Naked Truth

I will remove from you your heart of stone.

As I was perusing clothing in a local shop, I was suddenly taken aback.....before my eyes was a naked woman strutting across the street!!!  Shocked, offended and appalled was I, while the woman behaved as though nothing were amiss!  OK, so I didn't see the scenario take place in in real time, but nevertheless, the scene with the naked woman printed on the back of a tee-shirt did offend my heart!  My spirit was grieved, not only for myself, but for society, and particularly for innocent children. Compelled to share my concerns about the effect of such images on society, I spoke to the store manager and respectfully asked him to reconsider selling such prints.

I will give you a heart of flesh.

Such was the experience I related to two confident high school art students who had been sharing about their appreciation for art with me.  I had brought up the scenario to them as I raised questions about how they critiqued the art that they saw in their museum visits.   Naively, I was certain that these bright, young students who had been influenced  with Christian training would share my conclusions about morality in art.....but alas, I was wrong.

I was struck to the core by the students' responses.  With renewed eyes, I reconsidered the art that I'd been taught to value.  I queried, "What makes art good, bad or beautiful?" "What is the moral obligation of art?" and "What about naked art?"  I pondered the goodness of some of the classic works of art that I had been taught to admire.  I questioned the church's judgement of art and my own college art training.  But most importantly I inquired, "What is God's standard for judging the art of the centuries?"  I recognized that even within Christianity we've been plagued by a moral void in the art we deem worthy.

 

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.

I pondered my own deep-down sense about viewing naked art.  I recognized that even as I was told to look intelligently and maturely at the work, to see the nakedness as beautiful, as fine art, as a creative display of God's glory, that even so, there was something innately uncomfortable in seeing the naked forms.  Many times I have noticed, that there was and still is something about naked art that does not sit right with my soul.  My childlike questions about nudity in art have only been met with double standards.  I have finally realized that the art world has duped us.


Years ago, a life-drawing college course raised serious issues for me.  While the teacher seemed very professional and respectful of the human body in the way he taught us about the underlying structures of bones and muscles that created the human form, I remember how unsettled I felt in drawing nudes.  I remember how embarrassed I felt the first time we had a male model.  I didn't want to to look up.  I employed strategies to protect my eyes and heart such as finding the most modest vantage point or never quite finishing the male images.  I remember too, wrestling with the morality of drawing nude models.  After all, logic would reason that if it's OK to create naked art, then it's OK to model naked.....right?  Yikes.....such a slippery slope!


It's a well known fact that many of the so-called masters have painted pictures of naked women that turned out to be their mistresses.  Now, if all this naked art is really so up-and-up as we've been taught to believe, then why were all these illicit relationships being forged?  Apparently, the artists were not so innocent, sophisticated, mature or godly in their appreciation of the human form.  Obviously, they were looking at their models with sinful lust.....and the results are the images we put before our eyes.  So tell me, where have our sense and sensibilities been in judging these matters?

I will put my Spirit in you and move you.

In recent years I have come to recognize a confusing and deceptive force that has powerfully influenced the art of Christendom......the art of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican Museum.  In regards their immense and wealthy art collections, I have asked the dreaded questions, "Why would this institution encourage celibacy and purity, and then alternatively collect and display naked, adulterous, paganly humanistic, and dare I say, pornographic art?" "Is this not a double standard?" "Would a true church of God glorify the flesh and seek after worldly wealth?" "Is it possible that the Father of Lies, the Deceiver, the Author of Confusion, has been working overtime in the Church?"   

Remember that in the beginning, God set a precedent in Genesis 3:21 when He covered the nakedness of Adam and Eve after sin entered creation.  Scripture reveals that to be exposed as naked is a sign of sin and shame and neediness. Our Father's desire is that His sons and daughters live in purity, holiness and modesty, with respect for one another.  He warned his priests not to approach His altar on steps, but rather to use a ramp so that their private parts would not be exposed in Exodus 20:26.  Additionally, the Lord ordered undergarments to be worn by the priests who who would minister before Him in the tabernacle.  Spiritually too, we cannot come naked before our holy God, but we must come clothed in the white robes of righteousness provided for us by Yeshua our sinless Messiah.

Follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

As our Father has laid foundational principles for life in His Torah, our Master, Yeshua, instructed us to not even look lustfully upon one another, but time and time again, Satan's lie, "Did God really say?" has duped the world.....and even the church.  Repeatedly we have failed to recognize, admit or address the core issue.....the naked truth ......sin.  Naked art exposes hardness-of-heart toward what is truly beautiful in the eyes of our Creator.  Naked art is a slippery slope that has exposed us to all sorts of evils that we have permitted into our homes and into every aspect of our lives.  

Oh Lord, As the Day draws near, heighten our senses that we may clearly heed Your voice.  May Your pure, sweet, good and perfect instructions become more clearly and deeply impressed on our hearts and minds  - Jeremiah 31:32-33.  May we ever more faithfully follow Your laws an be careful to keep Your decrees - Ezekiel 37:24.  May we know our Good Shepherd's voice and not be fooled by the voice of the enemy.  Amen.

Create in me a pure heart, O God - Psalm 51:10