Slice of Laodicea

 I received this letter today from Pastor Larry DeBruyn of Franklin Road Baptist Church in Indianapolis. He has given me permission to publish it. Christians today are so obsessed with the moral squalor of the heathen in Sodom that they are missing the squalor within the Church. It appears that nakedness, in the cause of conservatism, is A-OK. (Concerned Women for America today joined many other conservative groups in holding up Carrie Prejean as the newest conservative hero.)

Ingrid,
I feel compelled to share my thoughts regarding the hullabaloo presently going on about Miss California and the Miss USA beauty pageant. Desperate to have their concerns about traditional marriage espoused in a public forum, evangelical Christianity, rapidly becoming marginalized in our society’s mainstream, is groping for almost anyone to give a voice for the traditional institution of marriage, one I fully endorse (marriage should be a covenant commitment between a man and a women for life).

      The irony of this whole business is that here was a scantily clad woman—this of course can provoke lust in men (Matthew 5:27-29)—who was asked about marriage by a judge who supposedly isn’t even attracted to women. She gives the politically incorrect answer and in doing so, alienated the politically correct judges, and forfeited possible victory in the beauty pageant. By giving a correct answer to a loaded question about marriage, and by doing so without hardly any clothes on, Miss Prejean has now become the cause célèbre amongst conservatives and evangelicals for her affirmation of biblically correct marriage.

      Admittedly, I at first joined the admiration society of the Miss USA contestant for boldly standing up for her beliefs in a hostile and prejudiced environment, until I realized my disconnect, until I began to think biblically about the whole matter, and recall the scriptural passages condemning nakedness. Instinctively, Adam and Eve covered themselves after sinning (Genesis 3:7). Correspondingly, they became conscious of their sin and their nakedness (By the way God covered Adam and Eve too, Genesis 3:21.). I think of Noah’s two sons who saw his nakedness (Genesis 9:18 ff.). I think of the High Priest who was commanded not to ascend the altar lest “his nakedness” be exposed (Exodus 20:26). In other words, in reverence to God the High Priest’s leg was not even to be exposed. I think of the Leviticus passages that command, “thou shalt not expose the nakedness thereof . . .” (Leviticus 18).” And women are to dress modestly that their prayers be not hindered (1 Timothy 2:8-9).

      The parade of naked or semi-clothed bodies in our culture indicates our society’s desensitization to, if not outright denial, of sin (Remember, when Adam and Eve first discovered they were sinners, they instinctively covered themselves.). Years ago in the middle of the previous century, I had a friend who was a missionary amongst the Stone Age people of the territory then known as New Guinea. On one of his furloughs in the states, he remarked to me one day that all the while—for reason of the Gospel’s penetration into their hearts—the natives were putting clothes on, we in so-called “Christian America” seemed to be taking them off!

      I recognize that I am not the last word on the subject. I grew up on the sandy summer beaches of Lake Michigan, and was on the high school swim team. During my teen age and young adult years in the 60s, I witnessed the girls’ swimsuits become skimpier and skimpier. I recognize God uses sinners. But I am aware that we sinners can also attempt to use God. I have no pretension of being a self-righteous prude. I have had, as with most all other men, a problem with lust, something Jesus pointedly warned about. So what really disturbs me as a pastor is observing how easily we Christians accommodate our values to the culture’s, to the system called the world, and seemingly without any tinge of conscience. As Christians, we are to use but not abuse the world, and God will be the judge of whether we were users or abusers, won’t He?

      I can only go by the Word, the Holy Scriptures. It seems to me that one aspect of worldliness involves “the lusts of the flesh” (1 John 2:16). Furthermore, the Bible says, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regards to its lusts” (Romans 13:14). After their conversion, Paul reminds the Ephesians that, “Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest” (Ephesians 2:3). And the Apostle Peter pleaded, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11).

      The prevalence of nudity and semi-nudity in our culture may help explain—there is no excuse for terrorism—why fundamentalist Muslims, whose women dress in burkhas (i.e., loose garments with veiled holes for the eyes), detest the west (See http://www.frbaptist.org/bin/view/Ptp/PtpTopic2002-01-14).

      This whole beauty pageant controversy provides a sad commentary on both the state of the culture and to some extent, the values prevalent amongst Christians today. We have been, and are being, desensitized to nudity. Miss California may be the newest heroine amongst a desperate conservative sub-culture that sees our society sinking into a moral abyss, but this whole business ought to remind Christians of how the prevalence of human nakedness indicates our having been removed from God’s righteousness. 

Respectfully,

Pastor Larry DeBruyn