christians & tattoos

Dancing between doing homework, taking a nap, and wondering where my future is headed, I felt exhausted and decided to take a break to do a little browsing on the internet. On one of my friend's websites is a posted article that describes an original Easter service where a member of the congregation had a cross tattooed on his arm during the celebration and worship. The pastors of the church confessed that while they are aware of the great stigma that comes along with tattoos, especially when it comes to Christians, they also realize that the stigmas against tattoos are ill-placed and founded on a misinterpretation of Old Testament texts. The pastor’s hope was to show Easter in a new light and to reveal that the church doesn’t need to be uptight.

I have met many Christians who are extremely opposed to tattoos. My father’s side of the family is very conservative, and they believe tattooing is wrong because it is forbidden in the Bible. The text they refer to is found in Leviticus, verse 28: “Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am YHWH.” It is obvious, isn’t it? God does not want us to cut our bodies. Why? The most popular answer is because tattooing scars our bodies and is unhealthy; to this I insist that tattooing when done right is quite sanitary, no more dangerous than eating at McDonald’s three times a week! Also, how can we explain the tattoo Christ wears in Revelation 19.16, where Christ appears before the earth as the Mighty Warrior and has a tattoo on his thigh reading “King of Kings and Lord of Lords”? With the most popular answer discredited to a great degree, we must ask ourselves, “Why would God not want the Israelites to tattoo themselves?” The answer, I believe, comes with an understanding of the purpose behind Old Testament Law and the history and culture in which that law was given.

The Old Testament Law was given by God to the people through Moses for certain purposes. When we look at the Old Testament laws, we see that they are communal in nature, not individual as many people assume (though communal obedience implies individual obedience). The laws, ordnances, taboos, and customs of the Old Testament, while looking extremely strange to us in our Western cultures, helped keep the nation united and protected the identity of the Jews as God’s chosen people. The purpose of the Law, then, was primarily twofold: unity and identity. The laws separated the Jews from their pagan neighbors and served to keep the Jews united as a nation under their tribal deity YHWH. We must understand this in order to understand the nature of many Old Testament laws that seem strange to us… including the ordnance against tattooing.

But this doesn’t answer our question: “Why is tattooing such a big deal in the ancient world, to the degree that God does not want His people doing it?” The Israelites moved into the land of Canaan, known as the Promised Land, which rests along the eastern curve of the Mediterranean Sea. When they moved into the land, they entered a culture where the worship of pagan gods held as the primary goal of life. Worship of these pagan gods included such acts as the torture and sacrifice of children and the selling of virgins into “holy” prostitution. One of the most revered gods of the land was the chief god Baal, whose worshippers offered human sacrifices to him and marked themselves while trying to placate him. This is vividly seen in Elijah’s encounter with the Baal prophets on Mt. Carmel, where the prophet Elijah’s god YHWH went against the god Baal… and won. The text tells us how the Baal prophets tried to placate Baal to win the “contest” against YHWH and thus reveal his divine power (1 Kings 18). First the Baal prophets began to try and placate Baal by standing in a prayer vigil before him; when he failed to show up, they began cutting themselves with swords and spears, practicing bloodletting practices in order to conjure up an answer from their god. They would have marked their arms and forehead to try and bring the god to answer; this was the customary practice of Baal worship in the day.

Throughout the days of the Old Testament, Baal is YHWH’s number-one enemy (even though he is simply a figment of the imagination!). God knew what the Israelites would be encountering in the land of Canaan, and He wanted the Israelites to be distinguished from association with Baal. In the culture of the biblical days, to have a “tattoo” was to present yourself as a worshipper, prophet, or priest of Baal. The Israelites did not belong to Baal but to YHWH, and they were to associate with Him and Him alone.

In our culture today, Baalism is destroyed: the Romans crucified thousands of Baal’s worshippers on the road to Carthage and thus extinguished the Baal cult. Tattoos today carry no identity with the Baal cult, for the Baal cult does not exist! If there are any immoral associations with tattooing, then Christians (as followers of Christ/YHWH and set apart from the immorality of the world) should avoid them (or at least cover them up). In my mind and in my opinion, tattooing is perfectly okay in God’s eyes in our Western society. However, we must be careful to not get a tattoo if our conscience tells us not to, for then we are sinning (1 Cor 8.7), and if we are surrounded by people who consider tattooing to be a sin, we ought to not get a tattoo or at least get it somewhere where they cannot see it so that their faith is not weakened by our apparent disobedience to God (1 Cor 8.9-13).

My girlfriend has two tattoos, and I think they are really neat. I plan on getting a few tattoos when I graduate from college. I want to get a Celtic cross on one arm and the Greek word for “pilgrim/sojourner” on my other arm. As someone going into the ministry one day, I am prepared to cover them for the sake of those who may find them sinful, because I do not wish to erect a stumbling block to their faith.