"Do not hinder or prevent the way forward of each other". Romans 14:13.
"What Christianity promises is not the removal of evil from this world, but the taking of this twisted estate into the mystery of Christ's work in His offering in death and resurrection". Robert Farrar Capon.
I've had some interesting moments this week as a result of my last entry here.
Let me share a few.
First, there was a discussion I came across on the Roman Catholic 'Pints with Aquinas' website, where the Orthodox artist/Iconographer Jonathan Pageau seeks to argue that nudity in Christian art is inherently a problem, because, in his opinion, such an estate is only meant to be shared in the marriage union (the bedroom) and is troublesome elsewhere. His reasons for saying this are interesting - what was 'good' about Roman art was apparently incorporated into the realm of iconography by the church (the use of Roman attire and stature) whilst what was bad was discarded (human sexuality, expressed in the naked form). This slight of hand omits the obvious - Christianity, in this process, adopted what it believed it could "baptise" as honourable, but along with that would come the capacity to 'raise' all other beliefs and practices whilst actually muting the vital truths of the Apostles (hence, the need for the Reformation). This approach also negates the whole scope of the early church's attitude to the body which I touched on last time.
As Phillip Johnson notes in his chapter on the body in his work (Six Modern Myths), these attitudes owe far more to Greek thinking (dualism) than the actual theology of Paul and his associates in the first century.
Next, there was another exposition which sought to set the value of nudity in art in the context of God's acceptability of nakedness within marriage, at least recognising that the estate itself was good, if somewhat limiting its realm. Other popular Christian works on this matter (Lewes Smedes "Sex for Christians", for example), seek to set similar 'wholesome' boundaries.
The problem with all of these approaches is that they seeks to apply the wrong lessons to the issue at hand.
In his brilliant essay on Equality, C S Lewis notes that the problem with Naturism (communal nakedness as a way of life) isn't the disrobing of the body, but the pernicious belief that by merely doing so, we can all live in harmony and all would be well. This, he notes, is just as bad as adopting National Socialism as a good idea. So much, then, for living entirely without clothes, but he doesn't leave it there. We all know, he continues, deeply, that there is a yearning to be truly naked - truly free, and that desire is a good and proper thing.
It's good because it was right in Eden.
It's good because the church lived and practiced a faith in Christ that truly understood the worth and value of the body, unclothed and clothed.
It's good because nakedness in art and life is meant to express something wholesome and holy - an expression of what God intended.
It is in the Creational and Redemptive crux of God's reconciling work in Christ, as Irenaeus showed, that we find the vital and valid source of our bodily identity.
That is really where we need to "draw the waters" from on such a subject!
It's time we genuinely applied Paul's sage counsel in Romans 14 and allow genuine growth in this respect, rather than hinder the faith and life of others. That is what Christ actually desires.
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