Dressing up to go to church has long been out of fashion in many denominations. Most Sunday services at church now resemble like casual Fridays at the office. The trend in dressing down will likely continue, but one congregation in Virginia may be taking the “come as you are” ethic just a bit too literally.
In church, you come as you are. That’s especially true inside the Whitetail Chapel in Ivor. Clothing is optional for everyone from the pastor to the congregation.
“I really don’t think God cares what you wear when you worship,” said Richard Foley, a member of the congregation. “The thing is worship.”
Churchgoers like Foley have no problem getting the word of God from a pastor in his birthday suit.
“Some of the biggest moments in Jesus’ life he was naked,” Pastor Allen Parker said. “When he was born he was naked, when he was crucified he was naked and when he arose he left his clothes in the tomb and he was naked. If God made us that way, how can that be wrong?”
Pastor Allen says the congregation is a family-oriented one and is very involved in helping others.
The Whitetail Chapel is part of the Whitetail Nudist Resort, the only year-round nudist resort in Virginia. It opened in 1984 and business is booming. More than 10,000 people visited last year and business is up 12 percent from a year ago.
For the adventurous, the WVEC website has a video of the segment that ran on the local news. It’s not particularly graphic but it is about as horrific as you’d imagine.
I’m in favor of everyone—even nudists—attending local services. But isn’t it a bit disrespectful to attend church wearing nothing but your birthday suit?
(Via: Gene Veith)
March 1st, 2010 | 10:24 am
The come as you are ethic has a certain appeal to the 1960′s and beyond generations. There is a value to casualness, as opposed to rigid formalities, in many areas of life, including congregational life of a religious group.
However, there is also a value to be placed on showing respect and reverence for things that require it.
My childhood synagogue was dying for 30 years, in one of Boston’s fashionable professional areas, where people preferred to go to nail shops and Starbucks, rather than a synagogue, on Saturday morning. They brought in 2 new rabbis, a man and a woman (this was a Conservative shul) who were decidedly more hip and chic than the rabbis of my childhood who were of a more old-fashioned upbringing. They introduced more singing in the service and more participation, and rearranged the furniture, so to speak, to make the prayer service more communal rather than performance-oriented. They also encouraged long-time congregants to welcome newcomers during a particular break point in the service.
This last item was very nice, and definitely more synagogues, including the Orthodox, should do that. One Saturday morning when I was visiting, a woman came up to me and profusely welcomed me to the congregation, during this break point. I was very pleased, but then noticed that she had walked over to me in bare feet. While appreciating the gesture, somehow I thought to myself, “Couldn’t you put your sandals on when you walk in the sanctuary, as a sign of respect for the purpose of this endeavor?”
Dressing appropriately in a house of worship helps to sustain the ethos of reverance for religious life which is a large part of its underpinning. I don’t think it detracts from the spontaneity and genuineness of religious worship to require shoes in a sanctuary, not to mention clothing.
March 1st, 2010 | 10:38 am
Psalm 96:9 says it all.
March 1st, 2010 | 11:09 am
No, Joe Carter, it is not disrespectful. You might even call it penitential. Thing is, it is crackpot.
March 1st, 2010 | 11:18 am
“Blessed are the naked, for they shall…”
Oh, forget it.
One can only hope that they wipe off the pews between services…..
March 1st, 2010 | 7:57 pm
And why not.
After all,all clothing is a form of emotional armoring. Armoring against being vulnerable and being seen as one really is prior to all of the essentially false/fake personas that we dramatize in relation to each other. Being seen in ones essential naked vulnerability.
Think of what a difference it would make if all the usual righteous sin/damnation/hellfire preaching ministers etc had to stand nakedly UN-SELF-CONSCIOUS before their congregations.
What, if anything would, they have to say in their un-self-conscious naked vulnerability.
After all Christian churches do feature a naked body nailed to a cross as the focus of their faith and Sunday services.
March 1st, 2010 | 8:17 pm
These people are not Christians, they are nudists. In their debased minds, there is some connection between Christianity and nudism. But only in their debased minds.
March 2nd, 2010 | 7:46 am
If they attempted this kind of stunt at my local Catholic parish, it would serve only as a reminder that the universe is running down, and that we all must eventually lose our youthful beauty to the sands of time. Ugh….
March 3rd, 2010 | 5:48 am
Yes, Christ did leave his shroud in the tomb but, unlike that twit of a pastor, he’d risen from the dead. Significant difference don’t you think?
There IS something worse than the strange facial hair/hair-do, floral shirts, chains/earring worn by the local pentacostalist “community” church pastor as he strides around the stage.
March 5th, 2010 | 1:08 am
@Ellen – Consider Exodus 3:5 and Acts 7:33 “…put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” Why should you be offended by barefeet in church?
@John C. – You seem to imply that a nudist can not also be a Christian. Can you support your view with Biblical reference? Was God wrong for telling Isaiah to go about completely naked prophecying for 3 years? And Solomon was thought to be a prophet because he was naked as well. Jesus was naked when he washed his diciple’s feet. Peter was naked while fishing on the boat. For about the first 400 years of the early church, baptisms were mandatorily done nude. The prude view of the human body today is rooted in gnosticism, and is truely evil. The naked human form is good and honorable and reflects the image of God. For more information on Chrisian naturism, check out the figleafforum.com
March 5th, 2010 | 10:10 pm
reading the comments written here is a great insight into the world. if ever i forgot that other people think differently then this is a great reminder.
how much of church, no matter what the religion, is pomp and ceremony and how much is the person, the spirit and a universal being?
does it matter that somebody greets you warmly without shoes? surely if the focus is the feet, then you have shunned what was a genuine embrace from a fellow human being. what follows? will you only accept greetings from people who where Gucci? is there a colour code to what is acceptable?
the main religions of the world have many great lessons to learn. i have not read any of their founders dictate what is to be worn while being a good person.
chris
March 6th, 2010 | 10:39 am
How is nudity disrespectful? Not wearing clothing is not a sign of disrespect, it’s a sign of being comfortable with the body that GOD gave you….worship is never disrespectful if it’s done with a true heart, no matter your religion. The church is who made it a sin to be naked, neither God nor Jesus ever taught that it is wrong. What is wrong is imposing your personal beliefs on others and expecting them to conform.
March 6th, 2010 | 10:40 am
It is things like that that have driven people like me away from the church.
March 7th, 2010 | 1:25 pm
Because of my 29 years as an RN, 19 of them in L&D where I currently work, I have witnessed the normalness of nudity in contradiction to the sexualized objectification of the human body that fosters its pornographic exploitation in our Western culture, especial in America. This conflict of views about the body sent me on a 5-year journey of research biblically, historically, artistically, cross-culturally and psycho-socially about the phenomenon of human nudity. I concluded that the early church did not start out with the body shame and body taboo that later won Christianity’s its reputation for prudery. There was a heresy prevalent in New Testament times and the early church period called Gnosticism, which taught that only the spirit was important, and that the body and this material world were worthless and defiled. This heresy, I believe, generally overcame orthodox thinking about the body at about the same time the widespread practice of nude baptism began to diminish in the early church (400s-500s). The people in question, who are worshiping without clothing are doing it in the context of a nudist resort, I believe, so this is a context where nudity is respected and expected by their traditional moral philosophy about the goodness of our bodies. There have been congregations of Christians in “naked people” groups presided over by Western missionaries where nudity in worship is not a problem. It is the context and the intention that is important. But the Gnostically-rooted, porno-prudish view of the body promotes a warped view of God’s image that has done more to lay a foundation for porn-addiction in our society than any other ideology. Unfortunately, the church has been the fountainhead of this ideology, and it has driven many people, who reject body shame in favor of body acceptance, to leave or avoid the church. We should never have allowed a culturally contrived body taboo to be idolatrously mixed into the pure Gospel of Christ. It should never have become an identifying characteristic of Western Christianity’s idea of the “Good News.” We need to repent of entertaining the heretical influences of Gnosticism and make restitution. The best way I know is to cleanse our doctrinal thinking by doing a God-honoring theology of our human embodiment. If anyone wants to get a head-start in that, the “Theology of the Body” by Pope John Paul II has already pioneered a landmark statement to counter Gnostic thinking with the most theologically comprehensive Scriptural work on our nature as sexual beings ever produced in the history of the church. Do your research well, with “fear and trembling,” before you call upon the authority of Christ’s name to back your culturally learned opinions. I did, and it changed my whole way of thinking about the will and purpose of God for incarnating humanity as a race of body-spirit beings made in His image.
March 8th, 2010 | 4:25 pm
Two kinds of belief that I find crazy are:
1. Belief in God, and
2. Belief that it’s OK to go around exposing your private parts to strangers.
Sanity is a clothed atheist!
March 17th, 2010 | 2:03 pm
My family and I have attended the church services at WhiteTail several times; despite everyone being nude, the service follows the mainstream non-denominational protestant style. Not the deepest spiritual experience I’ve ever had, but the nudity does NOT diminish the spirituality – we come to our Creator naked and unashamed, as He created us.
March 30th, 2010 | 1:01 am
Too many church-goers seem to believe that the Trinity consists of Hart, Shafter, and Marx.
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