Nude Church! Pastor Bares Soul and More

Originally posted by N3k9Ni
Outstanding idea!

I'll bet a couple of pole dancers in the church would bring attendance up. A good dancer can pull in $100 to $200 a day. All those dollar bills could go toward the collection.

1-200 a day is what a terrible dancer makes. A good one will pull 900-1000 per day easy.

reply to post by IpsissimusMagus

I rarely post in the religious forums. But I saw this story and wanted to hear some reactions to this kind of worship. What do you all think about this? Has the serpent revealed himself here?

He most certainly has. No modesty, or decency. Yeshua didn't walk around naked and he is YHWH/Hayah. If God incarnate wouldn't walk around naked we shouldn't.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by IpsissimusMagus

 

Lol, something new every day.... /facepalm

Nothing new under the sun, this has been done before...by pagans like ancient Egyptians and Sumerians and...Aztecs.

If they wanted to be free from societal judgements they need to start with putting their clothes back on and stop doing that stuff, because theyre getting more attention naked than they were with clothes on.

reply to post by lonewolf19792000
Perhaps so, but ddin't the man after God's own heart dance around naked? Why yes, yes he did.

Anyone noticed how ATS christians are distancing themselves from this obscure group of nudist "christians".

Now imagine a thread about an obscure group of nudist "muslims".

Christians would have a field day lumping in all muslims with that obscure group.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by IpsissimusMagus

 

Lol, something new every day.... /facepalm

I wonder if they are using 'bath salt' instead of 'mortons iodized salt' for cooking in that town?

I think this church was also featured on a Taboo program.
These people are nudists, and to them it is not sexual, and they are no body fascists.
They have all shapes and sizes and also disabled people.
Good for them.
This is their lifestyle, and they do everything in the nude while in their colony, so why not have a nude church?

Although there are debates, many argue that baptisms took place in the nude in the early church, although at least by the third century they were gender segregated.

The crucifixion is also often imagined in the nude (in line with Seneca the Younger), and the Diocesan Museum in Naples recently exhibited a nude crucified Jesus attributed to Michelangelo.
www.artdaily.org...
Modern fundamentalist constructs however are rather squeamish (increasingly so, it appears), and here they've even campaigned to remove Renaissance statues of David.
I think once people start censoring public classical art and statues the problem is in the eye of the beholder.
In 2006 an art exhibition in the SA town of Tulbagh that included nude classical pieces had to be removed after the local Christians prophesied that an earthquake would hit the town.
www.iol.co.za...

The fundamentalist men's ministry Promise Keepers apparently has theorists who encourage men to reclaim the proudly masculine, nude and phallic Jesus as a reaction to growing modern androgyny.
educate-yourself.org...

There's nothing wrong with this, and since so many religious people fear gender blurring in modern dress, this is the most basic way to revert to true masculinity and femininity.

It's one way for men to be natural men as God made them, without the "feminine" Persian or barbarian custom of wearing pants.

Originally posted by sk0rpi0n
Anyone noticed how ATS christians are distancing themselves from this obscure group of nudist "christians".

Now imagine a thread about an obscure group of nudist "muslims".

Christians would have a field day lumping in all muslims with that obscure]

Lol, dude what are we supposed to do with this besides mock and laugh? I don't think anyone takes this group seriously.

Originally posted by hp1229

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by IpsissimusMagus

 

Lol, something new every day.... /facepalm

I wonder if they are using 'bath salt' instead of 'mortons iodized salt' for cooking in that town?

I'm scared.

Why is it that it's never the people you'd actually like to see naked that are nudists?

Blarf.

reply to post by IpsissimusMagus


Allow me to ask you something. Does the baring of flesh in worship services automatically equate to evil? Why?

reply to post by sk0rpi0n

While you probably have a point, I think this is more a case of a nudist colony that happens to have a clothing optional church rather than a specific sect, unlike, for example, the Freedomites in Canada.
en.wikipedia.org...

I've heard of nude yoga, and ritual nudism amongst some Hindu sects (like the Nagas), but never of nudist Muslims.
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but then again Islam seems to have a specific injunction for men and women to dress modestly, while it's more debatable in other faiths.
Perhaps there could be gender segregated nudity (although I've heard that even flashing in a Turkish steam-bath is considered rude)?
But I assume they'd put something on for prayer.

In ISKCON the men shower with cloths (often cold), and I'm surprised the Christian fundamentalists haven't pushed this yet for sportsmen and athletes.

reply to post by NOTurTypical


Why do you say that? Because they find that nude flesh is divine? Why is that wrong?

Just because you're ashamed to show your body to brothers and sisters in the Lord, doesn't mean everyone is. To be honest, I'm impressed that they allowed themselves to be filmed during this service. A lot of churches make a point of looking good on camera, and these guys went...well, completely natural!

I'd like to hear what this pastor had to say, instead of judging the fact that he doesn't have clothes on. I don't know if anyone told you guys, but it's not our clothes that make us who we are. On the other hand, I guess you really couldn't call this guy a "man of the cloth," could you?

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

Why do you say that? Because they find that nude flesh is divine? Why is that wrong?

Just because you're ashamed to show your body to brothers and sisters in the Lord, doesn't mean everyone is. To be honest, I'm impressed that they allowed themselves to be filmed during this service. A lot of churches make a point of looking good on camera, and these guys went...well, completely natural!

I'd like to hear what this pastor had to say, instead of judging the fact that he doesn't have clothes on. I don't know if anyone told you guys, but it's not our clothes that make us who we are.

On the other hand, I guess you really couldn't call this guy a "man of the cloth," could you?

I dont show my body to anyone. Im committed to holiness in my life. If they wanna have church in the nude, more power to them. I wont be a part of it, and furthermore Id refuse to sit in the pew after them. That's disgusting.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

I dont show my body to anyone. Im committed to holiness in my life. If they wanna have church in the nude, more power to them. I wont be a part of it, and furthermore Id refuse to sit in the pew after them. That's disgusting.

The Muslims feel the same way about your faith, and you call them blasphemous. See the double standards here? These people believe the same thing you do, and in fact, they are only emulating what humans very first did, according to the Bible: be naked!

Apparently, only your understanding of the Bible and of the faith is correct. Your hypocrisy and arrogance is overwhelming, to say the very least.

I just searched a bit on history and nudity in the US, and especially for males it was a basic part of youth experience in many schools, colleges and the YMCA.

While males and females were segregated for swimming in schools, in a few areas girls were also required to swim nude (usually with bathing caps), although athletic swimming for women was not encouraged at first.
Male swimming instructors for boys were also frequently naked.

According to the American Public Health Association Guidelines (1939) males had to swim nude to stop clothing from clogging up the pool (a similar logic about "water quality" seems to have governed the YMCA).
It seems that the modern idea of the body as "dirty" had not yet been constructed.

However, not all districts followed the guidelines, and from 1915 boys in Portland, for example, wore the same "tank" costumes as the girls.

Nevertheless male nudity was widely practiced, and physical privacy was not considered a masculine requirement.

At the YMCA the practice ceased when women joined (although some note bitterly that men can still not join the YWCA).
Some report that occasionally women came to swim in the nude at some YMCAs, and it never raised an eyebrow from the men, although it was officially forbidden.

It's called a forgotten part of American history that's not even portrayed or hinted at in modern films about history.

One Youtube clip speaks of an incident in 1963 when the girls were allowed to enter a nude male swimming practice by sadistic gym teachers (who are called the human equivalent of "broken toys").
The clip contains no real or frontal nudity, and is very interesting, although I rather won't embed:
www.youtube.com...#!

So in what many Christian fundamentalists consider the "golden age" of American society today (the 1950s and 1960s), nudity was a common part of life.

In one school mentioned in the clip the custom ceased as late as 1979, when the boys vandalized the pool.

Since then nudity has become sexualized, which makes even the thought of recently abandoned traditions unthinkable today.
I still think it would be unfair then to force boys to go topless.
If being modest is now being "holy" instead of being a "sissy", then males should have the option of covering the chest in all circumstances.

Of course privacy had to come with all kinds of advancements and segregated spaces, but I guess in some spaces like hospitals or prisons in can still not be assured.

So maybe the problem of the church is the lack of gender segregation rather than nudity itself.
But societies can change very suddenly on these issues, and some African tribes that walked about virtually naked a generation ago now forbid women from wearing short skirts.

See also: Historic archive on male bathing and swimming from the Civil War to the early 1980s.
sites.google.com...

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

I dont show my body to anyone. Im committed to holiness in my life. If they wanna have church in the nude, more power to them. I wont be a part of it, and furthermore Id refuse to sit in the pew after them. That's disgusting.

The Muslims feel the same way about your faith, and you call them blasphemous. See the double standards here? These people believe the same thing you do, and in fact, they are only emulating what humans very first did, according to the Bible: be naked!

Apparently, only your understanding of the Bible and of the faith is correct. Your hypocrisy and arrogance is overwhelming, to say the very least.

.

Are you finished? I still don't support the nudist church, sorry. Let God deal with them, I don't care. If they want to do that let them, but I won't be sitting in pews after them, that's disgusting. And don't ridicule me on my understanding of the Bible and the faith until I ACTUALLY post a Bible verse. Herrrrp.

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by IpsissimusMagus

 

Allow me to ask you something. Does the baring of flesh in worship services automatically equate to evil? Why?

Absolutely not, I don't know any of these people and I wouldn't dare try to judge them or label them evil.

My comment in the OP, "has the serpent revealed himself", was a meant as a sarcastic innuendo.

Otherwise known as a joke.

reply to post by IpsissimusMagus

I think it's safer to "show the serpent" rather than to "handle the serpents", like some of those American churches that literally dance about while holding venomous snakes.
I think that's much worse.
I'd hate to see the two combined - large naked people who dance with poisonous snakes.
Now that would make me squeamish.