Lobster in a Bucket

Well said Matty.

I feel in general the "church" often works backwords away from Jesus. It does this through rules and laws and other legislation that while they may have certain justification that is "good," instead guide us in ease through our lives, instead of in faith towards each other and towards Christ.

Man, I hope that imagery makes sense.

It's like, we'll make rules that say we can't drink, which help us all to live more comfortably with each other. If the rule wasn't there, issues of drunkeness and addiction would inevitably arise, which, in those moments, comes the real test of our relationship with our Savior.

Who do we trust? The myriad of rules we come up with, or Christ and His work in the hearts of all of us?

My dear matriarch,

We talked about this last night, and like I said, I agree wholeheatedly with you that working through male body-image insecurities is an important step for young guys to start comparing themselves to Christ, bot to each other. And I agree with almost all of your post here.

But let me play devil's advocate for a sec about your last objection: "They want to make guys from other halls feel free to come down. They want girls to like us. Feel comfortable around us. All these remaining reasons seem pretty weak. Especially in regards to what's being lost."

It seems to me you're underestimating a bit the value of loving those people in the Covenant community who you aren't terribly close to. I'm sure you've read Robert Putnam's distinction between "bonding" and "bridging" social capital in communities: one type creates close but exclusive relationships, the other creates loose but inclusive relationships. It seems to me that Catacombs has always been very good at bonding, but terrible at bridging. It's always been more important to us that our relationships with each other be healthy and strong, even if we're downright rude and offensive to other halls and people on campus. Sometimes I think this has been a worthy sacrifice to make. But it's also been taken too far plenty of times. Over the course of the last year, I discovered on many occassions how many feelings had been hurt by the Catacombian desire for excusive intimacy amongst ourselves.

So when the administration argues that they want other halls to come down to Catacombs, and for girls to feel comfortable around the basement boys, they are arguing not just that we put on a good facade so we can get dates. They're arguing that our behavior among ourselves is so frightening to many around us that it's destroying our ability to interact with people who don't share the crazy Catacombs bent. The administration isn't stacking rules up against relationships; they're trying to balance two different and equally important types of relationships. Now, you and I still might feel that they're shifting the balance too far toward the side of bridging. In fact, I do feel that way. But that doesn't mean that trying for a balance is merely a disguised CYA policy.

Anyway, hope that wasn't to obnoxious. I guess you have a meeting in 20 minutes. I'll be praying for you.

Your loving Patriarch

Consider though Mesh, that it's a good thing that these folks are "scared." That it's actually healthy.

Maybe. Depends on what you mean. You've always been a much bigger fan of pushing people than I am. In some cases I think you're right: People need to get out of their comfortable, "homeschooled" boxes. But in other cases, I think you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, as they say.

I just know I talked to a lot of people last year who weren't so much offended our frightened by Catacombs behavior as they were turned off by our "eff you" attitude toward the campus at large. If the administration feels that hall nudity, while a good bonding experience for the hall, is basically giving a big middle finger to the rest of campus, they'll never change their new rule.

Sorry if I'm being a dick about this. The whole "bridging/bonding" question has been on my mind alot lately. I still want hallball back, though.

Now Mesh, I would agree that the "f you" attitude on the part of catacombs is incorrect, and folks are justified in being offended by it.

But, most of the time playing hall-ball isn't about having a "f-you" attitude to anyone, neither is 90% of our activities. That's a different issue than exclusivity. Exclusivity is an issue that can exist with or without hall-ball, and needs to be dealt with on that level.

Secondly, lets say that Catacombs IS having an "f-you" attitude, what's the Christian way to respond? Should we just be offended and leave it at that? No growth there.

Lang's dad once said, "far more damage is caused by those who take offense then by those who give it."

Which is exactly how I feel about this situation: far more damage will be caused by people taking offense at shenanigans and making more rules, than by the people engaging in the shenanigans.

Aren't there enough Catacombian alumni (along with graduates connected to other men's halls) to put together some sort of petition, or at least a more formal way to, as a group, express things to SD and Fiend Raymond, instead of just everyoe emailing him seperately. Why don't you get on that Josiah

Perhaps one of the more insightful comments on this whole issue was over on Josiah's blog. In it, Aaron observes that things like hall nudity may have arisen as the result of a group of students wanting to live "meaningful lives in the context of their belief system." In time, the nudity becomes the point and, perhaps, gets just a bit hollow. As I understand this, people whose desire is to really live like Christians recognize their freedom from legalistic standards and begin to act in that freedom. Inevitably, there will enter those people for whom their faith is a peripheral issue. What is freedom for the few becomes antinomianism for the many.

Now, I don't believe, Matt, that you're being antinomian in this matter. However, the way in which you are framing your argument could easily tend toward legalism. It works both ways. Legalism is essentially denying or requiring for Christian living that which the scripture does not address. Some of the churches I used to attend taught that all rock music was evil. Their position was definitely wrong; nevertheless, I think that there was still something commendable in their motive. However, misguided, they thought that rock music would keep one from getting closer to Christ. A lot of people have similar views regarding same-sex nudity. As with the music, I don't agree.

You are obviously not on the side that would ban such nudity, and your argument that this kind of nudity can help break down barriers of mistrust does have a lot of merit to it. However, your contention that this is, in turn, an important step for guys to start defining themselves in relation to Christ goes too far. It enters the territory of turning an issue not addressed in scripture into a requirement for Christian living. Furthermore, I do not agree with the notion that "there really isn't any way to overcome the issue of mistrust between guys stemming from nudity without being nude together." Learning to live in the context of your faith will help overcome issues of mistrust and a number of other social issues, no matter how these may have originated. Christ himself must be the point. Attempts at addressing each specific cause of problems will only make the causes the point.

The school's new policy may be nothing more than fear of litigation or it could be a step back into being legalistic. Either way, I disagree with them. Whatever the case, be careful how you confront the issue. While your arguments may be effective in reversing this new policy, if you've done nothing more than conquer legalism with more of the same, then you haven't really won anything.

I have a big problem with this comment by Matt: "Are we going to outlaw all nudity in halls for the sake of those young men that struggle with homosexuality but are unwilling to talk to anyone about it?"

I think the answer should be a resounding YES. If hall nudity or anything else we do causes another brother to stumble than we should stop it. And let's not put the blame on the individual struggeling with sin. First of all, homosexuality would be a difficult thing for most guys to admit, especially a lot of the conservative home school kids that many folks have referenced. If someone is having trouble talking about this issue will the continued temptation of hall nudity really make this individual willing to talk about their struggles? When I first heard about the nudity ban going on at Covenant my initial reaction was to give the school the middle finger. I was one of those Catacombs guys that took great joy in bonding with my Catacombs brothers while telling the rest of Covenant to "eff off." But you know what? That wasn't a great attitude to have and it was not being respectful or loving to my brothers and sisters in Christ. If hall ball and hall nudity are offensive or cause someone to struggle with homosexuality then it should stop. Yes, I think college life is meant to challenge what we think, but who said it was Catacombs' job to challenge people's ideas about nudity?

Or, perhaps, we could ban women for the sake of those guys who struggle with an overly active heterosexual libido but are unwilling to talk about it. What about the glutton who just can't keep his eyes off of someone else's choice of cuisine? Should we institute private dining? The list could go on of things, harmless in themselves, that someone is going to turn into a source of temptation.

The main question to be answered about hall nudity is whether it is inherently wrong. If it is, then the the weaker brother argument is moot. The college does not ban murder on campus because certain fellow students might have hate issues. It's just wrong.

As it is, you're taking this in the wrong direction. Yes, we are supposed to take responsibility for our weaker brothers. But this does not mean that we set up a behavior roster for the sake of the weaker brothers who might be out there. We are not called to sacrifice ourselves for hypothetical abstractions. The object of our love needs to be as concrete as the love itself. I can only try to help another person to the extent that I am aware of his needs. Weaker brother or not, if he refuses to say anything about them, then the responsibility is his.