Month: September 2024

The Nashville Manifesto

What are my thoughts on the shooter’s manifesto? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When I found out the manifesto was available for reading, I decided to get it in wanting to be informed on the matter. Personally, I think the whole thing should have come out a lot earlier. Now this isn’t anything that’s formally typed out or anything like that so some parts were hard to read just for that reason.

Going through, I wanted to see what this person said about their mental state and really, that was also hard to read. So much was sad about this. This is a person who needed severe help and wasn’t getting it. Also, while I favor quoting material, due to the sensitive nature and not everyone wanting to see it themselves, I am not going to do that this time.

The first day I got it and started going through it, I remember reading it and seeing something said along the lines of “Love is not real if my Autism is.”

At that point, I had to close it up for a bit and get back to it later.

In some ways, I can understand. I watch society and I don’t know what people think. I don’t know what’s really going on with them. One of my favorite shows is The Big Bang Theory and even if you don’t like it, this is one of the best clips I have seen on that. I have read material behind the show and Sheldon is on the spectrum. They just didn’t want to say that officially. Look at what he says here and I give this to people as an example of what this is like.

For me, I don’t understand social cues. If my boss corrects me, is she mad at me and I am a disappointment? Is that girl flirting with me or just being nice? If I say something to her different, will she want to go out with me or will she think I’m a creeper? Do people really care about how I am doing or are they just saying that to be nice? Why do we greet each other in public but when we go home there’s no interaction?

Feelings are hard to understand, but I do know I do have people who love me and people who care about me. It can be hard to tell who they are sometimes, but it is real. I do know after a failed marriage, I am on guard around people more and just want people to be real. It’s painful when I think someone hasn’t trusted me.

Going through further, the shooter repeatedly said that everything hurts. They wanted to die. They also wanted God to forgive them. This wasn’t an angry atheist from what I see. This was someone very delusional wanting to take it out on the world.

The shooter also said that their father loved the cats more than the shooter was loved. I don’t know about their father, but fathers are extremely important. Kids need father love. I do remember they spoke some about their parents conservative values and that was extremely difficult for them.

Granted, I am only getting one side of the story, but parents need to make sure they love their children even if they think their thinking is delusional, and thinking you are the wrong sex is delusional. At the same time, too many parents panic. It’s understandable, but they do.

Years ago my wife was feeling suicidal and I took her to see a great therapist who taught counseling at the seminary. I was hoping he would see the emergency here, but I was stunned as he talked to her as calmly as if they were talking about the weather as if this was no big deal and added at the end, “I hope you stay.” Turns out, he was right. Not much of a shock. I learned from him that if you act panicked, the people you are trying to help will also panic.

This is also why when your children show up doubting their faith, don’t panic. Josh McDowell and Francis Schaeffer both were calm with their children and encouraged questioning and it worked both times. That being said, I do understand it’s more difficult now as most therapists will automatically affirm the delusional thinking and parents will be reported for not going along with it.

This was an incredibly sick individual. Sometimes, sex was described in ways that seemed tantamount to rape. They had some delusional fantasies, but overall, I think they just wanted to be loved.

Something we all want.

Here is something else sad about this.

The whole thing could have been prevented.

They wrote at one point they were surprised they were not arrested in 2021. None of those deaths had to happen. (FBI must have been too busy arresting grandmothers who went into the Capitol on J6 or going after pro-life protesters.) Friends. New laws won’t change this. Criminals do not care about the law and if you are sick enough to do something like what this person did, you definitely do not care about it.

We need a whole worldview change.

We need the gospel.

I urge you to be prepared if you want to read this manifesto. It is sad. It is difficult. Pray for everyone involved. Pray for the families of the victims. Pray for the family of the shooter. Pray for the survivors.

Pray we can stop the next one because one school shooting is one too many.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Should Left Behind be left behind?

Is the modern series a good guide to Revelation? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

“I wonder what I will write about for the blog.”

Then my mother calls.

“I’m going to be attending a series at my church on the book of Revelation and the pastor wants us to discuss if the Left Behind novels are a good guide to the book. What do you think?”

I think I know what I’m writing about.

You know my eschatology here. I am an orthodox Preterist. (The link uses an older title as I call myself an orthodox Preterist, but the meaning still stands.) That being said, I would hope even most premillennials and dispensationalists in general would ditch Left Behind, and considering how many years it has been since I have heard about it, that could be happening.

You know how many video games, movies, and TV shows are being done now for “modern audiences”? (Yes. I watch the Critical Drinker. How could you tell?) They’re an imaginary group of people that don’t buy anything but all businesses are rushing to please. I am not at all saying Left Behind is woke as it clearly is not, but it does come with the idea that the book of Revelation was written for modern audiences.

This is something I find puzzling. If this crowd assumes we are not going to be here for the events of the book, why are they written? To satisfy curiosity? For those who are left behind? Do they have any relevance up until that time?

It is my contention that the book largely describes first-century events but does so in apocalyptic language. This language used cosmic imagery in order to depict political happenings in the world.  I will use a few examples to show how this works. Consider this from 2 Samuel 22 where David describes being caught in a situation where death was certain.

7 In my distress I called upon the Lord;
to my God I called.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry came to his ears.

8 Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations of the heavens trembled
and reeled because he was angry.
9 Smoke went up from his nostrils
and devouring fire from his mouth;
glowing coals flamed forth from him.
10 He bowed the heavens and came down;
thick darkness was under his feet.
11 He rode on a cherub and flew;
he was seen upon the wings of the wind.
12 He made darkness around him a canopy,
thick clouds, a gathering of water.
13 Out of the brightness before him
coals of fire flamed forth.
14 The Lord thundered from heaven;
the Most High uttered his voice.
15 He sent out arrows and scattered them,
lightning and routed them.
16 Then the channels of the sea were seen;
the foundations of the world were laid bare
at the rebuke of the Lord,
at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

Wow! What an amazing event! David needed help and YHWH Himself came down from Heaven riding on the backs of Gabriel and Michael and began shooting arrows and the whole foundations of the world were laid bare when YHWH blew His nose.

Bet you don’t remember that incident in the life of David!

Of course you don’t, because it didn’t happen that way. David is using poetic license definitely. YHWH never literally did this nor does David think He did or expect you to think He did.

Or look at Luke 3 talking about the ministry of John the Baptist:

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
make his paths straight.
5 Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth,
6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”

Where my parents live in Tennessee, mountains are within range easily. You can see them. I guess this Scripture hasn’t been fulfilled. Even in Luke, we know about the Mount of Transfiguration and the Mount of Olives. Did this not happen?

Or is this apocalyptic imagery?

It certainly is, and this is the kind of language all throughout Revelation. If you read it in a literal sense, you miss what the author is truly trying to tell us. Let us consider a passage like Revelation 12 with a giant multi-headed dragon sweeping stars from the sky.

Now literally, if there was a dragon that big, considering stars are light-years away, this is going to be one mammoth dragon and if one of those hits us, game over. Or, you could consider it as a telling of the Christmas story. Jesus is born and the devil tries to kill Him immediately through the actions of Herod.

One fact about Revelation is that it assumes you have a  thorough knowledge of the Old Testament. Go look through and see how many times the Old Testament is quoted. Hardly ever. Go look and see how many allusions you find and they’re everywhere. From the description of Jesus in Revelation 1, to the temple and heavenly city at the end of the book. All of this assumes you will be familiar with the Old Testament. Too many modern readers are not.

Next, it makes the text be all about us. The Scriptures include plenty about us, to be sure, but the text is all about God revealed in Christ. Our tendency is to think that we are that generation, which has not been thought by any generation in history. Well, unless you count all of them.

We also spend way too much time speculating on who the “Antichrist” is. (By the way, the word antichrist doesn’t show up once in Revelation.) It would be far better for us if we spent more time focusing on who the Christ is. I actually encourage people to read Revelation whatever your perspective and ignore eschatology except for in one area and read the book to address this. “Who does this book say Jesus is?”

I am thankful that more and more, I encounter less and less of this kind of mindset. I tried going through the Left Behind books, but I just couldn’t. I was listening on audio and I stopped at the end of one book and never really cared to get into the rest of it. It’s not even because it was bad eschatology. I have enjoyed several books where I disagreed with the worldview behind them. The books are just boring as literature and not worth reading.

Leave behind Left Behind.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

9/11 And Why Evil Fails Practically

Does the atheistic problem of evil really help? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Since today is the anniversary of 9/11, let us consider a thought experiment. Now I think that it is impossible for anything to exist without God existing, but I am going to put that aside for argument’s sake in this post. I also am going to approach this as if we have no strong evidence for or against the existing of God. This is going to be on a practical level only. In essence, I am asking which worldview would be preferable to be true on theism vs. atheism.

We thus have two different scenarios for a 9/11 event. In world A, theism is true. In world B, atheism is true, and I am taking atheism as the definitive statement that there is no God. That is what it means anyway.

“Atheism is the position that affirms the non-existence of God. It proposes positive disbelief rather than mere suspension of belief.”

William Rowe The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy p.62

“Atheism, as presented in this book, is a definite doctrine, and defending it requires one to engage with religious ideas. An atheist is one who denies the existence of a personal, transcendent creator of the universe, rather than one who simply lives life without reference to such a being.”

Robin Le Poidevin Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion p.xvii

I hate that I have to post so much, but I am sure some atheists would come around and say “Atheism is a lack of belief!”

So now having established my case here is what happens. In both worlds, 9/11 happens and thousands die in one horrible attack.

In world A, there is an eternity that people will spend. Some will spend it in Heaven and some will spend it in Hell, at least on Christian theism. There is the possibility that there will be justice for the people who perpetrated the evil. There is the possibility that there will be the chance that people will see their loved ones again. Justice can still prevail in the world. Of course, some other forms of theism might answer matters differently, but I think a large number would say that there is still a God who can give justice and raise the dead.

In B, well, it was certainly a tragedy, but that was it. The attackers? Dead. The victims? Dead. Chances of justice for them? None. Chances of seeing dead loved ones again? None. I do realize there are some atheists who have postulated an after-death, but this is a very very small minority. Note also I am even granting that there are still ideas such as goodness and justice in an atheist universe which I even then still question.

From a practical standpoint, you could say that in the theistic universe, some people could suffer eternally, but also some will rejoice eternally and some will see dead loved ones again and some of those people who will suffer will very likely be the attackers themselves who pulled off the evil.

This is one reason I just do not think the problem of evil works. Remove God and you still have all the problems. Sure. We might not know why God allowed X to happen, but if we are honest with ourselves, we do not know why we do X in our own lives many times. I am fine with an unknown of why if it comes with a known of someone I can trust.

9/11 is a great tragedy in our nation’s history. It was not the first. It will not be the last. As a Christian, I can be thankful there is a God in every tragedy.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Working On Marriage

What should you think about in marriage? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Being on a seminary campus, it’s not uncommon that students will meet, date, and marry. I’ve been here for two years and I have seen that happen regularly. I am one of the few students on campus who is actually divorced.  Saying few is not really accurate. I only know of one other.

I write about this because it is on my mind due to my church having a marriage enrichment seminar coming up called Spouse-ology. I would tell every married couple to try to take time aside for this event. I would even encourage engaged couples to do this.

Generally when I see couples about to get married, I give them  advice and then ask a question. The advice is for early on in their marriage.

First off, when you go on your honeymoon, do what I did. I contacted my parents and her parents and told them to not reach out to us unless it was an emergency. Tihs is where you start to establish your own unit and you don’t need your parents giving you advice, especially advice that could contradict one another. Focus on one another.

With that, the second piece is to avoid social media. Yes. You have a lot of great pictures of your wedding and events on the honeymoon. They will still be there when you get back. Wait. There’s no need to share them. I didn’t even check my email while I was on mine. When I got back, I saw a whole thread on TheologyWeb dedicated to the wedding. People were already sharing pictures. Let them do that. Who cares what other people think about how beautiful your wedding was? Focus on each other.

Third, do not be seeking out to do active ministry in this time. Yes. I know we’re supposed to be serving the Kingdom, but one of the great services you give is your marriage. Now if an immediate need pops up for someone and you have to do something, then do it, but do not seek it. You are not alone in the work of ministry.

The question I ask them to think about is this. I remind them that I am divorced and then ask “What do you have that makes you think the same will not happen to you?” I hope it does not, but the statistics are often problematic. Even if they are not as bad as they could be, they are still bad. I really hope all these marriages succeed. I do not want people to have to go through the pain of divorce.

If you are engaged and about to marry, work on your marriage. If you are newly married, work on your marriage. If you have been married for five, ten, twenty, fifty, or more years, work on your marriage. It is one of the most important ministries you will ever have, and even more so if you have children. If your church offers you marriage enrichment seminars, take them.

One of the best ways we can transform the culture in the long run is having good marriages and raising good children. Get started today.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

You Don’t Deserve Good Things

Do you get what you deserve? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Often times, the problem of evil is brought up by atheists and it is hard to not understand the emotional plight being discussed. You see horrible situations going on in the world and the question is “Why does God not intervene?” It is okay to wonder this and to even ask it yourself.

Asking why is understandable, but there is often a hidden assumption that God is obligated to do something about this. Is He not a God of love? How does love sit on the sidelines? Yes, He is love, but He is also a God of justice. My question I often ask is “What does God owe us?” This is especially so when it comes to the case of God taking life. Upon what grounds can it be said that God had no right to take life? Who does He owe life to?

Let us now turn to make this something that hits home to us on a personal level every day. If you read this blog regularly, and I hope you do, then you know if I have a deep desire in my heart, it is to find love again. The truth is there is no amount of good that I can ever do whereby God is obligated to give me a love. He owes me nothing.

Sometimes when people get good things in their life, we often say that they deserve it. On a horizontal level from human to human, this could be so. On the divine level, it is not. This is not bad news, but great news. After all, who wants it to be that we have something because God owed it to us? Paul says this in the start of Romans 4 in saying that the man is blessed whose sins will not be held against him.

What do I deserve from God? Judgment. Every time I sin, I am essentially saying that I wish He was dead. I am saying that I want to be on the divine throne. I am saying my will be done and not His. I refer to sin as divine treason. It’s no light matter. I know too many times in my life I treat it like such a light matter.

It is pure grace that God forgives me. It is even more grace that He allows me to come into His kingdom.

What does that say about the rest of life? It says that if I do get blessed to have the love that I want again someday, it will not because I was just so incredibly good that God decided to give me something. I am not denying that He rewards those who do good, but He does so out of grace even then and not obligation. James tells us that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father above. All is grace.

I pray God will give me that love in my life. If He does, it is His grace. If He does not, He still has given me more than I deserve and in reality, the opposite of what I deserve. I should be thankful for all that I have. Again, this is my own struggle as well.

When good things come in your life, be thankful. When suffering comes, remember the good things and God is still with you. In everything, as Scripture says again, give thanks.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Final Statement on Christian Body

What do I say about this book at the end? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Ultimately, as I finished this book, I found it extremely lacking. I found Frost didn’t deliver on his claims. We were told that we need to heed the words of Biblical scholars, but I didn’t see a single one cited. If there was one, that was the rare exception sadly.

I also find Frost makes statements that he doesn’t back. Sure, I could go and look up myself if I wanted to, but the rule is that if you make a claim, you are the one to back it. If we are making a claim about the culture of the Bible, we should point to scholars of that culture to have it backed.

However, the biggest problem with this book is that Frost is really just too antagonisitic. When you make statements about a society and say clothing is the problem, despite the society doing just fine for well over a thousand years until the sexual revolution came along, there is something else going on.

Frost often looks to have both guns blazing at his opponents painting them as lesser Christians who don’t really believe the Bible. Consider how after he makes his case at one point the idea is that if you do not agree, you are living in

rebellion against God. Even if he had made a case, a statement like that is more likely to harden someone against his position.

I still think the position is incredibly weak, but I think those who want to see a better presentation of the case are encouraged to look at Philip Oak’s book, Surprised Into Freedom, instead. Oak writes with more of a pastoral heart towards his audience and he does cite scholars and others quite often. Do I agree with his conclusions? Not at all. Do I think he makes a better case and is more evenhanded to his audience? 100%.

So am I going to review the book? Probably not. I have looked at a series of replies to me and sometimes when I have a spare minute, I do a little bit of writing on that, but if I share it, it could be months down the road. The reason is right now I am preparing for PhD work. I need to read multiple books in order to do a written test and then an oral examination on the topics to show that I am capable. I have no intention of taking this lightly.

On top of that, I have two final classes I am taking and I am reading for those. I also have a class on research and writing where my professor has encouraged me on video games and violence. I had suggested this topic, but he did think while it was interesting, it is too niche. There are just not enough people talking about it. My topic of video games and violence is something that more people are talking about and is relevant to my PhD studies and would be contributing to my Defend talk next January. I am thinking in light of recent events to especially look at mass shootings and the data on them. (If anyone wants to get me Kindle books on the topic, I welcome the generosity.)

By the way, all of this is on top of the personal reading that I do every day, having a part-time job here, and just then at the end of the day after all of this having some time for myself.

So as I come to this leg of the journey, I ask for your prayers and if you are willing, I have a Patreon here on this blog and I definitely encourage you to become a member. It would mean so much to me if you did that and even a small amount means a lot. If you can just donate even $5 a month, I would be thrilled to have you as it’s not just money that I get, but every time it comes with a message of “I believe in you and I support you in this.”

I do intend to keep blogging and I plan to blog on other areas, such as that I have downloaded the manifesto of the trans shooter and plan to go through that and give my thoughts on it, especially on some comments on autism in there.

Until next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body – Do You Trust The Bible?

Is going nude a sign of believing the Bible? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

At the start of this section, Frost says the following:

The controversy exists because most people who call themselves Christians are not familiar with the Bible except the parts read to them on Sunday mornings by preachers speaking from motivated confirmation bias. Christians typically assume many beliefs that are nowhere in the Bible, or they add teachings because they do not trust it to stand on its own.

Frost, Aaron. Christian Body: Modesty and the Bible (p. 273). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

Sadly, this is very true.

My family and I loved the show Home Improvement and we usually saw Tim Allen movies in the theater together. Recently, Allen has been sharing on social media how he has been going through the Bible for the first time and that there’s a lot of good stuff in there. Some people I saw were surprised saying they thought he was a Christian.

It seemed sad to have to see people say “Just because you’re a Christian, it doesn’t mean you have read the Bible.”

Whatever you might think about Bart Ehrman, he is certainly right when he says that he has students come in for their first class and he asks them if they think the Bible is the Word of God. So many hands go flying up. Then he asks “How many of you have read all of the Bible?” Far fewer hands go up. Ehrman is right to ask that if you think the Bible is from God, don’t you think you should want to know what it says?

But to get back to what Frost says, a problem I have had with the book is that we are expected to have chapter and verse. No. You don’t. There are many issues that we ask about today that aren’t discussed in the Bible because they weren’t around in Biblical times. Can a Christian see an R-rated movie? Can a Christian play a video game that has violence? Can a Christian listen to rock’n’roll? We can even consider topics like dating as we know them weren’t around back then. Most marriages were arranged.

This is why it’s a misnomer to think there has to be a chapter and verse that says “Thou shalt wear clothing in public!” or “Thou dost not hath to wear clothing in public!” For this, we go to the work of cultural scholarship with an interest in the Biblical culture. We can look at pagan cultures, but only in comparison to the Biblical culture.

One advantage of being at a seminary besides a library is that you have so many great minds right here. When the idea of archaeological evidence came up, I decided to go talk to our professor of archaeology and we have had a number of great conversations on the topic. Something fascinating he told me is that outside of pottery, the most common item dug up in Israel is loomweights.

This first conversation where he said this took place at the Post Office where I work. He showed me a book he had just got about the culture of the time and pointed out that even the idols of the pagan deities depicted them wearing clothing and told me that Jews would not do nude artwork, for instance, because that would be close to violating the second commandment for them.

Frost’s issue doesn’t come down to one side believes the Bible or not. Francis Beckwith said once that if they can’t trump you with logic, they will try to trump you with spirituality. It comes down to how we interpret the Bible. I try to look not just to chapter and verse, but also to the culture of the Bible and see what I can gleam from that and something disappointing about Frost’s book is he seems completely unaware of this important research.

Next time, we’ll wrap this book up.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body – Is Grace Sufficient?

Is grace enough to overcome? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

One of the big problems with Frost’s book is that he is so antagonistic in it. He comes in with both barrels blasting too often and when he wants to comment on what the other side thinks, he paints them as denying most everything he can about Christianity. So it is that the same happens when we come to the topic of grace.

Frost says that for many Christians, grace can help them overcome the evils of pornography and dehumanization, but it doesn’t help them joyfully appreciate the human body. Perhaps this is so for some, but not for all. I cannot say that I have ever struggled with porn by the grace of God, but I can say as a man who was married I had a deep appreciation for my wife’s body and often said that if the only evidence I had for the existing of God was her body, that would be enough to settle the case for me. I knew of no other way to explain something that beautiful.

There is a problem with how we talk about grace. Consider Sam Allberry. He is a great speaker on issues of the church and sexuality, and yet he himself wrestles with same-sex attraction. There are some people who have become Christians and lost that attraction, but not all. There are plenty of people who have become Christians while in the clutches of alcoholism and escaped that, but that doesn’t mean that they have to go out and fully appreciate the fruit of the vine by going to a bar and drinking alcohol. That could even be foolish for them.

Sometimes God delivers us fully from wrong desires. Sometimes, He doesn’t. It doesn’t make any Christian a lesser Christian or a greater Christian. All Christians regardless will have struggles in this world until the day they die or until the day Christ returns.

Some people could be delivered from porn and yet never marry and get to enjoy the real presence of a beautiful member of the opposite sex in all their glory. Some might not. Some could have no desire for porn again. Some could have a daily struggle. There is no “One size fits all.”

One reason I would not be out in the public nude is that I don’t want to risk doing anything that would cause my fellow man to stumble in any way. I have to show consideration for them. If I had no problem with alcohol, I would not drink alcohol in front of someone who struggles with it. (For those wondering, I made a lifelong vow early on that I would not drink alcohol so I would not risk doing anything to damage my reputation. I have no problem if someone can control their alcohol.)

Frankly, Frost’s book would be a lot better if he didn’t spend as much time demeaning the other side. Frost comes off as if he thinks he is the super Christian and everyone else is less than he is. His case would be better if he wrote more conversationally instead.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body – The Master Deceiver

Is Satan behind it all? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

There’s an argument that strikes me as strange coming from the naturist position whereby the devil is said to have been the ones to tell us to cover ourselves up. You would think then that if that was a wicked suggestion, God would not have gone along with it. Immediately after the pronouncement of exile is declared on Adam and Eve, God makes clothing for them Himself.

It would seem as if by this argument, that God and the devil both agree about how they view the human body, which is strange.

So Frost says at the start that many people cannot get past purdah because they cannot accept the incredible beauty of the human body.

That must explain why the pornography industry is so strong. People just can’t accept the beauty of the human body. That must be why guys dating women often wonder about what they look like under all those clothes. That must have been why when I was a married man it was always a joy to see my wife’s body naked.

He then says the devil jumps in and tells you it’s a sin to be enthralled by the beauty. No. Absolutely not. That’s the design of the system. Men and women were supposed to be enthralled with one another. The problem is what you do with that beauty. Are you looking at men and women that you have no right to look at? Are you treating them as just objects to satisfy your desire?

Frost then says:

An important step in overcoming the pornographic lusts of prudish modesty standards is agreeing with God that His creation is gloriously beautiful and worthy of admiration. Satan hates the creation of God and would rather feed our cultural revulsion for nakedness.

Frost, Aaron. Christian Body: Modesty and the Bible (p. 264). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

He is absolutely right on the first part. The body is worthy of admiration, but pornography is not admiration. It is exploitation. It is treating the person on the other end of the screen as just a body. That dehumanizes them.

Naturism from what I see goes the other way. This is not saying anything about cultures where naturism is the main way of living. This is about our culture. They go and say “The body is not inherently sexual.” Both sides are living in denial. The body is sexual and in the proper context is meant to be sexually arousing. This is in our DNA.

This does not mean that different things can be arousing to different people and there are some things you shouldn’t be aroused by. If you are aroused by children, for instance, you need help. If I were to use a personal example, I am a huge fan of the series Smallville and my crush on the series was always the character of Chloe. Most guys went crazy over Lana and later Lois. Nah. Chloe all the way for me.

What drew me to her at the start? It wasn’t that she was a supermodel, but her character on the show was really smart, and I like girls with a good head on her shoulders. It was through that that the rest of her got more beautiful to me over time. The same happened when I was married. My wife became the standard of female beauty for me over time.

Yet with the second part of the above quote, does he think we have a cultural revulsion for nakedness? The porn industry is betting that we don’t, and so far they’re winning that bet. From when I was married, behind closed doors, I would have no objections to nudity in a private setting. Frost seems to have a fundamentalist mindset in mind that would be an extreme minority position.

I regularly wonder who Frost is responding to in this book and he seems to only think in extremes. It’s quite problematic going through. Unfortunately, nothing I saw in the book ever got better.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge: Christian Body – The Source of Desire

Where does desire come from? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Frost begins this section again with the statement that we find XYZ desirable because we were conditioned to. Once again, I have to ask is this really the case? Could it be the female body was designed to be desirable by men by God and vice-versa? We might like different things at different times, but desire is always there.

Even in the West, while the sexual organs have been noticed quite often, there are other aspects of a woman found attractive, such as her legs, her smile, her hair, her eyes, etc. We can’t even explain often why it is that feature X on a woman is attractive. We men just know that it is. Not only that, Scripture when it speaks about the female body in places like Proverbs 5:18-19, Song of Songs 4, and Song of Songs 7 seems to say the same thing.

Let’s also be clear on something. Believe it or not, not every man struggles with lust. There are few of us to be sure, but not everyone of us is going to our computers at night and saying “God help me avoid any pornography sites today.” I remember when I worked at a retail store after my divorce, my female co-workers were stunned when they found out I didn’t watch porn. It’s a shame that that’s the case.

Frost does say rules will not bring about freedom. It only comes about from the grace of God. There is some truth here, but every society has rules for behavior and even the church has rules for behavior. Paul also spoke often about how we were to observe rules not just in our individual lives, but also in the day-to-day with other people.

If we lived in these cultures that Frost spoke about that don’t have as much clothing, it wouldn’t be an issue, but those cultures are not ours and those cultures are also vastly different from ours. In our culture, the Christian influence is dying out, though I do suspect a resurgence could be just around the corner, and we are much more individualistic. Not only that, but we are highly ignorant of sexual matters.

That might sound odd to think about in a culture that is all about sex constantly, but as Peter Kreeft has said, it’s when everyone’s pipes are leaking that people buy books on plumbing. When we live in a world where people don’t know what a woman is, how many sexes there are, why it is that same-sex erotic relationships are not good for society, and why it is that we think we can redefine marriage, then we see where this has gone.

That’s why naturism could be a noble dream perhaps some time off in the future when we’ve recovered from the sexual revolution and our culture has been thoroughly Christianized and reformed, but now, no. We would be causing too much stumbling for our fellow man. “But what about the privacy of our own homes?” For those, do what you want (Though you might want to make sure the windows are closed) and enjoy it. I have spoken about the private/public distinction here and it still applies.

Note my position then. It is not that nudity is sinful. It isn’t, or else we wouldn’t be here. It’s that in our culture, it should be reserved for private situations due to the overly sexualizing of our culture and the ignorance of too many.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)