing and nakedness. Moreover,
because sewing clothing was the first act of human religion, these clothing
taboos tend to be central to every culture on earth and to contain some
details which are very inflexible. And because our attempt to appease God
or climb our way to Him has been perceived as a collective effort ever
since construction of the Tower of Babel was begun, dissenting ways of
thought or living which challenge these inflexible rules are generally
not tolerated. It is usually felt that toleration of the dissenter in these
matters might cause God to lash out in anger at the whole community.
However, the clothing rules
devised by human religions, though generally rigid, are far from uniform.
The one element all systems have in common is that adult women must cover
their genitals, at least on particular occasions. But there are some cultures
in which even adult women are permitted to go naked rather frequently,
male nakedness is nothing unusual in many places, and there is wide variability
in the rules regarding both how and how completely genitals must be covered.
Furthermore, some, but not nearly all, cultures observe that female breasts
are involved in reproduction (feeding babies), and require that they be
covered as well. Still other cultures, like the thoroughly schizophrenic
modern United States culture, require that female genitals and breasts
or nipples and male genitals be "completely and opaquely covered" (a phrase
found in many current US state obscenity laws) but richly reward women
(particularly) who show off just as much of their bodies as they can without
crossing the line. At the other extreme, there have been cultures like
the English and North American culture of Victorian times, which required
men to cover only their genitals and buttocks but required women to hide
their entire torso and the full length of their "limbs" behind several
layers of cloth nearly all the time. (Indeed, Victorian culture was so
obsessed with "limbs" that, in a proper Victorian home, the legs of household
furniture, which were considered a part of the feminine sphere of influence,
were covered with petticoats lest men should be moved to lust after chairs.)
This extreme variability
in the rules demonstrates quite clearly their human origin. They are, in
fact, not God's command to us, but part of our attempt to appease Him.
The clothing regulations of the reader's culture, therefore, may not be
relied upon as stating God's eternal commands on the subject. Only in the
Bible may God's commands be found.
Social Order And The Regulation Of Sexuality Are Also Inadequate Justifications For The Taboos Surrounding Clothing
In modern Western culture,
it has become unfashionable and even, in many circles, impolite or not
"politically correct" to speak in terms of divine or religious origins
for moral rules. But the real underlying rationale for rules in the area
of clothing remains a collective religious fear — a vague and diffuse fear
that, if anyone in the community is permitted to expose too much of their
bodies (except for medical, hygienic or purely commercial purposes) without
facing judicial punishment, some power above humanity will punish the community.
This can be demonstrated quite easily by observing the violent reactions
engendered by the politics of nudist resorts. When nudist resorts become
too politically visible, often because some political leader is creating
controversy for his own political profit, a great deal of pressure usually
arises to shut them down. On these occasions, opponents of nudism invariably
say that the practice is a great threat to the community, and particularly
to children who might be exposed to it, and should not be tolerated. However,
these resorts are usually well isolated from public view and the actual
risk that someone who really is not trying to look will nevertheless see
an exposed body and be offended is actually fairly small. This author has
never observed any nudist trying to force his or her way of life on anyone,
whether in person, in the media or on the Web. So what is the explanation
for the violent opposition to the practice by people who have never even
been present to observe it? It must be a fear of collective punishment
of the community for tolerating the practice.
The political arguments against
nudism often label it dangerous for two concrete reasons: 1) the presence
of a naturist establishment promotes crime in its neighborhood; and 2)
since it promotes lust when men look at naked women, naturism will promote
sex crime in the community if tolerated. These look, at first, like reasonable,
empirical arguments for prohibition, arguments based on real evidence.
The problem is that they are merely restatements of community fears. They
are simply assumed to be already proven, a circular argument, and cannot
be impeached with contrary evidence. Thus, while it is often said that
the presence of a resort increases crime in its vicinity, none of the sources
this author has seen on the subject present hard crime rate data to support
this conclusion.[4] It sounds reasonable,
therefore it is simply assumed.
As for the second argument
— that toleration of bodily exposure leads to sex crimes — the data, such
as it is, does not support it. Interestingly, there is one whole state
of the United States which has never bothered to outlaw exposure of the
female breast. Early in the days of the Anglo colonization of Texas, so
the story goes, the Native American tribes which harassed the white colonies
were in the habit of killing the men but taking the women and children
alive. Therefore, the early laws among these white towns permitted women
to go topless as a matter of survival (it made it clear who the women were),
and they were encouraged to do so whenever natives might be around. Whether
or not this is actually how the Texas indecent exposure statute came to
omit reference to the breast, this author actually saw that law in action
in a public park in Austin in 1978, when a well-developed young woman who
was out walking her dog on a warm day stripped off her shirt, revealing
no clothing underneath, and a nearby police officer did nothing. And, as
of April 2000, Texas had still not "corrected" this omission in its laws.
Indeed, that state has since 1978 adopted a breastfeeding rights statute
which secures women with infants the right to breastfeed anywhere. So,
if toleration of exposure feeds lust and lust leads to sex crimes, Texas
should have a significantly higher rate of sex crimes per capita than the
other 49 states which are not so officially lax about women's breasts.
However, Texas ranks near the middle of the states in its per capita rate
of forcible rape, and a number of other large states rank higher.[5]
Moreover, public toplessness
is not uncommon in most of Europe, and complete nudity is tolerated in
more settings in many European countries than it is in the United States.
Yet, in most of Western Europe, the rates of sex crimes (and of all violent
crimes, generally) per capita are significantly lower than in the United
States. While there are other cultural and historical differences which
may explain the lower overall violent crime rates in Europe, neither Europe
nor Texas provide experimental verification of the proposition that toleration
of exposure leads to increased sex crime rates. Rather, it is simply assumed
that this must be true, even contrary to the evidence. But belief in a
proposition even contrary to the evidence is an attribute of religion,
not of the secular science politicians who debate in this area imply is
on their side.
Therefore, we are back to
the concept that the absolute requirement to wear clothing is an element
of collective religion, not a true crime-preventive measure. If it is to
be justified as part of the Christian religion, that justification must
come from the Bible.
The Bible Says Surprisingly Little About Either Clothing Or Nakedness
The Bible says very little
about clothing. Of course, the Old Testament, otherwise known for its strict
laws, explains how Adam and Eve, though created naked, came to be clothed.
It also commends Shem and Japheth, the sons of Noah, for preserving their
father's privacy and makes special provision for the preservation of privacy
during worship and within the family relationship. However, the only Old
Testament clothing regulations which cannot be viewed as being designed
to preserve privacy are those which prescribe elaborate clothing for the
priests to wear while ministering (Exodus 28), one prohibiting cross-dressing
(Deuteronomy 22.5), one against wearing garments made of mixed fabrics
(Leviticus 19.19; Deuteronomy 22.11) and the rather detailed regulation
about "leprous" garments (Leviticus 13.47-59). Yet none of these can be
extended into a uniform minimum dress code. The priest's garments were
symbolic and educational, and no one but the priests was allowed to wear
them, so they provide no general rules regarding clothing styles. The cross-dressing
rule prohibited interchanging male and female clothing, but did not prescribe
what either men or women must wear. The remaining ordinances simply declared
what materials must not be used in clothing, but said nothing about what
clothing made of the allowed materials must look like or must cover. This
is something the Old Testament never bothers to tell us.
Moreover, the answer to this
question is not to be found in the New Testament, either. In fact, the
only New Testament command on the specific subject of clothing is that
women should dress appropriately for the occasion ("modestly") and should
not over-dress in expensive clothing and jewelry. The apostles said nothing
at all about men's clothing, and did not attempt to set any minimum standard
of decency for women.
It is surprising also both
how little the Bible says about nakedness and that what it says is not
all negative. Indeed in the Old Testament, physical nakedness is used in
different places as a symbol of openness to God, of mourning and of coming
judgment, and on several occasions God even commands His prophets to go
naked publicly for symbolic purposes. Moreover, in explaining the purpose
of the Sabbath, His chosen fast, God commends those who do not refuse self-denial
to the extent of exposing their own flesh on the Sabbath in order that
the hungry may be fed and the naked clothed. In the New Testament, nakedness
as an incident of persecution or Christian suffering is commended — indeed,
the Apostle Paul boasted that he had endured nakedness (along with many
other hardships) as a result of persecution for the Gospel's sake. Furthermore,
although history tells us that public baths were common in the Hellenistic
and Roman world to which the New Testament was addressed, and that these
baths were built in open public squares and were usually not segregated
by gender, the Apostles wrote not one word about them. On the other hand,
involuntary nakedness is consistently used throughout Scripture as a picture
of judgment, with the prime example being Jesus' nakedness on the Cross.
However, nakedness itself is never condemned as sin and we are never told
what parts of our bodies we must cover in order to please God. It's as
if this question didn't matter.
Because We Can't Approach God, The Principles That Really Govern Clothing Can't Be Based Upon What We Must Do To Approach Him
In fact, the questions about
what clothing styles we must wear and what parts of our bodies we must
cover in order to please God don't matter. Regardless of what we wear,
we are incapable of pleasing Him (Romans 4.10-28; Hebrews 11.6). God is
offended by our sin, and we cannot make atonement for (cover) it (Isaiah
59.1-15; Galatians 3.10-12; Hebrews 10.1-4). Only Jesus could cover our
sin, and He did even more than this — through His death, He made it possible
for our sin to be taken away (Hebrews 11.10-14). Moreover, His resurrection
made it possible for us to enter into a relationship with the Father which
is just like His own, a relationship in which sin has never been an issue
(Romans 6.1-14; 2 Corinthians 5.16-21).
Since our relationship with
God depends on what He already did for us rather than what we must do to
please Him, the principles that govern clothing can't be based, as is usually
taught, on inflexible rules concerning what clothing pleases or displeases
Him. And, as has previously been shown, God explicitly states no inflexible
dress code in His written Word.
Clothing And The Law Of Love
Whether our actions toward
God or toward other people are in view, the law which underlies all of
God's law is love, as Jesus Himself said:
"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22.36-40, NASB).
The central importance of love
for those around us is underscored by the Apostle Paul:
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13.8-10, NASB).
Indeed, as the Apostle John
explains, even our love for God is measured by whether we act upon our
love for others:
We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth (1 John 3.16-18, NASB).
This is not to say that where
God has given an explicit command — for instance, against murder, adultery,
theft, lying or gossip — we are free to ignore that command if we, in our
own wisdom, believe that would be the loving thing to do. No, where God
gives an explicit command applicable today, its violation is never consistent
with love, regardless of what our self-justifying wisdom tells us. Love
is the summary of God's law, not its replacement. However, where there
is no explicit command, as in the case of clothing and nakedness, we are
to be governed by the broader principle of love, which asks the question,
"Will my neighbor benefit from my action or be harmed by it?" If my neighbor
will benefit from an action which is in my power, I may even have a duty
to act, unless taking the action in question would prevent me from doing
something even more beneficial. If my neighbor will be harmed, I should
not act. If there is neither harm nor benefit for another in an act, I
am free to act. But, in any event, I should ask God for His wisdom, which
He promises to give freely when asked in faith, with a willingness to actually
do what He says (James 1.5-7).
Though he was directly speaking
only to the issue of what women should wear to church meetings, the Apostle
Paul demonstrated the correct application of the law of love to the clothing
issue generally in 1 Timothy 2.9-10. There had, apparently, been a problem
in the church caused by wealthy women showing off their wealth by wearing
to church expensive clothes, gold jewelry and gold braided in their hair.
This, of course, created hard feelings and division with the poorer members.
Paul instructs Timothy that these women should not be showing off their
wealth at church, but instead should be wearing their good deeds and dressing
"modestly, with decency and propriety." These three words are very general
words which could also properly be translated "appropriately for the occasion,
respectfully and with self-control." Thus, in clothing as in anything else
which is not the subject of an explicit commandment, the rule is love.
Our clothing should be appropriate for the occasion, and should not occasion
either envy or offense in others present to see it.
Now for the difficult question:
Does the Bible prohibit Christians from participating in social nudism?
From the outset, I will declare that at the present stage of my life, I
personally would not participate because, although my wife would not disapprove,
virtually all of the other members of my church would be offended to learn
that I had done so. Thus, if I were to participate in social nudism, my
participation would create division, in violation of the law of love. However,
this reasoning does not answer the question for other Christians (I presume
that some like this exist) whose spouses approve or participate with them
and whose church fellowships are more liberal on this issue. My answer
for myself based on divisiveness gives me no basis on which to judge someone
else.
For other Christians who
can honestly say that attendance at nudist functions does not, in their
circumstances, cause offense or division among their brethren, the question
that must be asked is more basic: Can attendance, without clothes, at a
nudist event, constitute dressing "appropriately" for the occasion, "respectfully
and with self-control?" As to the first part of the question — appropriateness
— the answer depends on whether the act is viewed from the perspective
of those actually present at the event or of an external critic applying
a majoritarian "community standard." Clearly from the perspective of the
other nudists present at the event, nakedness is "appropriate" to the occasion
and they are not offended by it. Moreover, while the Scriptures command
Christians to obey the laws made by their government because governors
act under God's authority (Romans 13.1-2), no Scripture appears to require
Christians to comply at all times with the non-legal moral "standards"
of the community around them, even in their truly private behavior. Indeed,
unless the entire concept of privacy is to be destroyed by an assertion
that the entire community or "society" is omnipresent and stands in God's
place, "community standards" cannot be said to govern private behavior.
Where these non-legal "community standards" must be considered is in public
behavior: a Christian should behave (this includes dress) appropriately,
not causing any unnecessary offense. Thus, in those jurisdictions in which
social nudism is lawful, in settings isolated from those in the community
at large who would be offended by it, it appears that it is possible for
nakedness to be "appropriate" dress.
The next prong of this question
is whether nudity can be "respectful" dress. Once again, this is a question
of perspective: respectful to whom? Obviously, persons who are at any given
time practicing social nudism are not at that time showing respect toward
the sensibilities of the majority in the community. However, those in the
community who might be offended generally are not present at a nudist activity
— they express their sensibilities by electing to be absent — so the disrespect
shown is only a theoretical disrespect toward persons who are absent. Some
would also say that nudists disrespect their own bodies, citing Romans
1.24. But the immediate context of that verse is talking about idolatry
— worship of images made to look like men and animals — which leads to
being given over to lust, sexual immorality, homosexuality and a list of
other sins. It is talking about immoral use of the body, not exposure of
it. And the various defenses of nudism I've read on the Web suggest that
many nudists think they are showing greater respect for their bodies by
not being ashamed of them.
Finally, there is the question
of the effect of nakedness upon "self-control." Sex is used to sell almost
everything in our culture — I've even seen it used to market religion.[6]
Images of women scantily dressed, or nude, in suggestive settings and postures,
are used to create lust in order to sell everything from the sexual images
themselves (pornography) to toothpaste, mutual funds, cars and political
candidates. So it would be natural for someone living in our sex-crazed
culture to believe that nudity, particularly female nudity, must always
either 1) be intended to inspire lust or 2) have the effect of inspiring
lust. Of course, if this belief is objectively true, a woman should never
be naked in the presence of any man other than her husband, because such
nudity either manifests a lack of self-control on the woman's part or is
certain to arouse in the other men present passions which must be frustrated,
thus violating the law of love.
But is it true that all nakedness
is sexual? The Bible never states this.[7]
Indeed, when Adam and Eve hid their genitals, it was not to prevent lust;
it was to keep God from seeing them. Moreover, nudists tend to declare
that there is nothing sexual about their practice, and that, in a setting
in which nakedness is common and all present understand that it is not
intended as a sexual invitation, it does not function as a sexual invitation.
They also make the point that lust is common among fully-clothed people,
and has more to do with the social environment and individuals' mindset
than with clothing. If this is true — and I have no basis to dispute it
— a Christian may participate in nudist activities without sinning. The
questions he or she must ask are the same that must be asked regarding
any activity about which the Scriptures do not directly speak — that is,
what are my motives and how do my actions affect those around me? These
are questions concerning which we may not form a "one size fits all" judgment
for other people under all circumstances. Therefore, I have no basis for
negatively judging other Christians who participate in social nudism.
Links
Sites discussing Christian
morality or ethics generally:
Sites promoting tolerance
or unity, generally from a Christian perspective:
Christian nudist sites (with
no pictures anyone would find objectionable):
- The Bible, Society and Nudity
- Boyd Allen's Christian Nudism
- Common Ground
"The Bible, Society and Nudity" is an online book that is a very complete and lengthy treatment of the subject. The book was taken offline for awhile because of objections from the author's church, thus it is not an exposé or a text opposing nudism. The book was re-posted after the author's problems with his church hierarchy were resolved. It comes fairly close to being neutral.
Christian sites specifically
opposing nudism:
- Christian modesty (a whole page of links on the subject)
- Modesty
Sites opposing nudism on
secular grounds:
- The Nudist Naturist Hall of Shame
The secular sites opposing nudism that I've seen have tended to be just as short-lived as the Christian ones. I invite my readers to suggest other sites for inclusion here.
[1]
It was the very noisy political efforts since 1997 of state and local officials
to close down one nudist resort, Lake Edun, near my hometown (Topeka, Kansas),
which alerted me to the fact that this subject of clothing and nakedness
was a near-perfect example of how human religion works. Before the political
battle started, I had paid no attention to nudism and nudists, and was
only vaguely aware that nudist "colonies" existed in a few isolated places
(but certainly nowhere close to me). I had also paid no attention at all
to the basis on which clothing regulations and taboos are built. I had
simply accepted at face value the unstated implications of the teaching
on "modesty" that I had heard in church on infrequent occasions for many
years, namely, that when God gave Adam and Eve coats of skins, that constituted
a command to wear them at all times or face God's wrath, and that when
Paul in 1 Timothy 2.9 commanded us to dress "modestly," he thereby adopted
the current traditional clothing standard of my church into the
Scriptures by reference just as if he had spelled them out explicitly in
the text. The questions raised by the political debate over social nudism
— that is, whether I should give my support to the Christian leaders who
were insisting that nudism should be banned as sinful and dangerous, and
whether I could accept as my brothers and sisters in Christ people in my
own community who claimed to be Christian yet practiced nudism — forced
me to pay attention.
[2]
That Adam's and Eve's assertion of privacy was an act of rebellion against
God's command to reproduce, which He has since been willing to accommodate
for a higher purpose, is underscored by the treatment of reproduction itself
in the Law. God had commanded the first couple to reproduce and continues
to approve of reproduction within marriage, according to His design. While
He said after Eve sinned that she would, as a result, have "pain" in childbirth,
He did not revoke His command to multiply or declare either sex or childbirth
a sin. Indeed, the Old Testament uniformly speaks of children as a blessing
given by God. So giving birth to a child cannot, in itself, be a sin. Nevertheless,
God accommodated the Hebrews' perception that birth rendered a woman unclean
— a perception which could only have arisen from an underlying notion that
reproduction is sinful or evil — by providing for a time of ritual uncleanness
after childbirth and an offering for a woman's cleansing at its end (Leviticus
12).
[3]
That this fear was irrational is demonstrated by the fact that, when Adam
and Eve came before His presence wearing their inadequate fig leaves, God
spoke to them kindly and did not instantly strike them dead — either for
eating the forbidden fruit (the real sinful act in this narrative) or for
coming before Him "shamefully" and "indecently" exposed.
[4]
I am open to hard data on this subject. I simply have never seen any produced
by partisans on either side. But be aware that I'm not looking for propaganda
statistics — disconnected numbers without a frame of reference used to
elicit an unthinking emotional response. Instead, I'm looking for data
which shows where and how it was obtained and gives enough information
that valid comparisons can be drawn. The crime statistics commonly kept,
moreover, do not appear to be very well adapted to use in studying the
effect of either the proximity of nudist resorts or the strictness of indecent
exposure statutes on crime or victimization rates.
[5]
The 1998 edition of the
Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Data [http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook]
shows that in 1997 Texas ranked 18th of 51 US jurisdictions in the per
capita rates both of forcible rape and violent crimes generally. This appears
to support the point feminists have been making for years — that rape and
sexual assault are usually really crimes of violent domination rather than
sexual passion — and tends to disconfirm the hypothesis that there is a
causal relationship between laxity in legal prohibitions on breast exposure
and overall sex crime rates. Indeed, in surveying the table of states from
which this statistic came, it is noteworthy that the forcible rape rate
ranking of a majority of the states is within two or three spots of their
ranking in the all violent crimes column. Though this is not, by itself,
very strong evidence, it at least suggests that the prevalence of sex crimes
in a locality is much more affected by factors which contribute to violence
in general than it is by toleration of bodily exposure.
[6]
I say "almost" everything because I've never seen sex appeal used in advertising
for mortuaries, cemeteries or funeral plans.
[7]
Some would point to Matthew 5.27-28. But this passage does not state that
whenever a man looks on a woman he lusts for her and, therefore, sins.
Instead, it says that whenever a man looks on a woman in order to
lust for her, already mentally picturing her in bed with him, the act of
adultery has already been committed in his heart. Given a little reflection,
this makes a lot of sense. But it does not in any way assert that female
nakedness (which is never mentioned in the passage) invariably leads to
lust, regardless of the circumstances.
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