Naked Before God

It’s unusually cool for a June evening at the Cherokee Lodge, and the nudists have finally covered up. They sit at round plastic tables under the pavilion’s tin roof, drinking $3 cans of Miller High Life and watching a 60-something in a teal thong shake her deep-dimpled ass to some Top 40 song. Every once in a while, she spins to reveal quick snapshots of her nipples peaking out of a fishnet top that sparkles under the disco ball and Technicolor spotlights.

Soon the sweaty DJ spins the “Electric Boogie” as a herd of middle-aged and elderly bodies, sagging in painful ways, begin to move mechanically to the electric slide on the dance floor. Some of the more practical women wear blouses and sweaters with no panties, others wear tube tops that they wriggle down and over their breasts, which sway freely to the beat. The men, some donning only cowboy hats and dingy pearl-snap shirts, terrycloth robes or nothing at all, rock their hips—and subsequently, their dangling genitals—with complete abandon. They all shimmy from side to side, tilting forward and snapping their fingers in the most bizarre display of jiggly, full-frontal nudity.

When a slow country song wafts through the night air, most of the 40 or so nudists couple off. Rick, a financial analyst from Kingsport, Tenn., who asked that we only use his first name, seems to be the only eligible bachelor at the nudist resort’s Saturday-night dance. He and I sit alone, swilling overpriced beer and talking about his divorce, the days of disco and how he’s usually not very social at these things.

Rick’s wearing a “Watch Out!! I’m Here to Raze Hell” T-shirt, which covers a boyish upper body with no tan lines. He’s managed to avoid the round belly and love handles common among the midlife nudist set. You might not notice him at a bar in the city, but here, at a party in the thicket of the Cumberland Plateau nearly two hours east of Nashville, Rick’s a silver fox.

A few women do, in fact, ask him to dance—an older, 5-foot-tall woman almost as round as she is tall drags him onto the cement dance floor for a Shania Twain song. And the leggy brunette bartender who mans the beat-up beer fridge in the corner gets Rick smiling big toothy grins as they dance to a disco beat. She’s sporting nipple rings so elaborately coiled around her small breasts that you can’t help but stare.

Neither woman is looking for any action, but Rick doesn’t care. He’s here for Jesus.

He has joined more than 20 others for the Christian Nudist Convocation, a semi-annual gathering of salt-of- the-earth folks whose dedication to being nude whenever possible is rivaled only by their love for Christ. “May the Lord protect our nudity from the sight of those who will not benefit, and may He allow us to be seen by those who will.... Amen,” goes the prayer from one of the nudist’s websites.

In three days, they’ll hike, swim, barbecue, have sing-alongs and, of course, praise Jesus au natural. Some won’t put as much as a shirt on all weekend. For most, the convocation is a respite from their churches, neighbors and families—the prudes of the clothed world who are scared to high heaven by the thought of bare butts on church pews. For others, it’s a coming-out event, a safe place to test the waters where “Christian nudist” isn’t considered an oxymoron.

For now, Rick’s the only CNCer on the dance floor. Two of the convocation’s couples sit and watch, but the rest of the Christians are minding the children at the campsite or stewing in the hot tub, which sits in a small cabin made of weather-worn wood. The Christians have cornered an atheist in the Jacuzzi, and it’s time to get to work.

All this late-night drinking and dancing is not quite their scene, even though tonight’s party is devoid of the grinding and dry humping you’d see at most nightclubs. They came here to learn how to be better Christians, to discuss how Jesus jibes with nudism and to enjoy the hot tub jets without swim trunks. But they’ve got a higher purpose. They’re here to let the rest of the nudies know that Jesus loves them. And he doesn’t care what they’re wearing.

The CNCers make up a good percentage of this weekend’s Cherokee Lodge clientele, who have made their way off Interstate 40 to a wooded area just outside of Crossville, the golf capital of Tennessee. More than 100 people occupy the campsites, cabins and RVs littered across the nudist resort’s 240 acres—not counting the few dozen others who have taken up permanent residency in trailers on the lot. This isn’t exactly a big showing for Cherokee: the ladies in the main office say quite a few of their beer-drinking regulars decided to stay home when they heard the Christians were coming.