Brian Somers This morning, on 11 September 2020, I read a Fox News article reporting that Candace Cameron Bure of “Full House” fame had posted to her Instagram account a picture of her husband embracing her with his hand on her breast.
The Fox News article is here. Please see and judge for yourself.
I was surprised to see that reaction was split between those applauding the IG post and those calling out the Bures for “inappropriate PDA”, the latter by self-identified Christians.
The following three negative reactions are taken from the Fox News article.
From an apparently deleted tweet: “There’s a picture of Candace Cameron-Bure’s husband holding onto her breast. People are saying it’s ok because they’re married. I say it’s not,” one person wrote on Twitter. “It doesn’t represent the Christian community. Being intimate with your spouse is fine but shouldn’t be made public.”
Another said, “Candace Cameron Bure defends PDA photo with husband: ‘He can touch me all day long’ Yes So Called ‘Christian’ in the privacy of your home your husband can touch you all day long! BUT IF YOU’RE POSTING PUBLIC PICTURES.. NOT REALLY CHRISTIAN. Public sexual contact is not Christ Like!”
Finally, someone exposited that “[a] good rule of thumb in your pictures posted is would you do that in front of Jesus Christ. That picture of your husband grabbing your breast would never have happened before Jesus Christ,” one person commented on an old photo Bure posted. “I know He loves your marriage is strong and sexually active as He created us to be blessed in that way but some things should be in private. Plus men shouldn’t do that in the public especially as a role model for young Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus.”
Mrs. Bure was not in the least apologetic. She responded to her Christian critics.
“For all of the Christians that are questioning my post with my husband’s hand on my boob — my husband of 24 years — thinking it was inappropriate, it makes me laugh because it’s my husband,” she said (via Daily Mail). “We have so much fun together.”
She continued: “He can touch me any time he wants, and I hope he does. This is what a healthy, good marriage and relationship is all about.”
“I’m sorry if it offended you — I’m actually not sorry,” the outspoken Christian actress said with a laugh.
She concluded: “I’m glad we have fun together after so many years. He can touch me all day long.”
Mrs. Bure makes several excellent points here, including the fact that she had her husband’s permission to post that picture to Instagram. They’re married, and married for 24 years at that! They’re having fun together and she is making it clear he can touch her anytime he wants.
Now, Mrs. Bure is more than capable of defending herself, but I want to address some of the theological issues raised by both Mrs. Bure and her critics.
First and most important, Mrs. Bure is making it clear that her husband is the head of their household as evidenced by her asking him if it was okay to publish the picture of him cupping her breast with his hand. Since he was fine with it, no one else has standing to criticize. This is straightforward patriarchy. As I Corinthians 11:3 puts it, the hierarchy is YHVH <- Yeshua <- Man <- Woman. Yeshua does what His Father tells Him to do, and Man should look to Yeshua as his Head and do what He tells him to do, and the woman looks to her husband and does what he tells her to do. Mr. Bure therefore looks to Yeshua as his Head. He answers to Him.
Second, supposing our three Christian critics have standing to criticize Mr. Bure’s decision to allow the picture to become public, they raise several issues.
- “It doesn’t represent the Christian community. Being intimate with your spouse is fine but shouldn’t be made public.”
- BUT IF YOU’RE POSTING PUBLIC PICTURES.. NOT REALLY CHRISTIAN.” “Public sexual contact is not Christ Like!”
- [a] good rule of thumb in your pictures posted is would you do that in front of Jesus Christ…men shouldn’t do that in the public especially as a role model for young Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus.”
These three critics are raising three points.
- Intimacy should be private, not public.
- Don’t do in public what you wouldn’t do in front of Jesus Christ/Yeshua haNazarene.
- Be a good role model for young Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus.
I’ll take the third point about being a good role model for young brothers and sisters first as that’s the easiest point to rebut. Being married for 24 years and still having fun together is being a powerful role model for “young Brothers and Sisters.” Mr. Bure is still delighting in his wife, and this picture is clearly showing that he is still drinking from his own cistern, in addition to being ravished with his wife’s breasts, as King Solomon advised.
15 Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
16 Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
17 Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for sharing with strangers.
18 Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
May her breasts satisfy you at all times;
may you be intoxicated always by her love.
Proverbs 5:15-19 NRSV
Mrs. Bure is clearly delighting in her husband and hopes he continues touching her anytime he wants. It seems like they have in common the love language of touch. In this culture of short-lived marriages, divorces, fornication, and adultery, the Bures are indeed being outstanding role models.
Here, I should make the point that the Christian community consists of thousands of different denominations, including non-denominations. They vary in what they teach about proper behavior in public. There’s a wide spectrum ranging from very strict to very liberal. One congregation would be horrified and another congregation wouldn’t care. Others are somewhere in between.
The argument might be raised that viewing a loving husband’s hand on his wife’s breast might cause some to stumble. If it comes to meat that may or may not have been sacrificed to idols or something touching a sinful or prohibited activity, that is a valid concern. But a husband touching his wife’s breast and being seen to do so, is not sin as he is behaving in righteousness. Never should righteous behavior cause anyone to “stumble”!!
Turning now to the first two points, one observes that they are really the same one. First, YHVH, Yeshua, and the Holy Spirit all see what we do in private as we do in public (see Matthew 6:4). I seriously doubt they would be offended if a husband lovingly caressed his wife’s breast. After all, Solomon said “May her breasts satisfy you at all times“!!! I might also point out that Isaac and Rebekah were sporting where they could be seen. I’d like to see any Christian say that Isaac isn’t a good role model since Yeshua clearly says that he will be in the Kingdom, as will be his father and his younger son, Jacob (Matt. 8:11; Luke 13:28).
8 When Isaac had been there a long time, King Abimelech of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw him fondling his wife Rebekah. 9 So Abimelech called for Isaac, and said, “So she is your wife! Why then did you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought I might die because of her.” 10 Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.”
Genesis 26:8-10 NRSV
Sexual intimacy, really sexual intercourse, is something else though. That is done in private.
67 Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent. He took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her.
Genesis 24:67 NRSV
2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
For your love is better than wine,
3 your anointing oils are fragrant,
your name is perfume poured out;
therefore the maidens love you.
4 Draw me after you, let us make haste.
The king has brought me into his chambers.
We will exult and rejoice in you;
we will extol your love more than wine;
rightly do they love you.
Song of Solomon 1:2-4 NRSV
Moreover, if one is going to talk about being in the presence of the Holy One of Israel in all His Glory, one should be mindful that sexual intercourse makes one ritually unclean. One cannot be in a sacred space or participate in sacred rituals or consume the holy things unless one has not had sexual intercourse or emissions for at least three days.
10 the Lord said to Moses: “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes 11 and prepare for the third day, because on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. 12 You shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Be careful not to go up the mountain or to touch the edge of it. Any who touch the mountain shall be put to death. 13 No hand shall touch them, but they shall be stoned or shot with arrows; whether animal or human being, they shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they may go up on the mountain.” 14 So Moses went down from the mountain to the people. He consecrated the people, and they washed their clothes. 15 And he said to the people, “Prepare for the third day; do not go near a woman.”
Exodus 19:10-15 NRSV
2 David said to the priest Ahimelech, “The king has charged me with a matter, and said to me, ‘No one must know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. 3 Now then, what have you at hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” 4 The priest answered David, “I have no ordinary bread at hand, only holy bread—provided that the young men have kept themselves from women.” 5 David answered the priest, “Indeed women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition; the vessels of the young men are holy even when it is a common journey; how much more today will their vessels be holy?” 6 So the priest gave him the holy bread; for there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.
I Samuel 21:2-6 NRSV
16 If a man has an emission of semen, he shall bathe his whole body in water, and be unclean until the evening. 17 Everything made of cloth or of skin on which the semen falls shall be washed with water, and be unclean until the evening. 18 If a man lies with a woman and has an emission of semen, both of them shall bathe in water, and be unclean until the evening.
Leviticus 15:16-18 NRSV
To wrap this up, I agree with those who applauded the Bures posting the picture on Instagram. There was nothing wrong with it. But, by addressing the theological issues raised by their detractors, I hope that people can stop to think about reflexive condemnation based on overly strict notions of proper behavior and what “Christ would approve”.
Isaac and Rebekah gave us good examples to follow. Isaac fondled his wife in public, just like Mr. Bure caressed his wife’s breast. But Isaac took Rebekah into a tent to take and make her his wife. Yet Isaac was deservedly rebuked for lying to Abimelech because his lie exposed Abimelech’s young men to inadvertently committing adultery with Rebekah should one of them take Rebekah, not for fondling Rebekah in public.
As far as what would offend Jesus Christ, I think too many Christians have forgotten or not read for themselves that Christ the Lord does what He sees His Father doing or not doing (see John 5:19). Jesus Christ, Yeshua haNazarene, images for us the Father YHVH in the Old Testament. Therefore, it is to the Old Testament as well as the New Testament that we should look for what YHVH condemned or didn’t condemn. In the Old Testament, we see many heroes of the faith do some things right, and other things wrong. Let those stories be our guide, not some strict, burdensome halachah (walk) handed down by a pastor who only knows the New Testament. We are given many statutes and ordinances that guide us where they apply to us. If we consider ourselves grafted into Israel through Yeshua, then at least let’s walk as Hebrew Israelites!!