Christians Getting Tattoos? | Doug Wilson

[00:00:00]I've got a question here from a man who said that he lost his father last year in a car wreck and is thinking about getting a tattoo sleeve, so you know, from the bicep down to the wrist in order to honor his dad.

[00:00:13]And so kind of two-fold question, what do you make of tattoos maybe in general and kind of the biblical case that often gets made against them Leviticus don't cut your body things like that and based on that answer what would you say about this particular this kind of thing where it's a desire to honor someone it's not just a rebellion thing it's a desire to honor someone.

[00:00:35]>> It's it's interesting that in Leviticus 19 where it talks about that it's not it doesn't just talk about marks on your body it talks about marks on your body for the dead okay.

[00:00:44]>> Okay.

[00:00:45]>> So so I um >> [laughter] >> So even if tattoos are lawful this one might not be.

[00:00:50]>> Right so that's the first thing the second thing is um someone might say yes but that they were Leviticus is talking about particular Canaanite practices and tattoos and and I I'm happy to cheerfully grant that there was a particular custom or a particular pattern that Moses was telling the people to stay away from and contextually yeah they're talking about that. Now we get to the good Puritan part of the sermon which is application now what do we do? Well I don't think I don't think it's possible to deny that tattooing the body is a deeply pagan impulse.

[00:01:30]It we don't just see it in Leviticus we see it all over the world and it's not any >> [clears throat] >> coincidence that as America lost her faith that we started started cutting cutting our bodies and tattooing our bodies and and my my basic so I don't like them not at all right and and when I say that if some grandma on a lark gets a teeny butterfly tattoo on her ankle, you know, okay, I can make distinctions and and a scorpion on your cheekbone. Okay, not not so not so good. There's there's certain things that I say self-evidently that's diabolical.

[00:02:16]I look at some tattoos and I just think demons.

[00:02:19]Other tattoos I just think unfortunate bad idea. You know, no regrets.

[00:02:25]>> Yeah, right.

[00:02:26]>> That that sort of thing.

[00:02:28]Um, but I I just think that Christians need to think start thinking of their baptism as their tattoo.

[00:02:35]We're already tattooed. We're already owned. We're already marked. God's name's already on us. Correct. And he did it that way with water which dries.

[00:02:49]And I I just think that there's I just think it's a deeply pagan impulse. That that doesn't mean that I believe that every Christian with a tattoo is a pagan.

[00:03:01]But I I think that we are being buffeted by pagan propaganda, pagan messaging, pagan everything.

[00:03:08]>> How would you It seems like there's because of the secularization and you have a widespread you see them everywhere now. It's just it's an increasing thing and therefore you can have kind of two different types of people, Christians who have them. So you have Christians who had a past and got a bunch of tattoos during their unbelieving years and then got converted and kind of regret it, but they've still got them. The marks are there.

[00:03:33]And then you have the Christians who don't see any problem with it.

[00:03:37]>> Mhm.

[00:03:38]>> And just think, well, I'm going to get a lion on my arm because I like Aslan and or I'm going to get a Bible verse on my wrist and those those sorts of things.

[00:03:46]And that and you can have like you said, little bitty teeny ones up to, you know, more robust.

[00:03:52]How would you tell How would you advise like pastors to address it given that it's a pagan custom that may not be sinful in every circumstance, but on the whole has this is a really bad thing.

[00:04:06]How would you say How should pastors kind of How should they preach about it?

[00:04:09]How should they talk about it?

[00:04:11]Things like that.

[00:04:11]>> Yeah.

[00:04:12]>> I just I've got a friend who's a diabetic and he's got uh tattooed on his wrist um you know, if he keels over.

[00:04:20]>> Yeah.

[00:04:20]>> Um >> Yeah, right.

[00:04:21]>> the the the EMT people >> No, no. Give Give me a Give me a candy bar.

[00:04:26]>> Yeah, they they they know right away. Uh so, yeah, okay, there's a wide range of of things here.

[00:04:34]Um one of the things I think given how ubiquitous it is, I think one of the things that pastors could start doing is making a distinction, not a separation, but a distinction between a tattoo and tattoo culture.

[00:04:50]>> Okay.

[00:04:50]>> Okay. Tattoo culture is just unbelieving culture. You know, when you go to a restaurant and you can't get a job waitressing anymore without tattoos up and down your arm.

[00:05:02]Um when you when you see that, uh you don't think, "Oh, I'm in a high-class place."

[00:05:07]>> Mhm.

[00:05:07]>> You um and nor do you think, "Oh, she might be a sister. She might >> Yeah.

[00:05:12]>> She might be a believer. She might be um and that might be a Bible verse there, but the the culture overall is a culture uh that hates beauty, >> Mhm.

[00:05:22]>> that is embracing degradation, that doesn't like loveliness.

[00:05:27]>> Mhm.

[00:05:28]>> Uh you know, it's So, the culture is heading in the wrong direction. And even if I thought a tattoo in and of itself was lawful, I don't want to do that now.

[00:05:40]>> Mhm.

[00:05:40]>> Right. The illustration I read somewhere is is if there's 12 clowns in the circus ring, you can jump down there and start quoting Shakespeare, but to the audience you're just the 13th clown. They've set the context for the the whole thing. And uh Christians, evangelical Christians, have been running along behind the world 5 years later, anything you can do we can do worse.

[00:06:05]Um uh and we just really need to get out of that copycat mode. And but I would start by attacking tattoo culture.

[00:06:14]>> Right. And it seems like um Becca's done this I think in her um uh the Canon series she did on beauty and aesthetics, where I think she just put up two pictures and all she asked was um you know, it was a picture of a guy in a uh flannel and then a guy in a suit and the question was which one of these guys is more likely to work with his hands.

[00:06:35]>> Mhm.

[00:06:35]>> And and she says it you you may be wrong. The guy in the suit [clears throat] may actually be a great mechanic.

[00:06:41]>> Right.

[00:06:41]>> And he's just dressed up for a wedding and the guy in the flannel may be some kind of you know, >> lumbersexual guy.

[00:06:46]>> lumbersexual suit guy.

[00:06:48]But the point is but the point she's trying to make is but everybody guesses the same way.

[00:06:53]>> Right.

[00:06:53]>> The meaning is sort of set already even if you could be wrong in any individual instance.

[00:06:58]>> Right.

[00:06:58]>> Um the meaning is set and and we know what the meaning is. Every everybody agrees on it. Everybody can recognize it. Seems like there'd be a similar application in this circumstance.

[00:07:07]>> Clothing Clothing is language.

[00:07:10]>> Yes.

[00:07:10]>> Tattoos are language. Even even tattoos that don't say anything are communication. You're communicating something. And is it what you want to be communicating? At the same time, uh I don't have this is my cultural analysis and I if if someone in the congregation went and got a tattoo, they're not going to be brought up on charges.

[00:07:33]>> Discipline >> It's not a church discipline thing.

[00:07:36]>> But what would you say as a pastor, um if someone starts to get a bunch of tattoos, if you got a young guy or young gal who starts to you know, make an arm sleeve over time.

[00:07:45]>> Yeah.

[00:07:46]>> Um I look at that pastorally and think there's probably something else under like there's um there's something under there. I remember in seminary one time um one of our pastors uh put a picture up on the on uh just a screen and it was a guy who was tatted up with a lot of piercings and he said, "When you look at this, what do you think?"

[00:08:03]And everybody kind of went around and gave answers. He said, "I look up that and said and think, where was dad?

[00:08:09]Where is dad?"

[00:08:09]>> Mhm.

[00:08:10]>> Um in other words, there's daddy issues that are coming out in the piercings and the tats that um is almost that it's a good bet even if even if you then discover like this guy might say, "No, I had a great relationship with my dad.

[00:08:22]That's why I got the the sleeve and I'm trying to honor him."

[00:08:24]>> Right.

[00:08:24]>> Um it's still the case that nine times out of 10 there's something else going on that needs to be >> Right.

[00:08:32]>> Number one, I don't think it does honor him. So, number two uh the fact that he wants to honor his dad doesn't mean that he's not trying to fill up an ache.

[00:08:40]>> Mhm.

[00:08:40]>> The you know, there's some issue there.

[00:08:42]It might not be a hostile issue. It might be uh wanting to uh prove an acceptance or prove prove himself in some way. Um and this remind you might remind me of a commercial I saw many years ago. It's a great commercial in that I remember it. It's a bad commercial that I don't remember what it was advertising.

[00:09:03]>> [laughter] >> Right.

[00:09:04]>> It's one of those There was a couple of guys sitting on a park bench and this girl walks by clanks by, you know. Um dog collar and all sorts of metal in weird places and tatted up and she clink clank clink clank goes by. And then one of the guys gets up from the park bench and yells off screen after her, "He can't hurt you anymore."

[00:09:26]>> [laughter] >> Right.

[00:09:28]>> And oftentimes >> Yes.

[00:09:29]>> comedians or jokes like that in the world, they they're they see what it is.

[00:09:33]They see what it is.

[00:09:35]>> Yeah, they they know what's actually going on there and are able to say it in ways that Christian pastors sometimes are reluctant to actually put their finger on it cuz they don't want to offend somebody or hurt somebody's feelings or >> Right. And also, incidentally, while we're here, this is one of the reasons I've um written a few novels >> Mhm.

[00:09:52]>> is I can say things in a novel >> You throw it into the third person and the story and you can recognize the characters and then you people go, "Well, who are you dressed up like?"

[00:10:02]>> Right.

[00:10:02]>> Um who are you what what costume are you wearing?