The Popularity of Nakedness

A year ago I read The Naked Gospel because a number of my Jesus-friends were reading it. Then I purchased The Naked Anabaptist and read it, since there's now a bit of a surge in Anabaptist theology. Combining "Naked" with "Anabaptist" surely increased the book's sales. So what's next? The Naked Amish?

What's next is this. Next week Brian McLaren's new book comes out: Naked Spirituality. I am not kidding.

The word "naked" is now popular among Christians. It seems so radical, so brave, so risky! Put "naked" in your title and Christians will buy it. (This is not necessarily a complement.)

What if these weighty-but-mostly-non-selling theological texts had picked up on this years ago. We would have had:

• Naked Confessions - St. Augustine
• Here I Stand Naked: A Life of Martin Luther - Roland Bainton
• The Courage to Be Naked - Paul Tillich
• Fear and Trembling and Nakedness - Soren Kierkegaard (presumably because it's chillier when one is naked)
• The Dark, Naked Night of the Soul - St. John of the Cross (St. John loses his jammies)
• Neues Testament und Mythologie: Das Problem der Nackt Entmythologisierung der neutestamentlichen Verkundigung - Rudolf Bultmann (entmythologisierung als nacktheit - Denken Sie darüber nach!)

All such things pass, and so will using "naked" in book titles. It will be replaced by "clothed." The second edition of The Naked Anabaptist will be published as The Clothed Anabaptist, and we will have returned to our senses.

(I had time on my hands tonight...)