Tattoos and the Shower

There I was minding my own business, standing in the shower, you know, thinking about things, and it occurred to me what the problem with tattoos is: it is another example of Christians imitating the world. I know. How simple is that? Imagine what great thoughts one can have in the shower.

Here’s how it works. Back in the 60’s, when I was a little boy, the Beatles got really popular. They were a little bit rebellious. They had long hair, they wore Nehru jackets, pointy shoes and suddenly everyone was wearing Beatle boots and jackets. Five years later the Christians were groovy too and wearing long hair. My Beatle boots had pretty blue spots in them. I talked my parents into buying me a groovy leather vest with fringe on it but was so embarrassed to wear it that I only wore it once. I just wasn’t groovy.

What does all this have to do with tattoos? Where did the idea to get tattoos come from? When I was a little boy, my uncle Wayne had a cool tattoo on his arm that my mother wouldn’t let us look at. It was a shapely woman wearing something skimpy. When Uncle Wayne flexed his arm and twisted his wrist, he could make her dance. It was very cool. I wanted a tattoo.

Then, when I joined the Navy, sailors got tattoos. It was what you did. But I noticed that everyone who got one was drunk when it happened. I didn’t get drunk, didn’t think it made any sense and I didn’t like the taste of beer. Remember, I wasn’t groovy or cool. Anyway, the reason you had to be drunk to get a tattoo was because it was so painful to get a tattoo and it made a huge bloody mess of your arm or wherever you got it. That’s also why only the beefiest and most rugged women got tattoos. You didn’t want to mess with a woman who had tattoos. They were just too painful for anyone but the toughest to get.

But they were so cool.

Nowadays, they aren’t so painful to get. In fact, some folks get what they call a sleeve. Their whole arm is covered in tattoos. It looks so thick and wild that the whole arm is black with tattoos. I’ve always wanted to just stand and look at all the various parts that make up a sleeve. But that doesn’t seem very polite. Usually, they run all together and you can’t tell what’s there anyway. But so cool and groovy.

But where does that cool thing come from? Do folks study their Bible and say, “I wonder how I can be closer to God? Oh, I know, I’ll go down to the local tattoo parlor and get a tattoo?” I don’t think so. When I study my Bible, I don’t even get a hint or slight urge that I should get a tattoo. In fact, when I see something about tattoos in the Bible the text is telling me not to get tattoos because that is how the pagans worship their gods (Lev 19:28).

I know what you’re thinking. Modern tattoos are not the same thing as those OT tattoos. And I would agree with you if you read the text in a wooden way. But if you read the Bible for presence and context and relationship with God and in a war with the world and the ways of the world, I think you’ll find that it really isn’t different at all.

If you read this passage in context, you’ll find a pretty huge list of things God wants and doesn’t want his people to be involved in. These things are in the context of the idea that God wants his people to be a special people; a different people; a unique people. And this difference begins and ends with being focused and committed to standing for God and against the world that is in rebellion august God. Now, I agree that these lists in Leviticus are meant for Israel and are fulfilled in Christ, so it is okay for us to shave our heads and cut the edges of our beards (Lev 19:28), but I don’t know anyone who is saying it is okay to sell our daughters into prostitution or to fill the land with wickedness (Lev 19:29). So, to solve the dilemma we need to talk about principles and not get our skivvies in a knot.

We still haven’t answered the question about where the idea to get a tattoo comes from. It doesn’t come from the Bible. I wonder where else it might come from. Perhaps we see it in nature somewhere. Nope. Animals have stripes and spots and such, but God gives those to them at birth. I’ll say it again, we get the idea of getting tattoos from those people around us. We see them, think they are cool, and we want to be like them. They have tattoos, so we want tattoos too. Sometimes, we think if we get a tattoo we’ll be able to minister to non-Christian tattoo wearers better if we join them in this. I think joining pagans in how they worship their gods is a compromise and goes against the ability to minister to them, but that’s another post.

The principle, for all of life, is to pay attention to the things of God and the things of the world and pay special attention to the difference and why they are different. The world is in opposition to the things of God. We see this all over the Bible. In the OT, the Bible usually contrasts the nations around Israel with Israel. “Don’t do what they do” (Deut 12:31). “Don’t live like they live” (1 Sam 8:5). “Don’t worship their gods” (Ex 34:14). In the NT the contrast is between the Church and the world. “In me, you will have peace, in the world you will have tribulation” (Jn 16:33). “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 Jn 2:15). “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (Jas 4:4).

In the OT the point is, don’t be like those people around you. Be uniquely mine. Be the people of God. Be chosen. In the NT it is the same only the battle is with the world. The easiest way to figure out what the world is to ask is it cool or groovy (I know no one uses the word groovy anymore. No one used it in the 60’s after they started using it on the Brady Bunch, either). At the core, it is the sexist, the progressive, the with it, the acceptable, mainstream, independent, rebellious, enslaved. When we are thinking about what to wear, how to look, who to hang out with, or where to hang out, we need to go to our Bible and see what the attitude we need to have is. We need to notice that verses like 1 Peter 2:12 (having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation) and 2 Corinthians 5:9 (Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him) are representative of God’s will for his people.

Thus, when we get our fashion statements from the secular, that is pagan, antichristian, and rebellious culture around us, we are headed into sin. Even if our tattoo says something very Christianly cool like, “Praise the Lord,” or “John 3:16.” Tattoos are worldly. That’s what’s wrong with them. I got all this in the shower. How cool is that?