Goodness. You’d almost think Lollapalooza had just pulled out of Moscow. The Palouse Blogosphere is popping with Reformed scholars weighing in on the sinfulness of tattoos, piercings, and other signs of — you guessed it — father hunger, sprinkled with a generous dose of sinful insecurity.
Specifically, He Whose Wisdom Must Not Be Questioned and his lovely wife, She From Whom All Things Femina Spring, have devoted considerable time recently to the subject of body adornments, the things they don’t like, disapprove of, and thus condemn as sinful in both origin (insecurity) and expression (wearing “the colors” of the Enemy’s team). A young woman, he says, who gets a tattoo, any tattoo, is a young woman desperately wounded by a neglectful, immature, un-masculine father. She’s insecure in her identity, both as a woman and, if applicable — which it certainly is in the feminized, culturally-compromised, whimpering Church As He Sees It — as a Christian. She may adorn her shoulder with an IXOYE, her ankle with a rose, her lower back with an intricate set of Celtic knots, or have inscribed, in Latin, the entire Decalogue on her upper back; all the same, she is thus adorned with proof that she lacks a Dad who’s on the Covenant ball, who disdains the Proverbs, believes not in the promises, and likely can’t grow a decent beard.
Same things for piercings. In Wilsonville, it’s laudable and lovely for women to pierce their ears and style their hair and wear makeup appropriate for making them pretty in their enduring and defining roles as The Glory Of Their Husbands. But a delicate diamond nose stud? Triple-pierced earlobes? An eyebrow anchored by a gold ring? That’s rebellion. That’s insecurity. That’s sin, and that’s — all together now — because of Father Hunger.
Boys who pierce, or boys who get tats, also manifest Father Hunger, in the form of the rebellion, insubordination, and desire to look “cool” that leads them downtown to nervously pick out a barbed-wire band for their skinny, rebellious, snotty upper arms, or head to the mall for tiny studs in their ears to show that they’re studs. We know, because Wilson tells us, that it’s mostly non-Covenant young men who do this sort of sissyish, gender-bending, rock-star-idolizing thing. The regenerate young man who chooses to look degenerate is in need of a good whack, or several, with the Proverbial rod of discipline, which, Wilson notes helpfully, ought to bring shame and grief to both father and son, with no balm of empathy offered by the congregation.
There’s no reason for me to state the obvious: Lots of pierced and tattooed people genuinely and deeply love Jesus. Isolating, judging and condemning them doesn’t serve the Church and certainly doesn’t evince a humble hand extended to those outside its walls. While I might find some piercings distasteful, and I only have three ear piercings myself, it’s not the piercing or inking itself that indicates anything more than an ability to withstand pain. I don’t have any tattoos, I don’t plan to get any tattoos, and I’m puzzled at some that I see (is an eight-inch Tinkerbell on the back really going to look good when you’re 80?). Nonetheless, if I see a young man walking down Third Street with a swastika tattooed on his shoulder, my evangelistic efforts will be energized by the swastika, not by the ink. If this sounds absurd to you, you’ve been, perhaps, too engrossed in praying imprecatory prayers to notice the Spirit’s movement in the world around you.
See, reasonable and mature Christians don’t judge outsiders on the basis of tats and studs, don’t condemn those in the pews on the basis of tats and studs, and reasonable and mature pastors don’t persist in dividing to conquer the congregations entrusted to them. The Apostle Paul chose to accommodate culture, without sinning, so he could simply do what the Lord told him to do: Preach the Gospel to sinners and open doors for the Holy Spirit to save souls.
What a wonderful thing it would be if that were even a low priority in the Christ Church/Logos field house overlooking apartments full of pierced, dreadlocked, and tattooed young people desperately needing an introduction to Jesus Christ.
Trust me. I’ll have more on this later.
I have read Mr. Wilson’s blog and how you read him is not how I read him. He has presented very good insights – particularly on tattoos – but also on actions in general. His point is that the action is only as good or bad as the intention behind it. And the same goes for tattoos. If a boy gets a tattoo to remind him of some great miracle in his life (like the case of the man who fell out of the top of a building but was unharmed), that is ok. If it is to spite his parents, that is not ok.
I think you have read too much into his piece.
And since it is your contention that everyone who disagrees with you must be slinging mud for “the Kirk” (whatever that means), I will have you know that I am not associated with the Kirk. If you follow my username on Orkut, you will know who I am.
Comment by Ashwin — August 5, 2009 @ 6:33 pm
We certainly do read things differently, don’t we? I think I’ve represented well what Wilson says, and, in answer to your secondary comments, I don’t presume that every critic is a Kirker (“Kirk” is the Scottish word for Church; it’s a Celtic heritage thing, I guess, to appropriate it for themselves — which they do). I don’t know how to follow your username on “Orkut,” so perhaps you might want to just introduce yourself. Thanks for your comment.
Keely
Comment by Keely Emerine Mix — August 5, 2009 @ 10:03 pm
Amen, my dear.
Bev
Comment by Anonymous — August 6, 2009 @ 3:52 am