Being nude is a loss of dignity?

May 6th, 2007 • christianity, confusion, intolerance

As I was reading through my feeds tonight, I saw that Sean Prophet had posted up an interesting piece on a photograph of 18,000 nude participants in Mexico City’s Zocalo Square and how the Church sees it as a loss of human dignity. From a photographic standpoint, getting this many people together for a single shoot is simply amazing. I know from shoots I’ve been on in the past, getting one person (the model) to cooperate is difficult enough let alone another 17,999 people. But this is not what struck me as truly amazing.

Older people and clergymen see it as an offense against the Church itself and a deplorable act for people to be publicly seen nude. Gasp! I then remembered a quote from Genesis:

2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Adam and Eve were not shy about their nudity. It’s not like they were the only ones around either as God had just created beasts of the earth and beasts of the air just before he created Adam. Now, here’s Adam and Eve sitting around, stark naked in front of a whole host of animals and they do not care and I highly doubt the animals cared either. So is the Church saying it’s okay to be nude around animals but not other humans? The Bible is filled with passages of various people being very nude:

1 Samuel 18:1-4
The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. … Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.

Isaiah 20:3-4
And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia; So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

Mark 14:51-52
And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him: And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.

I randomly selected these three passages, there is no rhyme or reason to their order. According to the Bible, it’s quite alright to be naked if you want to be. It does not matter if it’s in front of men, slaves, or even prophets. So how is being nude a loss of dignity in any sense? Biblically, it’s okay. Societally in Mexico, it’s not okay it seems. So if the Bible is the word of God as scribed by men, aren’t the clergymen committing blasphemies by charging people with being less than dignified or ridiculing them by pointing fingers when they see someone naked? When did prudishness become bedfellows with the Church?

Historically, people were not so bothered about being nude around each other. In Rome, it was quite accepted and encouraged. This is true of much of ancient Italy itself from the Romans to the Spartans to the Cretes and Minoans. Native and Meso Americans were frequently nude in public religious rituals and elsewhere. I even think original baptisms as performed by John the Beloved required you to be nude as to cleanse not only the spirit but the entire body of past transgressions. Ben Franklin was even a proud supporter of “air baths” and nudism in general. So when did society deem being nude was deplorable? I have no idea really but I’m sure it had something to do with the Puritans and other fundamentalists.

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