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Lansingh draws a distinction between artful nudity and pornography. "[Pornography] doesn't necessarily have to include nudity. There is pornographic violence, pornographic advertising, pornographic sentiment, and pornographic evangelism. As a whole, I define pornography as anything that promises satisfaction from empty experience—from self-esteem through Gatorade to the gift of life through cheap grace." Personal responsibility, he suggests, is the key to navigating these waters. "Temptation will still arrive, from TV ads to tank tops, and must be addressed in a Christian's life regardless of one's moviegoing habits."

For David Bruce, Webmaster at HollywoodJesus.com, it's not a complicated issue. "Secular films are the reflection of the secular world," he writes. "I approach the subject matter like any missionary would. Would a missionary avoid 'half dressed' natives or their native stories? No. Neither do I. We are in the culture as ambassadors for Christ. Movies are stories of the secular culture. I truly do not sweat nudity."

J. Robert Parks, film critic for the Hyde Park Herald and The Phantom Tollbooth Web site, has strong words for the Church in this matter: "The contemporary church's obsession with nudity is misguided, misleading, and even harmful. Misguided because we all know that we can be provoked to lust by a lot less than nudity. The James Bond films have certainly taught us that. Misleading because the emphasis on nudity (and swearing) distracts us from equally egregious temptations. The Bible is much more concerned with money and materialism than it is with nudity and lust, and yet few Christians are concerned with Hollywood's blatant glorification of materialist excess, a problem I believe has greatly infected the church. Finally, harmful because our focus on the negative aspects of nudity and sex often skew our perspective and lead us to denigrate something that God sees as beautiful and sacred. … I don't believe that seeing a naked woman or man is necessarily wrong. However, if looking at nudity provokes me to lust, then I have to examine my own heart and allow the Holy Spirit to redeem that part of my life and/or flee from that temptation."

Matthew Prins, freelancer and reviewer for The Christian Century: "Need I refrain? It depends on my state of mind, who I'm seeing [the movie] with (seeing it with my wife, for example, could color the situation differently), [and] how my relationship is with God. I don't see a difference between a man lusting after Halle Berry, Mona Lisa, or The Little Mermaid's Ariel. I don't think the essentialness of the nudity to the story is going to dictate whether someone is tempted to sin because of it. My short answer then: there is no short answer."

"I wouldn't encourage adults to skip movies that have nudity in them any more than I would recommend avoiding art galleries or spas or health books or any representation of human existence," writes Doug Cummings, the Chiaroscuro Webmaster. "The problem is generally not nakedness itself, but the commercial glorification of false ideals. Our culture is obsessed with body image and physical self-worth. It results in everything from anorexia to body modification. Human nakedness (and by implication, sexuality) is a beautiful thing to be cherished, but we can distort it through our fallen perspectives." He would re-direct our concerns to the effect of the work as a whole on its audience. "What movies are ultimately saying—and how we read them—is a lot more important than rigid classifications of their content. A film like Eyes Wide Shut may even be billed as a spicy erotic thriller, but when it's all said and done, adult viewers leave the theatre chewing on the importance of marriage fidelity and commitment. It's one of the most morally minded films I've seen in years."

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July (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45