God’s Call For Virgin Skin … Tattoos in their Broader Historical and Cultural Context (#5)

Proverbs 22:28 “Do not move the ancient boundary Which your fathers have set.“

“In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.'”

G. K. Chesterton

When I was a boy, a short 45 years ago, I almost never saw a tattoo. There was one exception. Mr. Welty, who lived down the road a couple miles, had been a sailor and had a tattoo. Mr. Welty was a nice man but had the gruffness of a former Swabby.  He had two sons who were my friends and whenever I went over to the Weltys to see Hal and Craig I couldn’t get my eyes off of that anchor tatted on their Dad’s forearm.  At least I think it was an anchor. 45 years ago is a long time.

Now, nobody ever sat me down, as I recall, and taught me of the impropriety of tattoos. It was just something known that people with tattoos were to be avoided. Good Christian people didn’t get tattoos.

Now of course 45 years later I understand that one can have a “past” and so have a tattoo and still be Christian. Nothing I have said in this series should be construed that one can’t be saved and owned by Christ if they have tattoos. That would be just ridiculous. No, the point in this series is, and has been, that biblical Christians don’t pant and hanker after tattoos since they are not biblical and are associated with paganism. Let me say this again. Having a tattoo is not an unpardonable sin any more than doing anything else stupid in one’s regrettable youth is an unpardonable sin.

If we look at the history of tattoos we learn that even the word itself comes to us from a pagan milieu as the word was brought to the West upon the return of Captain Cook’s 18th century voyage to Tahiti. Originally as “tatau” the word morphed into its phonetic spelling.  Though the word had been introduced to the English lexicon the practice was known to our people in antiquity in pre-Christian times.  Both the Greeks and the Romans embraced the use of tattoos or “stigmata” as tattoos were called then. As we have noted elsewhere the stigmata (or tattoos as we know call them) were primarily used then as a means to mark out as identifying with a religious sect or as a brand signifying ownership whether as slave or criminal. So true was the branding aspect of this that even Ptolemy IV (221-205 B.C), a Pharaoh during the Ptolemaic times in Egypt, was said to bear stigmata (tattoos) of ivy leaves to communicate Ptolemy’s devotion to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and the patron deity of the royal house at that time.

The fashion of wearing stigmata (tattoos) was also not unusual in Roman times and was adopted by soldiers of Rome who then exported the stigmata across the Roman Empire. This continued for centuries until the rise of Christianity. With the rise of Christianity the correlation of stigmata and tattoos with witchcraft and paganism was made and so, on the that basis and upon the basis that tattoos were believed to disfigure that (which was) made in God’s image, tattoos were finally banned by Emperor Constantine in 325 A.D. In doing this the Emperor Constantine was self consciously reinforcing the biblical ban on tattooing.

The tattoo, as we hinted above, was reintroduced to the West via Captain Cook’s exploration. In “Mutiny on the Bounty” tattooing becomes a sub-theme that works through the book. In some of the film versions, tattoos are clearly part of the process, along with the lust for strange flesh, whereby Mr. Fletcher Christian abandons his ties to Captain Bligh and civilization.

As Mr. Dan Brannan informs us in his fine article, “Tattoos & Taboos: The Marilyn Mansonization of the Church,”

https://faithandheritage.com/2016/05/tattoos-taboos-the-marilyn-mansonization-of-the-church/


“But the heathen connotation of tattoos was still taken entirely for granted a century later in Melville’s Moby Dick (1851), wherein we read of captain Ahab’s descent into madness leading to a renouncement of the Christian faith punctuated by a ceremonial session of tattooing by which Ahab says he has joined his “heathen brothers” – Polynesian, Amerind, and African harpooners. Which is to say that it was still, mid-nineteenth century, comprehended as sacrilege tantamount to selling one’s soul to the devil.”

Indeed, legally speaking, tattooing is still eyed with suspicion as seen in the fact that at least 45 states have laws prohibiting minors from getting tattoos, though most allow tattooing minors if a parent or legal guardian is present.

So, given all this background of the Christian West it was not surprising that as a boy, and a son of Western more’s and norms I would have absorbed an instinctual revulsion for that tattoo on Mr. Welty’s forearm.

But of course all that has changed in the last 40 years or so and it causes me, at least, to ask, “what changed that in such a short time that tattoos went from a taboo to being all the rage?

The only answer here possible is that in those 40 years the West has had a whole scale change of a religion. Any time a people’s more’s, norms, and ethics change the way that the more’s, norms, and ethics of the West have changed you know that a change in institutional religion has occurred. Anything the defines right and wrong and defines good and evil is a religion. We once had a religion that defined tattoos as wrong. We now have a religion that defines tattoos as good. This didn’t just happen without a change of religion.

Now, of course a predominance of people would deny this. I would guess that even the predominance of the clergy would deny this. What tends to happen when a people’s institutional religion is whole sale changed out this rapidly the way that our institutional religion has been changed out is to reinterpret the former faith (in this case, Christianity) in light of the new faith (in this case Cultural Marxism). Cultural Marxism is America’s new Institutional religion and Cultural Marxism says tattoos are fashionable and because Christianity is being reinterpreted through Cultural Marxist categories a large percentage of the Church as well as many “Ministers” are now chiming in with one voice with the Cultural Marxists to sanctify tattoos as a positive good.

The Cultural Marxists spoke long ago about the need for a long march through the Western institutions and Western cultural infrastructure. The Cultural Marxist believed and realized that unless culture was changed from the ground up there could be no way they could achieve destruction of biblical Christianity and the implementation of their halcyon goal of the satanic egalitarian social order.  The signs of our Cultural Marxism civil religion are all about us as well as the sign that Cultural Marxism has displaced biblical Christianity as our “guidance providing social order religious North Star.”

In my lifetime tattoos, especially for and on Christians, were once counted as “taboo.” Now they are counted as socially acceptable and now the protest against them is “taboo.” In my lifetime sodomy had gone from a wicked love that dare not speak its name to the enriching love that won’t shut the hell up.  In my lifetime body modification piercing has gone from a wickedness unheard of to a positive good that finds the beach doubling as a Iron salvage yard during the summer. In my lifetime a political candidate with a divorce in his background was scandalous. Now we have a Republican nominee with two divorces in his background not to mention being now married to a former centerfold of a men’s magazine. In my lifetime Churches which had women in the pulpits were sedulously avoided. Now however if someone attends a church with a woman minister it is a sign of how enlightened the parishioner is. And we haven’t even begun to speak of Trannies, women in combat roles, fashion or the lack thereof, dyed hair, cowardly clergy who refuse to engage on these issues, and any number of other things that were once considered socially malevolent. Clearly we have lived through a religious revolution. What were once taboos now have a waiting line for club membership. Indeed the only taboo today is to do what I’m doing now, to wit, publicly advocating that these things should still be taboo.  One can now be a male tran-sexual with body modification in a fifth marriage to a female transgender who fought door to door combat in Fallujah and everyone will fall all over themselves to make such people feel welcome at family reunions but let someone show up at the family reunion saying these things are not Christian and “katy bar the door.”

All this, from the casual acceptance of tattoos by Christians to John marrying Steve and everything in between can be explained by the changing out of the Western Civilization of Christianity for the faith of Cultural Marxism.

It may be the case that tattoos are only the tip of the iceberg. It may be, as compared with all the other perversions I listed, that it is not that bad of a thing. It may be that a 18 year old young lady getting tatted with a butterfly or a hummingbird may not be that terrible in the total scheme of the current Kulturkampf that we are living through but it is significant enough for me to want to at least tease out the battle lines and the meaning of being tattooed in the largest possible context.

So, we have moved the ancient boundary stone set by our Fathers that God warned against us doing so, and contra Chesterton, we have removed fences we had no right in removing since we never understood why they were present in the first place.

And as a social order we are now, institutionally and structurally speaking, anti-Christ for doing so.

 

Answering a young lady’s misdirected accusations of bad manners

This from a young ladies blog,

“I am ashamed that the commenters were so rude and condescending to one another and, if I were an unbeliever, I would not be able to believe in a God whose followers were so mean to each other let alone someone who is not of like faith. I would question what Christians are really about. I would laugh at them. From the outside looking in I would think Christianity was a front for cutting one another down and let’s face it, no one wants to be a part of something like that. I am disappointed in the actions by so many of my followers so on the grounds of testimony I am taking the video down…. No matter what you believe in tattoos (or anything else for that matter) you should not be so exasperated to prove your point that you ruin your testimony.”

I was privy to this discussion and am one of the ones that the young lady in questions is trying to call on the carpet. Unfortunately, being a young lady there are several things that she doesn’t take into consideration.

First, there is a place and a time for direct words to both Wolves and wolves in sheep’s clothing. John Calvin, the great 16th century Reformer hits on this reality when he wrote,

“The pastor ought to have two voices: one for gathering the sheep, and another for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves. The Scripture supplies him with the means of doing both; for he who is deeply skilled in it will be able both to govern those who are teachable, and to refute the enemies of the truth.

It simply is the case that direct language and even dismissive language has to be used sometimes in the context of polemics. Only an ignorance of both Scripture and Church History would contend otherwise. Often times Christianity is indeed “a front for cutting down one another,” just as St. Paul cut down the Judaizers in the book of Galatians, just as Jesus cut down the Lawyers in the Gospels, just as Elijah cut down the prophets of false Gods on Mt. Carmel. If there are those who do not desire to be part of a belief system that will defend itself from wolves then let them join some other false belief system. If there are those who think that all manly defenses of Christianity are improper then there may be a need for them to re-think their Christianity.

Second, the real problem here is that advocating sporting a tattoo, whether directly or indirectly, is that which provides the real “ruining of one’s testimony.” (See previous series, “God’s Call for Virgin Skin.”) To complain that a direct polemical defense of the faith is a “ruining of one’s testimony” while embracing the “ruining testimony” of advocating for tattoos is like complaining about people who play with matches all the while your hair on fire.

So, while we can appreciate the young lady in question desire for the Christian faith to be promulgated we would say that her efforts are really working to the exact opposite end that she so earnestly desires.

 

 

God’s Call For Virgin Skin … Baptism and Tattoos (#4)

Titus 3:5 He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

I Corinthians 12:13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body–whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free–and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

In teaching the covenant children on Baptism I often times will us the illustration that Baptism is like God’s branding us with His mark of ownership. I will tell them just as a Rancher might brand his cattle, so God brands us with the mark of Baptism that is indelible to His eyes. When He looks at us He sees that we are marked with His mark and so treats us as His own.

In Baptism we are marked with God’s mark. It is the mark wherein we find our identity. It is the only mark that we need have placed upon us. Indeed, by marking ourselves with other permanent marks it could be easily argued that we are putting marks on ourselves that are in identity competition with God’s mark of Baptism.

In this vein it is interesting that historically tattoos have been used as an identifying mark that one belongs to this or that god. The gods were thought to have required that their people be marked with their mark. Of course, today no one in the modern West would, upon receiving a tattoo, think that they were doing so as a mark of belonging to some ancient tribal deity but perhaps worse yet what being tatted today demonstrates and signals is the god-like power one seizes over one’s own body.  If one views themselves as autonomous beings then they will mark themselves with their own marks. This is understandable but the Christian who has been marked with God’s mark of Baptism should not want to be marked with any other mark.

Not only should they not want to be marked with any other mark they are forbidden to be marked out with any other mark. The Priest class in the Old Testament was not allowed to be tattooed, like the pagans around them,

Leviticus 21:5 They (the Priests) shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts on their body.

This is relevant to those who profess Christ today who resolve to be tattooed because in the New Testament it is the Church and Christians who are identified as God’s Priest class.

I Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

All God’s people today are prophets, priests, and kings under sovereign God, and so all God’s people today, as God’s Priests, are proscribed by God from making any cuts on their body. And why should they want any other marks on their bodies since they’ve been marked by their God in Baptism?

Why this desire, by professing Christians, for a further marking besides God’s mark of Baptism? One wonders if the increase of tattooing isn’t due to God’s people not understanding their identity in Christ. In so many ways Westerners have been separated and stripped from, and of, their Christian history — and so their identity — that perhaps, at some level, the reason body modification is being pursued by Christians so intently is because they are trying to find a meaning that has eluded them. The modern Western man has been deracinated to the point that he no longer is even sure about gender, and is now treated as a interchangeable cog in a vast impersonal machine culture. Given that, it is not a wonder that the modern Western man, be he Christian or non Christian, is exploring all avenues, including tattooing, to imbue his life with some possible meaning.

Of course modern Western man does not speak to himself in such terms. He probably couldn’t and wouldn’t articulate his thinking (if he even thinks about it at all) in such a way. For modern man tattooing one’s self is just what people do. Modern man would insist that tattooing doesn’t mean anything except, “it’s cool and it’s pretty and my peers are doing it and I want to fit in.”

However, if Christians who are also Moderns, had explained to them what God’s mark of Baptism means then just possibly they would see that pursuing any other mark, besides the mark of Baptism, would be a pursuing of a counter claim by a different god.

God’s Call for Virgin Skin … A Few Sociological Observations

Now, that I’ve set the table regarding tattoos, demonstrating from Scripture that tattoos are not biblical in and of themselves (#1 in the series), nor does tatting up reflect the teleological end to which Christians are called (#2 in series), I’d like to take some time looking at a few sociological implications of tattoos, particularly on beautiful women. Some of this analysis owes its insights into what today is called the “manosphere.” This is a sociological movement, that is seldom Christian, but does sometimes offer some interesting insights into what current male – female relationships have devolved into given this current culture of feminism. I’ve read a couple of their books and I keep my finger on the pulse of some of their better known blogs.

It needs to be remembered that these are general observations which means that they are posited as generally true. There is no doubt that exceptions will exist to these general observations. As such this is a case of, “if the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.”

1.) Tattoos on a single woman tilts the “I-am-easy-meter” needle towards full on easy.   Women with Tatts signal to men on the lower end of the social scale … “Come see about me.”

A comment left on one of the “manosphere sites,” read,

Someone already mentioned that tattoos are a tell-tale indicator of impulsive behavior, and short-sightedness. Most likely will be an easy score on the first date.

2.) Beautiful women subconsciously, as impressed upon them by the culture, are guilt ridden over their beauty. One means of reducing that guilt is to reduce their beauty by tramp stamping themselves with tatts.

Heartsite Chateau adds on this score,

“Tattoos in the current year could be seen as a sort of “maimgeld” (i.e. – self-uglifying): the tribute that white women pay in self-disfigurement to a growing Diversitopia they live in that both covets the white women’s exquisite natural looks and hates it to the verge of eliminationist rage.”

3.) Beautiful women with tatts is one means by which they contribute to the Babel melange where equality is the measurement of virtue. If they can’t change their beauty to an acceptable base line ugliness that doesn’t clearly place them in the above average class, they can at least lower themselves into the undifferentiated bricolage culture by tatting up and so be found acceptable according to egalitarian cultural standards.

Remember, this culture is all about sinking itself into a un-diversified egalitarian garbage scow where each human cog is equal to each other human cog. This requires, from beautiful women, a disintegration downward into ugliness. Tatts are one means to accomplish this goal.

4.) Beautiful women with tattoos no longer stand out as advantaged or privileged by that beauty. The greatest crime in this culture, for guilt ridden beauties, is to be consumers of what we might call “attraction privilege.” By tatting up, beautiful women negate the loathed “attraction privilege” they would otherwise carry.

5.) In this fame culture where it seems that everyone wants to be noticed, tattoos are one way women can seek being noticed. Other reasons for getting a tattoo besides wanting notice, are minimal (i.e.– burn victims). Tattoos, like billboards, scream, “look at me.” Sociologically speaking, then, tattoos fit in well with our current narcissistic culture. Some might counter that some people get tattoos where they can’t be seen publicly but the response to that may be, “Why bother?”

The last thing narcissists need is to have their narcissism fed.

It is clear, upon reviewing this, that many of these points are pointing towards how female tattoos are serving a Cultural Marxist egalitarian order where ugliness is exalted at the cost of uglying down beautiful women. A couple of the other points above underscore the “tramp stamp” quotient. Women with tatts are simply seen as lacking sexual virtue by the manosphere. It doesn’t matter what tatted women think about their tatts. What matters is that this is what men think of tatted women. Tatts on females are a dog whistle for sexual advance from men.

 

God’s Call for Virgin Skin … Teleology and Tatts

The external appearance of the people should reflect their internal status as the chosen and holy people of God (Dt. 14:1-2). Paul uses a similar line of argument in I Cor. 6. The body of the believer belongs to Christ, therefore, “glorify God in your body.”

Gordon J. Wenham 
British OT Scholar 
Commentary on Leviticus

When we talk about teleology we are talking about the goal, end, or purpose of whatever is in question. When we talk about the teleology of a knife we would say its end, purpose or goal, is to cut or stab. If we were to talk about the teleology of a book we would say it is to inform, instruct or amuse. When we talk about the teleology of man we know that it is to glorify God by fully enjoying Him forever.

Proper teleology is part of the substance of Christian worldview. When we talk about teleology in relation to our study of man (anthropology) we inquire about the end for which man was made.

The “image laws” that we find in Leviticus 19, wherein God communicates how His people are to be Holy (set apart) in their physical selves and even in their fashions, is part of the answer to a biblical teleology for anthropology.  Many assume because they can’t understand the general equity in such laws as Leviticus 19 therefore they assume such laws are void. To avoid this is why God gave some to the Church to be Pastors.

Leviticus 19 when read in light of all of Scripture according to the “anaologia fidei” …  when read in conjunction with verses like I Corinthians 6:19-20 and verses like Ephesians 5:27f we begin to see the proper teleology for man and so begin to understand what man was created for and so that for which fallen man is re-created.

The intent of God, for man, in terms of man’s teleology, has always been to present unto Himself a people without spot, wrinkle, blemish or any such thing (Eph. 5:27). This is put on display in the ministry of Christ with the bringing in of His Kingdom as He brings wellness, health, and restoration via His Kingdom ministry to the palsied, the blind, the halt, and the deaf.   All Christ’s healing, resurrections of the dead, delivery from demon possession, and forgiveness of sins was to communicate that the teleology of man, in today’s lingo, has always been human flourishing. Christ came to give life that was and is abundant.

Some want to reduce this prospect of Kingdom life without wrinkle, spot, or blemish to some kind of spiritual realm, so that it is our souls or our spirits alone, which are blemish free. We to often forget that the body has been redeemed likewise. Now, before I am accused of arguing that there is automatic physical healing in the atonement, I fully understand that not all physical blemishes upon God’s people are done away in this life. The last enemy to be defeated is death. My argument here is that if the teleology of man is wholeness, shalom, and well-being then that includes man’s body as well as his soul. Our corporeal selves are to be a reflection of our incorporeal selves and so for the Christian to pursue spots and blemishes upon their skin is a contradiction to Christ’s ultimate intent to present us without spot, wrinkle, blemish, or any such thing.

That this is no stretch notice the connection in Deuteronomy 14:1-2 between God’s people being Holy with their corporeal wholeness and well being.

Deuteronomy 14 “You are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. 2 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

It wasn’t just that God was saving a people so their souls would be without spot, wrinkle, blemish or any such thing. He was saving a people who would be physically unmarred unless He Himself, in His providence, decided to mar them physically.  Even then, in the fullness of the Father’s Kingdom, those who God had marred in His providence would be physically whole again. This is the teleology of the Saints.

God’s people remain, as Deuteronomy 14 teaches, a people who are his possession,

 I Peter 2:9 — But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Notice both in Deuteronomy 14 and in I Peter 2 this possession language is used. In Deuteronomy God’s claim of possession follows his prohibition upon cutting. (We looked at this in some depth in the previous entry.) Are we to believe in I Peter God likewise claims possession but now doesn’t care about cutting and scarification? Did Jesus come to die for the sins of His people so that they could now scarify themselves in tattooing? God doesn’t own for Himself a people in the Old Testament who scarify themselves and yet in the New Testament God does own for Himself a people who do go out of the way to scarify themselves via tattooing?

When the modern Church disregards God’s teleology for man’s physical wholeness and so allows and even advocates for scarification and tattooing the Modern Church is confessing a Gnostic Christianity. Gnosticism, the Church’s first, and still present,  and now long abiding heresy taught that the corporeal world was unimportant. All that was important was our spiritual selves. The body was alienated from a spiritual salvation. Sometimes, in Gnostic quarters, it was explained that the spirit of man was entombed in the evil corporeal quarters that was man’s body. Because the spirit was all that was important, it didn’t matter what a person’s body did or was involved in. The Gnostic saw the flesh at best as meaningless and at worse as positive evil. If the flesh is meaningless then anything can be done with it or to it including scarification and tattooing.

But this was not to be so among God’s people. God’s claim was upon man both body and soul. This is why the Continental Reformed have always confessed,

“That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death —to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.”

This is why Wenham can say in our introductory quote that,

“The external appearance of the people should reflect their internal status as the chosen and holy people of God.”

My body belongs to Christ. It should reflect my internal status as redeemed, and so chosen and holy. What I do to my body is significant and if God tells me that my body is His Temple possession and significant in terms of communicating His teleology for me then who I am to scarify or tattoo my body and so contradict Him? God calls us to serve Him with the whole man, body and soul, and when we tattoo ourselves we are confessing a worldview that has a teleology component that is contrary to a Christian teleology and a Christian worldview. We are contradicting the abundant life Christ promised to give.

In the future installments I hope to get to some history of the tattoo as well as cultural considerations that are wrapped up in tattooing.