About My New Book
I
consider my latest 596-page work, Nudity
& Christianity, to be my "magnum
opus." It represents the fruit of thirty years of research,
meditation, discussion and many personal experiences. Though much of the
material is new, I have included the best of my twenty-three years of naturist
publishing. Although all of my previous publications (see http://www.naturistlife.com) were
highly photographic, this latest is 100% textual, in hopes of reaching those
who might be intimidated even by the most tasteful depictions of God's greatest
material creation--the human body. The insightful ideas of dozens of authors
from various denominations are represented here, from Pope John Paul II to
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis to Kahlil Gibran and even Mark Twain.
The
purpose of this book is to encourage readers to probe the reasons for wearing
clothes. Today, Western convention tends to assume that "nude is
lewd," but it was not always that way. For half the Church's history,
catechumens--men, women, boys, girls, and infants were routinely baptized
together, nude, by full immersion. Today, we recoil at learning this, but how
have cultural attitudes toward the body changed to effect this reaction? I ask
those hard questions about the body and the meaning of true modesty, and exhort
Christians to lead the way in asserting God's
definition of the body, rather than Playboy's.
Instead of allowing pornographers to define the body for us, and then create a
virtue of modesty to fit that false definition, Christians should assert God's definition as found in Scripture
and Church Tradition. When we view the body as Jesus did, our definition of
modesty becomes radically different from what is conventionally presumed.
Two
highly detailed indices (Scriptural and Topical) make this an excellent and
easy to use reference book. Suppose a reader wants to see what various authors
have had to say about Noah's drunken nakedness. They can either look it up in
the Topical Index under "Noah," or in the Scriptural Index under
"Genesis 9:18-27."
In
my introduction, readers are exhorted to live
what they learn. I propose attending "Theology of the Body
Retreats."
See
the complete Table of Contents.
Click
Publisher
for information on purchasing Nudity
& Christianity directly from them ($25).
Or,
for an autographed copy ($30 postpaid), go to Cunningham's Store.
For
information on upcoming retreats, click Theology of the
Body Retreats.
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