Unka Glen

Anonymous asked: I have a question, some of my family members I live with are nudists and have recently joined a nudist club/community. They know that my faith is very important to me, but still try to get me to go with them. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I have an eating disorder, and very low body confidence. I don’t know how I, as a Christian, should react to this. Is it okay? I don’t know what to do.

Unka Glen answered: A nudist would say that the whole point of nudism is to de-sexualize the human body, and to see that clothes hide a lot of what our bodies actually look like. They might say that once you see everyone else’s curves and jiggles and whatnot, that you begin to focus less on your own body altogether and begin to see yourself as part of nature.

Also, you get to look at other people’s bits and pieces.

But other than the bits and pieces part, they do kind of have a point. We have become body-conscious as a society to an truly nutty extent. In fact, we take a measure of our identity and self-worth from our looks, as opposed to, ya know, taking our sense of identity from the fact that God sent His Son to pay for our sins, and ransom us from eternal separation from Him, and adopted us, and calls us co-heirs with Christ.

The human body is beautiful. The female human body much more so (God saved His best for last). There is nothing wrong with admiring the beauty of the human form. God made Adam and Eve and He placed them in the garden, naked and happy. No religion, no church, just walking and talking and abiding with God …and just look at the mess that we’ve made of that.

God made you. The Bible says you are His “workmanship”, in Greek, that’s “poiéma”, the same word from which we derive the English word “poem”. You are God’s poem, you are His song, you are His sculpture. You, my beloved, are God’s masterpiece. And you are beautiful in His sight. Everything else is a lie.

If you accept the truth of this, you will love your body for what it is, and accept it for what it isn’t. Just as God loves your looks, a man who loves God will come along and see your looks the way God sees them. You want to be in agreement with this remarkable man, and you, in turn, will want to see this man the way God sees him.

If you hate your body and you set out to change it, you’ll find that you can make it anorexically thin, or overly obese, but you really aren’t changing your looks all that much. And you may be wrecking your health in the meantime. Leave it to the enemy to give us an obsession that we can’t really do much about.

C. S. Lewis once said, “You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” Indeed, the essential you is spirit, and you’re stuck with this lumpy, saggy, pimply, hairy, and rapidly deteriorating earthsuit. Soon and very soon, you’ll shed that suit, and throw off it’s aches, and pains, and itching hungers, and then you’ll be free. Until then, realize it’s just a suit, treat it well, and love it the best you can. It’s gonna see you through some amazing adventures.