Some Christian critics of nudism, including Mary Lowman of The Christian Working Woman, see the lifestyle as an affront to God. On her website’s page The Christian Dress Code, Lowman claims “God’s dress code from the beginning has been to cover our nakedness.”

Even still, nudism attracts unlikely allies. Some nondenominational, hard-line conservative clergy accept nudism. Pastor Ron Smith, of McAllen’s Church of the King, vehemently opposes homosexuality, abortion and the transgender community, but when it comes to nudism, his strident views loosen up.

“I think it’s odd, I think it’s strange, but I have no proof it’s sinning,” Smith said. “We have a retired couple that sit in the front row every Sunday that live at a nudist camp. I believe they’re dedicated Christians.”

Because the Bible doesn’t explicitly forbid nudism, Smith says he cannot condemn those who practice it. In fact, the Bible condones nudism on several occasions: “Adam and Eve were in the garden talking to God every day. They were nude,” Katz says. “When David had his big victory in battle, he went dancing in the streets naked to praise God. So, that must be OK in God’s eyes.”

Generations of evangelicals consumed millions of books and listened to countless sermons expounding these "truths." Within this framework, there was ready forgiveness for male sexual misconduct. It was up to women to avoid tempting men who were not their husbands and meet the sexual needs of men who were. When men went astray, there was always a woman to blame. For men, misdeeds could be written off as too much of a good thing or perhaps a necessary evil, as evidence of red-blooded masculinity that needed only to be channeled in redemptive directions.

Within evangelical communities, we see these values expressed in the way organizations too often turn a blind eye to abuse, blame victims, and defend abusers in the interest of propping up a larger cause — a man's ministry, an institution's mission, or the broader "witness of the church."

In 2016, we heard precisely this rhetoric in defense of Donald Trump. Trump was a man's man. He would not be cowed by political correctness, but would do what needed to be done. He represented "a John Wayne America," an America where heroic men were not afraid to resort to violence when necessary in pursuit of a greater good. Evangelicals did not embrace Trump in spite of his rough edges, but because of them.

At a time when many evangelicals perceived their values to be under fire, they looked to Trump as their "ultimate fighting champion," a man who would not be afraid to throw his weight around to protect "Christian America" against threats both foreign and domestic.