Is Leviticus ink-compatible?

I love tattoos. Even at the twilight of my youthful rebelliousness (27 years old), I think about getting one.

My uber-cool brother has two, and his beautiful and equally uber-cool girlfriend has ink winding from the middle of both forearms and linked across her upper chest. I play basketball with some Christian guys who have day jobs as bankers, salesmen, and so on, and many of them have a small ichthys (“Jesus fish”) somewhere on their body. Many musicians I work with, Christian or not, have a ton of ink.

To express something visually and permanently on your body is en vogue.

As fashionable and common as tattoos are today, they’re still stigmatized in Christian culture. At first I wanted to write a Viewpoint on smoking, but according to my research, a butterfly drawn on your shoulder is of more concern than lung cancer. There’s ten times more online research and debate over tattoos on Christians than on smoking by Christians.

Tattoos are a big deal. Take the case of Tasha Childress of Bakersfield, Cal. In February 2007, she was denied consultation for her 16-month-old daughter’s ear infection by Christian Medical Services because Childress (not her daughter) had tattoos behind her ears. Her tats weren’t insulting or derogatory, they were just there and that was enough.

A Christian doctor felt so strongly about tattoos that he made a faith-based decision to deny a small child medical treatment. Why?

Leviticus, of course. Specifically, Leviticus 19:28: “Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves.” Out of context, the instruction seems clear. When someone quotes this verse, however, a smart aleck 27-year-old tattoo enthusiast will typically rejoinder with Leviticus 19:27, “Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard,” while inspecting the other person’s chin and sideburns.

A theologically literate observer might point out to both sides that these laws are in reference to the funeral rites of pagans at the time and should therefore be contextualized as such. But there’s a lot of stuff in the Old Testament that’s tricky to apply in a modern context. In the same book, God condemns wearing poly blend shirts (19:19), eating non-fish seafood (11:9), and keeping debts more than seven years (25:8–25; feel free to send a copy of this passage to your bank manager in lieu of your next mortgage payment).

If there are so many laws in Leviticus, why do tattoos get so much attention?

I think we find tattoos (ones that aren’t designed to be satanic or obscene) more objectionable than baby faces or calamari because we believe they represent a lifestyle incompatible with Christ-following. We assume people with ink are wild and short-sighted.

But Jesus taught us to look beyond outward appearances. In his earthly ministry, Christ reached out to repentant people with open hearts, and gravitated towards folks who looked like they didn’t belong (Jairus the Pharisee, the centurion with a sick servant, the Samaritan woman, Levi the tax collector).

Jesus didn’t care about their beards or their eating habits, and he didn’t ask them to change their appearance. He asked them to change the way they thought – about others and about themselves. He required them to follow and listen. Jesus wanted those folks to be whole – to be part of community.

Back to Leviticus. Decontextualizing Scripture to justify social discomfort isn’t condemned in Leviticus, but I have a feeling it’s not good practice. Can we point to one law in a long list and say, “You have to follow this one, but not the others?”

I don’t think God is calling us to boycott Red Lobster. I think Levitical laws referenced a specific place and time. And I think Jesus calls us to work against injustice more than he calls us to work against body art.

In the meantime, can we please drop our social pretenses and see past the ink? There are people under there. The body of Christ is under there.

Kerry O’Brien is a member of Waterloo (Ont.) MB Church. He’s a musician who does investment advising in his spare time (usually between 9–5).

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