The Christian Naturist movement?

paleodoxy said:

And remember, Paul and Barnabas publicly exposed themselves to the Laodiceans in Acts 14:12-15, so Paul couldn't have been condemning nudity PER SE in I Tim.2:9

Jonathan

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paleodoxy said:

When I resuscitated this thread, I asked how many people following the thread were sympathetic to or still opposed naturism, with the intent to elicit a 'yea' or 'nay' one way or another. Almost consider it a poll question.

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paleodoxy said:

So...no takers???

paleodoxy

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Christian nudism might sound like an oxymoron, but for thousands of devout followers, living and worshipping naked is at the core of their faith.

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"I am a Christian first, a naturist second," Palmiter said.

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To reconcile being a good Christian with their need to be nude, many of the faithful turn to prayer and follow their own spiritual path. Some are led away from their particular denominations.

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"Despite howls of complaint from fundamentalists who have likened Martin to the Antichrist — and described his nudist plans as “graphic evidence of America’s moral collapse” — Natura intends to build 50 houses around a non-denominational church where clothing for services will be optional."

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CARLSON: Welcome back. If you've ever wondered what it's like to bare your soul to God, my next guest might be able to tell you.
Bill Martin is planning to open a 200-acre nudist camp for Christians in the state of Florida. Mr. Martin, who is clothed tonight, joins us like in Tampa to talk about his plan.

Mr. Martin, thanks for coming on.

BILL MARTIN, OPENING CHRISTIAN NUDIST CAMP: Thank you very much, Tucker.

CARLSON: What is the connection between nudity and the gospel?

MARTIN: Well, let's go back to the very beginning, when Christ was on Earth. I guess the first instance that you can read in the scriptures is when he watches his disciples' feet in John. I think it's John 13. Christ removed his garments, plural, at least in the traditional versions of the Bible, put a towel around him, and washed his disciples' feet.

Peter was fishing nude. If you go back to the early Christian at the time, it was nothing for everyone to work in the hot fields completely nude. They couldn't afford clothing.

CARLSON: But we can, and I just wonder. Let me read you a quote from you.

MARTIN: Sure. It may or may not be a quote. Some of the things have not been my quotes.

CARLSON: Tell me if you said this. “We are not a group that wants a sexual atmosphere. There is absolutely no relationship,” you say, “between nudity and sex.”

And that just strikes me as untrue. People when they're naked think about sex.

MARTIN: That's absolutely not true.

CARLSON: Huh.

MARTIN: And if you—I'm a member of a club in central Florida. I would suggest that just the opposite is true, that the clothing that we wear and the clothing that is manufactured today in itself to a large degree generates lust. When you are around people that are totally naked, and you've been around 20 or 300, here in this country, and I've probably been abroad more, where it's very, very popular, you don't have that.

I want to read one thing: hiding a body part doesn't stop others from lust. It generates lust. Nobody gets excited at the sight of ankles any more. And remember, it wasn't long ago that ankles had to be covered up. If we saw breasts or other parts of the human body at any time, it would normalize them. It would eliminate lust.

Three or four years ago, the triple A had in their tour book in France, and I cannot find it anymore, but we were in France, it said that nudity is so common in France that they can't sell a copy of “Playboy.” When my wife and I were in France I guess 18 months ago, we were there for a week, and I went into every magazine rack I could find, and I could not find a copy of “Playboy” or a copy of anything similar.

CARLSON: Huh.

MARTIN: I'm sure you can.

CARLSON: The French are just naked all the time?

MARTIN: Well, no, not naked all the time any more than I'm naked all the time. I'm sitting here with clothes on, as I am most of the time now. It's too darn cold down here in Florida.

CARLSON: Are you naked in church?

MARTIN: No. I'm not naked in church. I've been to one service which I've been nude, but most of the time, I'm more comfortable in clothes in church. There's times when—my point is, there's nothing wrong with nudity, and that nudity is actually a better way of life and it reduces some of the sexual crimes that we think about, and most Americans, including myself all want to eliminate.

We have that in common. We want to eliminate the sexual offenders. We want to eliminate the sexual offenses. We want to eliminate pornography, and so forth.

And I would suggest that nudity per se is an antidote to pornography. I've had so many testimonies—they're on my web site—from people that, once they found it, (link deleted) and have been on it for awhile, they've come back and written testimonies, how they've able to do away completely with their need for pornography.

CARLSON: Bill Martin, a nudist, also a Christian.

MARTIN: I don't call myself a nudist. I call myself a naturist.

CARLSON: All right.

MARTIN: Which is a little broader.

CARLSON: All right. A naturist, Bill Martin, joining us from Florida tonight, a man who is often naked and not ashamed. Thanks a lot for joining us.

MARTIN: Thank you.

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Bill Martin on the Tucker Carlson MSNBC show, Thursday, December 23, 2005.

On Thursday, Bill Martin received a call from the producers of the Tucker Carlson, “The Situation” show aired nightly on MSNBC at 11 p.m. EST. They wanted him to appear as a guest 48 hours later to discuss Natura and Naturism. The producer indicated she had seen the articles in the London Times, perhaps the world’s leading English speaking newspaper.

After consulting with his Board and members of the AANR staff, he agreed. At 9 p.m. MSNBC sent a limousine to transport Bill Martin from Venice, FL to the Tampa Public Broadcasting Stations where he would speak.

A member of the staff had promised to call at about 6 p.m. to “prep” me. They never did so I went to the studio not knowing what was going to be asked. In the preliminary announcements, I could see that it wasn’t intended to be pleasant. Tucker in announcing the guests referred to Natura and Bill Martin as weird. But a few minutes before I was scheduled at 9:20 and during an ad, he came on to speak to me personally and privately. In that 2 minute discussion, I mentioned the Quaker camps in New England. He immediately responded –" Are you referring to the Farm and Wilderness Camps – of my God, my best friends all went there – I forgot."

So when I came on his tone changed completely, he was totally respectful and I never talked about Natura – only about Naturism and Christianity. He obviously had a whole set of different questions which he didn’t use. After the briefer interview he came back to me (during more ads) and spoke again – very pleasant and again brought up the Quaker camps and gave me the names of his four best friends “who always ran around naked”. He also knew enough about the Quakers to state that they were all “birthright” Quakers – few people outside of Quakers would ever use that term. Clearly I was no longer a bit weird. He also had never tried to relate to the sexual offenses in the US vs Europe and was quite taken back by the figures I gave him privately.

I think one of the important things is to always find a common point of agreement. We both wanted to reduce pornography. We both wanted to reduce sexual offenses. And I proffered evidence that naturism does that - and for that he was grateful.

I am thankful to INA and Corky Stanton with whom I spoke a couple of times yesterday as I was able to read one very important sentence from Corky’s writings as presented on the clothesfree pages. I added a few words:

Hiding a body part doesn’t stop lust. IT GENERATES LUST. Nobody gets excited at the sight of ankles anymore. If we saw breasts all the time, or other body parts (added), it would normalize them. True modesty is chaste nudity. IT IS AN ANTIDOTE TO PORNOGRAPHY.

In my judgement, this really seemed to catch the attention of Tucker Carlson, a very conservative, young (36 years old), Libertarian and Christian host.

Now I wonder if I made a mistake in turning down the requests last year from the Bill O’Reilly show as it has such a tremendous audience.

We have a CD rom on the show, and it is being transposed to MP3 format so we can link it to one or more web sites but that will be after Christmas.

I do know that my dreams of doing a series of educational 5-7 minute talk shows is essential. The local studio producer was Polish. When I told him what I was speaking about he wasn’t excited or otherwise. When I finished, he came up to me and thanked me and agreed 100% and stated most people are just afraid to speak up. How true.

Bill Martin

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"If you think about it, raising a child as a nudist is going to avoid a lot of sexual curiosity. It removes the child’s wondering about what the opposite gender looks like naked. It removes the ‘Show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ frame of mind. That situation often leads to physical exploration, which often leads to sexual activities."

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