From: joachim omolo ouko
News Dispatch with Father Omolo Beste
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014
Following recent media reports that a church in the U.S opened up to worshippers to pray while naked, Mavuno church putting up porn like poster to attract youth into their church service, a pastor in Embu caught with someone’s wife at a lodging having sex, while a pastor dying at his female worshipper’s house in Buruburu in what is said to have been a result of viagra overdose, a lot of debate has been going on social media.
At the same time a church in the Nairobi ghetto Dandora has banned the female worshippers from entering the worship place with panties on. According to Nairobi Exposed the women were informed not to be wearing bras and panties to the church.
The description of this is that when going to church people need to be free in body and spirit in order to receive Christ’s message in its fullest. They were also advised to do the same on their daughters when coming to church on Sundays.
Identifying religion and sexuality/nudity is not something new. Masons do remove all of their clothing, and all jewelry, including their wedding ring before the ritual begins. They are provided with a blue garment to wear during the initiation.
The garment has one leg rolled up and the left half of the chest is bare for the first initiation. If the candidate appeared in public as dressed for initiation, people would think it strange, but he would never be arrested for indecent exposure.
The candidate is hoodwinked (blindfolded) during the first portion of the ritual and he is led around with a rope around his neck. The left chest has been left bare so that the sharp point as of a sword can be placed against his “naked left breast” as he approaches the oath of secrecy.
Nudity or nakedness (naggiya) is the state of being without clothes. Throughout history people have gone naked or nearly naked. Hunter-gatherer peoples in tropical regions have often been naked for practical reasons.
Nudity has been practised as a protest, as a punishment and even as something that promotes good health. In ancient India nudity was mainly practised for religious reasons. The monks of the Jain and the ?j?vakas sects went naked and the Ekas??aka ascetics only wore a small cloth over their genitals.
The supposed spiritual value of nudity was summed up by the monk who said, ‘nudity is useful for desiring little, for contentment, for expunging evil, for scrupulousness, for carefulness, for lessening obstructions and for arousing energy’.
Twice a month the lay disciples of the ?j?vaka sect would go naked and sleep on the ground in imitation of their clergy, the idea being: ‘I have nothing anywhere and, therefore, for me there is no attachment to anything.’
As these lay people really gave up nothing and resumed their ordinary lives the next day, the Buddha considered that their ‘renunciation’ was nothing more than a bluff.
Although monogamous marriage is the ideal, Buddhism generally takes the attitude that sex between two people who love each other is moral, whether they are married or not. On the other hand, sex within marriages can be abusive, and marriage doesn’t make that abuse moral.
The Abrahamic religion of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all recount the legend of the Garden of Eden, found in the Hebrew Bible, in which Adam and Eve are unaware of their nakedness until they eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. After this, they feel ashamed and try to cover themselves with fig leaves.
This suggests that Judaism recognised that nudity in and of itself was not sinful, being a natural part of God’s divine creation. Against the background Judaism does not share the Christian association of nakedness with original sin, an aspect integral to the doctrine of redemption and salvation.
The early Christian Church reflected contemporary attitudes towards nudity, where it was considered acceptable in some contexts such as working outdoors. For example Gospel of John 21:7 describes that Simon Peter is naked while fishing from a boat, but then gets dressed in order to meet Christ.
Nakedness as such is not to be equated with physical shamelessness. The human body is not in itself shameful. Most people prefer to be naked in their rooms at night when they are alone, or with their couples when children are not around.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail obolobeste@gmail.com
Omolo_ouko@outlook.com
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