I am a Christian and I have tattoos, beautiful tattoos. The picture with this blog is one of my most recent ones. My tattoos mean something to me and represent spiritual aspects of my life. I have a great tattoo artist named Brian who I respect as a person and as a friend. I also have several Christian friends who also see Brian and we have truly enjoyed getting to know him and his fellow artists as people. My tattoo artist is a Christian and I know of at least two other tattoo artists in the Oklahoma City area who are Christians and there are probably more. My church has many people who have tattoos and guess what? We love our tattoos!
You see we as the church and as individuals have spent far too long ostracizing people and judging people based on something we really haven't understood.
The subsequent misunderstanding comes from a verse in Old Testament law in Leviticus Chapter 19 verse 28: "You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves." The subsequent judging comes from self-righteousness.
Now the culture around the Jews at the time did a lot of cutting, scarring and blood letting for various rituals, some of those for the dead but not all - some in worship to their gods, the same gods who required human sacrifice such as Baal, Ashtoreth and Molech (look them up sometime - they aren't the nicest fellows and I sure wouldn't worship them if I had a choice).
We, here in America in the 21st century, do not do such things for our dead and most people do not participate in these kinds of other rituals for any god. Yes, this is America and aside from human sacrifice as that is now considered murder, we have the freedom to worship how we choose.
Is tattooing evil? I would like to propose and I believe tattooing is not evil. Tattooing today is different and this is not Leviticus. I don't go to the tattoo shop and offer alms to a god in order to get a tattoo. I don't worship Baal or any of those other gods for that matter.
I go to get a tattoo to get something meaningful and beautiful to me.
Is tattooing safe? Yes. I have been to two tattoo shops here in the Oklahoma City area since I started getting tattoos and I have been impressed with their professionalism and how they handle everything. I'm kinda partial and this is a shameless plug (and that's okay) but the tattoo shop I got to, Good Times Tattoo in Nicoma Park, OK (a suburb of Oklahoma City) is my shop now and has been since January of this year. As I've said before they are great people! If you are ever in the area and need or want a tattoo, go see them. You won't be disappointed.
I am a Christian and I love my tattoos and that is okay.
Until next time,
Elizabeth