Things you would/wouldn't share with your pastor.

[Bare_Truth]

Let us suppose for the sake of argument that he (or possibly she depending on denomination) is a pretty good pastor. and meets all the basics of:
blameless, as the steward of God;
not selfwilled,
not soon angry,
not given to wine,
no striker,
not given to filthy lucre;
a lover of hospitality,
a lover of good people
sober,
just,
holy,
temperate;
Holding fast the faithful word so far as has been taught,
able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

And assuming that your pastor is quite good at all these things, Which is to say, "Boy did your congregation get a real gem!".
What sort of things about you and your family life that you would avoid sharing with this pastor.

I am thinking here of things of the sort that were they known of you, might "raise some eyebrows" or in the case of some of your fellow congregants, Might just blow those eyebrows off (If you will allow me a bit of hyperbole)
I believe this may be an ideal audience to ask this question of, because there probably many here who suspect this is their situation and so long as this really great pastor and friend does not know, then He/She has plausible deniability. Of course there could be a lurking suspicion that the pastor might for various reasons feel compelled to take some action. I think that our departed naturist brother Jon Marc was adversely impacted by this when his pastor found out that he was a naturist living in a residential naturist park.

But please understand I am asking this question in a General sense and not a naturist sense per se! If one had such a topic that was not a matter of sin per se, but which might strike a large part of the congregation or possibly even the pastor as odd or questionable how would one handle that. Without limitation, let me suggest," what if you had a hot tub outdoors on your back deck and you and your wife had a penchant for having sex in the hot tub out under the stars but it was near impossible for anyone to see what you were doing but in your community such activity would be considered A DOWNRIGHT KINKY"! FETISH AT BEST or MAYBE EVEN DEEMED PERVERSE". How would you handle such a matter ?
DISCUSS THE MATTER WITH THE PASTOR
LEAVE HIM UNINFORMED SO THAT THERE IS PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY ?
LET THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG AND LET THE CHIPS FALL WHERE THEY MAY ?
HOPE THE CAT NEVER GETS OUT OF THE BAG ?
OTHER ?

As you will remember, our now disceased brother and fellow naturist Jon Marc lost the opportunity to share his gift of singing praises in church and serving the congregation in that way unless he would change his way of life to conform to the majority's lifestyle, and he was not in a position to move, given his accomodations and finances as his health failed. He was given the choice of a false dichotomy of quit participating in services with your gift of singing, or get rid of your mobile accomodations in the naturist park to be allowed to continue your level of participation in the congregation.

So having used that as an example, please relate how and what you would choose to share with an otherwise excellent pastor if you suspected a chance for it to unnecessarily go very wrong.

[baresoul]

Accessibility is important in that. Less will be shared with a pastor who is not as accessible. I have been going to a large church. I have been going to it in recent times, it is the first and only such large church I have been ever going to. I had been in small churches before that. Here it seemed I could go to and be accepted enough to fit in with. The pastor who preaches is hard to just meet with. There is a structured hierarchy and arrangement can be made to meet with him. But it was only a big exception when I ever did.

[naturaldon]

My senior pastor is the gem. We're great friends. He knows pretty much everything. We even "joke" about it in staff meeting (yeah, the other associates know, too, and actually mentioned it to our new associate pastor in front of me in a casual conversation). So I don't worry about it. A number of members know. I worry less.

The caveat is I don't live in a naturist community, I don't live it 24/7, and I don't treat it any differently than my other personality traits. It's just part of who I am: a Jesus follower, committed husband and family man, associate pastor, and a fairly wild outdoorsman, the latter of which has earned me some notoriety for doing crazy things like skinny dipping, skinny hiking, nakayaking, cooking meals on my truck engine, chasing tornadoes, etc.

I know I've said it before in the Village, but naturism is my therapy, not my lifestyle (though part of it). I don't bring it up, I don't try to convert others, I don't hide it when the subject comes up. I know it's probably rare, but people accept this as just another part of me.

Don't know if that's the response expected but it is my testimony to Christian naturism.

[Bare_Truth]

....

Don't know if that's the response expected but it is my testimony to Christian naturism.

Actually Don it wasn't, but then again perhaps that is all you might have in your background that anybody could considerable questionable and if that is the case you won't raise any eyebrows here. But surely some of us might have something that might raise eyebrows, and that is not the topic of interest here either.

What I had in mind was rather those sorts of things that the Bible never calls sins, especially if a lot of people in your congregation think they are sins especially when what they think are actually are not. What I was probing for was situations where there are common and frequent beliefs that certain things are sins, but yet there are no proofs or evidence that they are but there are some , maybe many in the congregation who think that You or someone who is a good Christian should NEVER EVER do ........ NOT -THAT ......... . And sometimes it is the pastor that thinks you should not do that.

Once upon a time I had joined a congregation in which formerly they felt that men should not have beards, and now that this was a change that had come in, I showed up upon the scene, one of the new members in the congregation and it was really sticking in the craw of a lot of people who had been there for quite a while. (that happened decades ago)...... but it ruffled feathers at the time. It was not formerly considered good grooming or respectful or common and it drew a lot of citations about how before going before pharoah Joseph shaved Genesis 41:14 (as if that was some sort of mandatory sign of respect in 1973 U.S.A. especially of men in their 20's), What really bugged some of them during those "Hippy Years was I had a beard but short hair, and they couldn't reconcile that combination ).

[Petros]

Partly because of nature, partly early nurture, partly hard earned experience - with anybody, pastor, employee, colleague, neighbour, friend - it is need to know. Not just the naturism. Political stance, food I like, preferred candidate, ideas on the status of Basque - I will give out a tidbit at a time, slowly and softly, expecting consequencews.

[naturaldon]

Okay, I get it now. Something like, "Hey, that's my seat (in worship)." Many years ago, we had people who actually made visitors move out of "their seat." Now that I think about it, that does fly in the face of James 2:3 so I guess this doesn't apply (but I'll leave it up ).

- Watching R-rated movies?
- Embracing the 2nd Amendment?
- Masturbation?
- Playing in a band in a bar on Saturday and in worship on Sunday?

All of these come to mind but I think one can make a Biblical case against one and for the other. Hmmm... yep, the 2nd Amendment might be something that raises those proverbial eyebrows for some. We have extreme adherents on both sides in our church. Some are offended when they know I own guns, some are pleased. But even with htis I can make a Biblical case. I'm stumped!

[Bare_Truth]

So elaborating on the concept a little farther, What I am probing for viewpoints on is dealing with situations where one is dealing with someone in the congregation has some degree of an official role and holds a position in the congregation that has some responsibility but has a burr under his/her saddle on some matter which cannot be shown to be a matter of sin, but they think it is. This is not necessarily a person who was already there when you arrived, so it is not a matter that you are trying to change things nor anything that would have raised any eyebrows in the past, but perhaps they are inclined to seek a change. Think perhaps of the case of a congregation which needed to acquire a replacement pastor, and the new guy wants to change the practices or doctrinal emphasis in services and some how thinks the existing toleration of some things are a matter of sins (but no biblical reference can be shown that they are, even though other congregations also think they are sins....... (practicing chaste naturism for an example that we are probably all familiar with, or what constitutes proper female modesty and comportment for another).

When one becomes a member of a congregation-community, one may invest a good bit of themself into it and some new arrivals can disrupt things. This matter has some links to the old saw about commings and goings, " some bring great joy when they arrive and others when they go". Getting a new pastor can have that sort of impact, and Petros' somewhat speaks to this but adds to instability of the situation when such witheld information comes to light, and the accusation arises about "hiding things that the other considers sins" I know for instance that I have at times had pastors who woulld have flipped out if they knew of my naturism, (and other times the best I could say was that I could not be sure, as the situation was more akin to what Jon Marc had endured. I function much better when the pastor can readily function based on only what the scripture calls sin rather than going with what he cannot establish as anything more than opinion, and can't really tell the difference. It is that sort of situation i am trying to pursue and clarify. I trust God to intervene in my life and tell me what I ought to do, members or officials of the congregation, I listen to, but their imparitives I may question.

[Bare_Truth]

I have been posting the questions in this strip in generalities in hopes of not skewing the responses but with only marginal results, so now, for the sake of clarity i will post a more precise and accurate example.

The pastor at one congregation that I often attend at (time and expenses accomodating). The Pastor is a really great guy and he and I share several areas of interest and similarities in personality. I am however fairly aware that he is severely skeptical that there can be such a thing as "CHRISTIAN Naturism" Among other things he seems to believe that it is impossible for an ordinary layman to look at a naked woman and not lust, at most he might allow that a medical professional in a medical setting might be able to restrain himself for a limited time by great effort to remain "clinically professional. I on the other hand disagree. I also in sci-fi-fantasy literature have read stories based on mythical characters some of which are centaurs. Accordingly I have acquired a number of pictures of such creatures and some of those pictures are quite nicely done and some are whimsical, and having acquired such pictures I have used some of them for a screen saver that cycles through a series of them if the computer is left unattended. Some might not find such pictures to their liking, so should I on occasion meet with that congregation I take the precaution of changing out the pictures that the screen saver would cycle through but I have to be certain I do change them out as some in the group might take umbrage at the subject matter. In the sequence of images there is not a single picture of an "exposed" human being. Of course not! The subjects are all non-existant-mythical-characters. But being that part of them consists of parts common to a human being, some might see them as nude humans, because centaurs having high metabolisms, do not wear much if any clothing. I suspect that such images might raise some eyebrows, and in the case of this highly esteemed pastor, I strogly believe he would find such images objectionable, however I do not think any naturist would have any problem unless they have a powerful objection to the sci-fi-fantasy genre.
So to give you an idea of what I mean about these pictures, here is a montage of some of them.

So as I said technically there are no humans in these images, but the creatures depicted are centaurs, and they are partially nude, well actually essentially nude unless you count horse hair as a covering. If they cause anyone to lust, I suppose that is possible but my interest is analytical with respect to "what if analytical questions and if anyone sees anything salacious in them it would be best that such a person avoid reading any fantasy stories to children in which one encounters talking dragons and other mythical characters. But I am aware that some people would see something nefarious in them and might be disturbed by them, but with human body parts on centaurs some might see something salacious in them, but I do not. They are just pieces of typical mythical stories. and not lewdly displayed. But I bet that pastor would find problems with them, and some pastors would see them as abominable rather than seeing them as a literary device to create fictional scenarios used in a literary diversion, and if that is their hang-up, perhaps they should also avoid movies like Lord of the rings and the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, etc.

As for the attached picture, to offer insights to my mental processes the third frame from left to right in the top row is one of my favorites. that frame has a title which is "beauty and the beast. but if you examin the woman and the centauress the human female portion and the full human depicted are both beautiful, and while one might call the centaur a beast, it is the human depicted that has the dager and is about to attack the centauress by stelth, so who is the beauty and who is the beast? Likewise the frame in the 3rd position on the bottom row shows an image with a caption that pertains to the contemporary controversy about the treatment of and compassion for those who are born with intersex conditions (note that the equine genitilia are at odds with the gender appearance of the human torsos). The cartoon frame in the 3rd position of the center row is dealing via the strong anthropomorphic expressions with family attitudes. Unlike the mythical centaurs of old, these centaurs are not predominantly militaristic but rather civil in their demeanor which seems to reflect the human desire for peace and harmony in most of the images ("beauty and the beast" as noted above being intended as an exception).
But getting back to my main theme about how other people may react to the opinions and interests, One person's idiosyncratic interests may be deemed down right perverse by others. and that can trigger problems sometimes.

[Petros]

Hmm. I recall one piece sci-fi - details not to hand - where some aliens were centauroids; the civiiized ones wore jackets . I guess concealing the semiequine parts for procreatiopn and excretion was not an issue.

[Lionheart]

This is an interesting topic for sure. As I grew up in a church that had a lot of thoughts an beliefs about what was sinful there were not supported by biblical truths, I have spent much time researching studying a whole of these things. Part of this brought me to naturism in that I felt they got it wrong in teaching the human body as basically bad and must be hidden. Here is a quick list of other things they felt were sinful or to be avoided that I believe to be personal “convictions” but not sinful.
Simple nudity, familial nudity, secular music, contemporary Christian music, dancing, use of any tobacco product, drinking wine, watching tv, boys and girls swimming together, tattoos, watching movies or reading books with any of the above or even mild curse words. There are other more subtle examples I might be able to list with more thought. I could not let anyone know that these were ever experienced without fear of being shamed. One pastor even took exception at a pot luck when he found out I had prepared a poultry dish by marinating it in cooking sherry before cooking it. He would not touch it and I was afraid he would have it removed.

As for the fictional character pictures you show. Some would have issues that it is fictional and fantasy, others would have issue with them the bare breasts. Neither are an issue in my mind.

[Bare_Truth]

.......Here is a quick list of other things they felt were sinful or to be avoided that I believe to be personal “convictions” but not sinful.
Simple nudity,
familial nudity,
secular music,
contemporary
Christian music,
dancing,
use of any tobacco product,
drinking wine,
watching tv,
boys and girls swimming together,
tattoos,

Well I am going to have to give them the one about tattoos because of:

28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord.

But other than that the list is primarily "Hedging about the law with pharisaical mandates as the Jews became so prone to do, though much of the list may contain some wisdom and some valid warnings about where problems could be encountered the prohibited actions are not necessarily sin per se. Was dating outside the church on their list somewhere?

As for "cuttings in the flesh" I think some jump on that one in connection with piercings, however the biblical prohibition is specifically about doing it because someone died, and after all, God commanded the circumcision cutting as the mark of the Abrahamic covenant, and there are many references to piercings for Jewlery that are favorable. But people are prone to add all sorts of mandates for their religious groups. It is my understanding that some Amish Ordnungs even specify what shape your barn roof must have........

[Lionheart]

Marriage outside the denomination was frowned upon. Dating? Well many decided their teens should “Kiss Dating Goodbye”. The person who wrote that doesn’t even believe that was a good idea now if you know the book.

Baptists did not dress modestly enough, and Holiness Church were too leagalistic about it. My parents church some how had figured out just the right amount and styles of clothing, makeup, and jewelry to please God. My mother cut pictures of women in bras out of the JCPenney catalog just to be sure. She also wore only skirts and never wore pants around my grandfather. We were not allowed to tell him we played Uno or cards, or played pool at a friends house. And it was Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night church or you were back-sliding.

I am not liberal by any means, but came to be a truth seeker and understand the true source of our righteousness. I was finally able to set aside every weight that so easily besets and the sin of putting our trust in our own ability to follow rules in order to please the Father.

[jdb]

Good Morning all.. I share what I have learned with others and my current pastors knows I am a nudist. I told him there is a reason I have not shown him my wedding pictures.

I read with interest as Leviticus 19:28 was quoted. In my New King James that paragraph begins in verse 26, now paragraph markings are not inspired. Verse 26 Divination, my dad could throw out a silver quarter and then with a willow stick, cut a slit and put a quarter in it and find that tossed quarter in the grass and find water divining. I like a little boys hair cut that's shaved in the back on the neck, well that's verse 27 and I shave smooth faced. But I'm not tattooed...
I am amused at conservative pastors and conservative Christians, and I'm one of them. We rant and rave about the things I don't do, condemning others but I might be doing something that's just as bad.
The more I read the scriptures the more I try to follow the Law of Love that Jesus taught. My preference is no tattoos. I think the verse is about idol worship.

Nudism along with Fig Leaf forum, NC and here at CNVillage have helped me grow so much. Thanks to all.
John

Leviticus 19:26-28

26 You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying. 27 You shall not shave around the sides of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the Lord.

[New_Adventurer]

Why would a centauress need a bra or bikini top? Should she also have a corresponding bottom? It is as pointless as putting pants on a dog or cat.

Two of my prior pastors know of my nudist activity and expressed no reservations, the third was aghast that I would run around and let it all hang out, and the most recent and current does not know yet. I will probably tell him some time in the future when I can blend it in with the normal course of whatever conversation we are having at that time.

[Petros]

Centaurs I don't know about, but horses in metropolitan parades are often required to wear some kind of drawers.