You know, theology does matter.
This is pretty much beyond words. I am sitting here asking Aubrey just what we could say to help illustrate.
I guess I'll leave w/ this from Aubrey: "Germany doesn't surprise me anymore. Just b/c their society is stable..."
Amen to that. It's really ironic that this is taking place in Nuremberg. Nuremberg, you may recall, is where the world came together to say that there is a Law and the Nazis had broken it. How the mighty have fallen!
I'm not sure I make the connection between the killing of millions of people and the publication of a nude calendar.
ReplyDeleteMax
If you read the article, you know that the producers of the calendar are presenting an idea where they are taking the biblical message and forcing it NOT to apply to what they are doing.
ReplyDeleteThey say, "Well, I don't see any biblical problem w/ posing nude. There is no verse in the Bible that says 'Don't pose nude.' God created us beautiful - why not display it? We'll use the money for God's glory." Something like that.
Similarly, a Nazi will claim (and did claim), "I don't see any verse in the Bible that says 'Don't murder millions of Jews.'" And he'd be right, strictly speaking. No verse in the Bible says, "Don't murder millions of Jews."
Yet, how did the question become "show me a verse that EXPLICITLY SAYS I can't do this thing I want to do" from "how should I live, given what God has said?"
See how the perspective changed? And so gradually!
The Nazis didn't stop to consider that there was no biblical way to justify what they did. They didn't want to listen.
Similarly, these nude posers refuse to consider how there is absolutely no way to justify what they are doing according to the biblical message. They are ignoring the numerous warnings against lust, warnings against causing other people to lust, warnings against sexual activity and excitements outside of marital boundaries, warnings against bringing corruption into the church and besmirching the name of Jesus Christ, and even *for what purpose* God made some of us physically attractive. Even though all of these things are overwhelmingly relevant and obvious, they are intentionally turning their backs and asking for DIFFERENT evidence. It's like a murder trial where the suspect's fingerprints are all over the gun left at the scene of the crime, the bullet casings match the gun, the bullets match the casings and the gun, the victim's blood is all over the suspect's clothes and shoes, no credible alibi exists, and the victim happened to have recently insulted the suspect's family in front of hundreds of people one hour before, and the defense attorney's only recourse is to ask repeatedly, "Well, yeah, but did anyone **SEE** him do it?"
I made the connection between the Nuremberg Trials and this calendar for 2 reasons. 1) The calendar is coming out of a "Protestant youth group" in Nuremberg. 2) The Nuremberg Trials are where the whole world came together in 1945-47 (or so) to say, unequivocally, that Action X is morally wrong and must be punished by the People Of The World. These trials are amazing to me b/c the whole world agreed that the murder of millions of people was morally repugnant. And it is.
Similarly, producing an erotic calendar *as a part of "Christ's Church"* is highly morally repugnant, especially b/c of the harm it brings to the church and the insult brought to Christ's Name. But nobody cares anymore. This calendar will be purchased by many people, and they will all ignore the moral quandary they have bought into. How far from the discerning and wise tradition and example of the Nuremberg Trials!
Now that is a comment! Alan, tell us how you really feel!
ReplyDeleteQuoth the article:
"We wanted to represent the Bible in a different way and to interest young people," she told news agency Reuters.
Well, they are "representing" the Bible in a different way. I would, however, argue that it is not in fact a representation of the Bible any more than saying that burglary is a representation of the law. That these criminals happen to be members of the visible church (throwing in some high church vocabulary for good measure) makes them no less culpable.
While they desire to interest young people, I doubt expository teaching is involved. I somehow doubt that these "interested" young people will be interested in the actual words of Bible.
Well, it's expository SOMEthing. Just not preaching.
ReplyDeletePerhaps when the world came together at Nuremburg to condemn genocide as being morally repugnant, it was because genocide actually is morally repugnant. Perhaps the reason the world is not coming together at Nuremburg to condemn nude calendars as being morally repugnant...is because they're really not all that bad, or at least a few orders of magnitude less than killing millions of people. The majority can be wrong, of course, but it seems to me there are plenty of lessons humanity has yet to learn from Nuremburg, and most of them are higher on my list than this particular incident.
ReplyDeleteMax
I agree that it's several degrees worse to murder several million people. However, this calendar has the added sin of besmirching the Church and Name of Jesus Christ, which is sthg to which He usually doesn't take too kindly.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the reason that the people of the world don't condemn pornography and the exploitation of barely-adults and still-adolescents is that porn is easier to hide and is, anyway, such a PAIN to deal with! I mean, it IS everywhere, isn't it? And it IS a victimless crime, isn't it?
The same things were said of the leading up to the Nazi "clean-up" of the Jews and the old, infirm, and developmentally handicapped. I'm not saying this calendar will lead to another episode of millions of dead people in the world, but it WILL lead to the searing of the spirit and conscience of many who look at it. Rather than comparing it w/ one of the most atrocious acts in all of human history and saying "Well, it's not THAT bad!" we should be looking at it the way a holy God does. And it is quite bad enough to look at it that way.