Although my society is extremely conservative (I live in Singapore with its rigorous laws against lots of things including public nudity), I am open about my naturism. I serve in the church orchestra and most of the parishioners in my church who know me think of me as an extremely liberal Christian and they think I'm eccentric and so they don't really mind that I'm a naturist. My wife and kids are not naturists but they know the logic behind naturism and they agree with the principles but they conform strictly to our societal convention on nudity.
I think it's ignorance that makes people oppose naturism. When I joined the Taiwan Naturist Association for a get-together last year, many in my church thought it had to be an orgy! They were surprised when I posted photos of the event on my Facebook (with censorship of course - FB will ban anyone who posts nude photos). I even posted the photo my wife liked best. They were utterly shocked that I even shared the photos with my wife. It then became patently clear to them that I could not have participated in anything sexual if I was so open about it. I took the opportunity to explain to them what naturism was all about.
They still think I'm eccentric but at least they have a clearer idea about naturism and they know that it's they themselves who have this hang-up about sexual matters and they are the ones who think of sex all the time and equate any form of nudity with sex. But most of the people in my church still think of nudity as embarrassing.
Facebook does indeed ban anybody posting nude photos. However I wouldn't do it in Facebook, even if they accepted the photos. That is because many of my Facebook friends are people I know from Christian organizations, including church.
No, i do not feel comfortable that this would not create a whole domino effect, which, when i think about it, says a lot about that community.
mine is a catholic community, but i have never once heard even remote discussion on Pope Paul II writings on the naked body not being shameful.
food for thought
We are members of a large church and although I had not met them before, I've met several other members of our church at our local nudist resort. So do any members of our church know? Yes. Do an any members of our church that we know from church know. Not really, I think one couple has an idea but otherwise no.
I want to add one more thing. I have talked about my own experience in church and how I have been open about my naturist lifestyle. But I'm not at all advocating that everyone should do this. We are all very different and we react differently to the views of others.
I have always served in church. I was an altar boy since I was six and I served the church in various capacities as I grew older. Today, I play the clarinet in the church orchestra which means I go to church more than once a week. Asians are extremely conservative and a million times more so than those in the West. Naturism is almost totally unheard of. Almost everyone equates nudity with sex and nothing I say can change that mindset.
But I told my church friends about my naturist lifestyle. I told them that Eusebius tells us that in the early church everyone was naked at the sacrament of Baptism - men and women. After they were baptised - they used the river or a large pool of water in those days, they'd put on fresh new clothes to symbolise their new life in Christ. I tried to explain that it was the monastic tradition in the Middle Ages that made us all so hung up about nudity. But people didn't bother. Perhaps they didn't think I was serious about being a naturist until last year, after attending a naturist gathering with the Taiwan Naturist Association in the beautiful eastern region of Taiwan that I decided to post some photos on Facebook and talk about the naturist gathering.
Now, I have many Facebook friends that include important people in government and all kinds of religious people from Catholic monks to fundamentalist ministers. But I felt that this was my life and if they didn't accept it, they could do as they pleased but I was not going to pretend to be what I was not. The first photo I posted on Facebook was this:
This is easily the best photo I took in Taiwan. The President of the Taiwan Naturist Association was the one who took this pic for me and he suggested this pose of me pointing out to the Pacific Ocean. It shows how scenic Eastern Taiwan is. But I excluded anyone below 21 from access to the pic. I'm friends with my children's friends and I didn't want their parents to be outraged. Within 5 minutes of posting this pic, I got a call from a friend. He told me that people were sure to complain to Facebook and following Facebook's strict rules against nudity, I could be banned. I didn't want to be banned so I immediately took down the pic and I posted this one which, surely by ANY standard, can't be offensive to even the most cloistered nun.
I got a call from a church friend who said that he got a lot of unhappy calls from my other church friends. One of them said the photo was obscene and he could see the shadow of my genitals!!! I find it quite odd that they missed the thrust of the photo is the scenery which I, in the photo, was pointing out to. Instead they homed in on something like a shadow!!!
A few people un-friended me on Facebook which I didn't give a toss about. Another friend called me up and asked me if I realised the implication of what I had done. He said someone might download the photo to blackmail me. I really laughed when I heard that. I said I would give the blackmailer the link to my many photos (uncensored) on the internet especially on naturist sites. How can there be a blackmail when I post the pics willingly myself??? He then asked how I would feel if my kids saw the pics. I told him my kids were perfectly aware that their father had male genitalia.
So, it's not true that people in church don't react if they discover you're a naturist, particularly if you post pics of yourself. They do. It's how we take their reaction that matters. The clergy in my church don't mind these things at all. Even the bishop seems to take it quite well. When he saw me at an Ordination Service where I was playing in the orchestra, he remarked that he was delighted that I was clothed in church. It's usually the parishioners that get upset. I don't know why. In my experience, it's usually the older people who are particularly upset.
Nakedrebel,
I am sure, that like me, you have encountered many people who just have to find something to complain about in others,
I often feel that it is a human trait employed by many to feel they are distracting attention from themselves.
So often it is good god-fearing people - who unfortunately do not understand the full position of scriptureand furthermore have somehow thought the comment by Christ He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her - somehow does not apply to them as it does to each of us.
Not sure where they located the exemption application form!!
Unless this Topic is a bit old (3years), but it seems that it's still actual. I have to say none of my friends (from the church or not) knows that I am a nudist, except one. This one has no problem about that, but I fear the reaction of all the others. Some may think, that I could be a nudist but say nothing at all. As some has written in this topic that nudism is often regarded as equal to sex and that's what I also encounter in discussions with my friends of the church. Even though they like my paintings of naked people (like Adam & Eve), but some argued that I should paint more people with clothes on. My answer is often that I cannot paint clothes, because it's too difficult (that's true!) and I like it better this way. But painting nudes and be nude is still a big differency for some of my friends. I don't know how they will react when I will tell them that I was painting the nudes while I was nude myself;-)
Btw. Jesaja preached naked as well. (But only as a comparison, I know)
My painting "Adam & Eve" is to be seen here.
yup,...., only because they are too! LOL!!! I'm a Christian Druid and most of my "church friends" are Southern Baptists. Funny thing tho-none of them know each other so it's a bit of an invisible circle of friends. They all know I am and yet not each other!
Speaking of Southern Baptists: What do four Southern Baptists do when they go fishing together?
They always bring a fifth.
As Foghorn Leghorn would say, "that's a jo--I say, that's a *joke* son!" ;)
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