Is it Okay for Christians to get Tattoos?
Perspectives: By Tom Loghry
YES:
Of first importance, we find no law against the contemporary conception/common significance of tattoos in Scripture. The proscription against tattoos found in Leviticus 19:28 must be understood in its ancient context. At that time, receiving a tattoo indicated that one had sold herself into life-long slavery. Accordingly, in this law God is prohibiting the people of Israel from making themselves life-long slaves. The other prohibitions surrounding this law, such as in verse 27, which prohibits a person from marring the edges of his beard, further underscore the contextual conditions at work. These must be taken into account as one also considers the even greater importance of our present theological context, in which Christ’s fulfillment of the Law has made most of these civil and ceremonial proscriptions inapplicable.
Modern tattoos, received for stylistic and symbolic reasons not intended to indicate the sort of slavery in view in Leviticus, fall under the category of “Christian freedom” in the age of Christ. Looking to Paul’s discourses on idol meat in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10, it can be said that tattoos are entirely permissible so long as they do not function as an idol or as the graven image of an idol in your life. The first function is a temptation that could arise from Christian Y and non-Christian tattoos alike, but at the very least a Christian tattoo would seem to avoid the second possible function.
In short, getting a tattoo in and of itself cannot be morally prohibited universally, only personally, insofar as an individual person perceives that receiving a tattoo would compete with her worship of God. However, in certain foreign contexts, the Christian may be morally compelled to set aside her liberty if receiving a tattoo would inherently be perceived as indicating subservience to pagan idols or demonic forces.
NO:
Like medically unnecessary plastic surgeries that aim to “improve” or alter one’s image, tattoos deny God’s creative prerogative in his natural design of a person from his mother’s womb. To wrest that prerogative from God by tattooing one’s image is to assert a venture of redesign independent from any divine design. Where there should be submission, there is rebellion; an obsession with self image instead of God’s image made manifest in his natural design of human beings. When a person puts a tattoo on his skin, he is in effect making a graven image, a symbol representing either self-obsession or the confirmation of some other idol in one’s life. The human body becomes a polytheistic canvas, a blueprint of the loves of one’s heart, absent of Christian symbols or in competition with them side by side; it is the picture of a divided heart.
While the exclusive use of Christian symbols is seemingly better, this lacks any commendation from Christ and comes with two risks. The first is that tattooing oneself with Christian symbols may simply obscure what is in fact an obsession with self, a veil obscuring not only the eyes of others but also the person himself, leaving him blind to his own sin. The second is that every action one takes comes to be associated with Christ (assuming the tattoo is visible). This brings with it the constant risk that when we sin or even make mere mistakes, that our shortcomings will bring disrepute to the name of Christ in the eyes of all who merely see the symbol and do not know us personally.
Where were find no instruction to be tattooed, we instead find Christ teaching us, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). If one wishes to symbolize Christ to the world, he should set about such a project, not by visiting the local tattoo parlor, but by filling himself with the righteous instruction of the Word, calling upon the Holy Spirit to transform him accordingly, and going forth into the world with Christ’s love and those good works that bring glory to the Father.
Tom Loghry , “Is it okay for Christians to get tattoos?” The Advent Christian Witness, Spring 2019