Baring It All For Jesus

In one picture, dark-haired Delilah is about to cut the hair of a sleeping Samson. Just under the pair of scissors she has poised near a lock of Samson's hair, her naked left breast is clearly visible. Another photograph depicts Eve holding out an apple to the viewer. She stands in the aisle of a church, the altar visible in the background, wearing nothing but her long flowing hair and a strategically placed fig leaf.

Those are just two of the photographs in the new erotic calendar that went on sale this past weekend in a protestant church in Nuremberg. Others depict the baptism of Jesus, Lot's daughters, the dance of Salome and the sacrifice of Isaac.

The calendar is a project of the church's youth group, which said on a Web site that its goal is to bring the stories of the Bible closer to today's people by putting them in a contemporary context. Each of the photographs is accompanied by a theological text explaining the story depicted.

The youth group members also wanted to bring in a little cash. Due to budget cuts, the financing of many of the group's activities is in danger. Members hope that the calendars, which they're selling at 12.50 euros ($14.66) a piece, can help fill up empty coffers.

Gone too far?

But for some, having naked people posing in a House of God is beyond the pale. A wave of protest broke out on the comments page of the calendar's website before it was taken down.

"What you are doing is uncivilized! This is a church," wrote one anonymous critic. "I find it shameless to abuse the Bible as a motive for nude photos," said another. "Confess your sin and leave it behind."

Others, however, threw their support behind the controversial project. "Finally, a little pep in a protestant church," wrote one admirer. Another entry praised the "courage" of the youth group to produce something like this in "straitlaced Bavaria."

Church reactions

The pastor of the church where the youth group is based doesn't understand all the fuss, saying he finds it admirable "that young people are getting involved with Bible history." The fierceness of the criticism shows, in his opinion, "how far removed many adults are from the reality of young people's lives," he told the newsmagazine Der Spiegel.

While the Bavarian Protestant Church had provided no official comment on the matter, the region's Catholic archdiocese is very clear where it stands on the matter.

"It's not OK to pose naked in a church," Winfried Röhmel, spokesman for the archbishop of Munich, Friedrich Wetter, told Der Spiegel. "The right way to approach the Holy Scriptures is not by pulling your pants down."