Beginning of the End

It is the Friday before the new students turn up to Moorlands Bible College, I have started a fresh blog, we have new housemates, I am back to playing bass and on top of all that I am now a third year student. This is the beginning of the end! 

As I sit here in my cupboard room listening to the dulcet tones of Mayhem's 'De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas' I am reminded of the day when I first arrived to the campus. At that time I was living in halls, had only visited the college once for my interview in August and really did not know what I was going in to. To be totally honest I didn't particularly know what the course I would be studying involved and wasn't nearly 100% on why I was there. 


I remember walking through the corridors with my meagre belongings thinking to myself, 'I'm really not going to find anyone here who likes metal, comic books and the bass am I. This is going to be a lonely three years...'. It turns out I found someone who liked one of the three, a couple of people are/were kind of into bass (maybe not as obsessively as I can be but you have to take what you can get in these situations) and semi-found someone who was into metal of some form. 


To be honest though, there is little that can knock your confidence in who you are more than being in a place where the individual aspect of your personality can't really thrive. Now don't get me wrong, that isn't to say that people don't want to let it thrive, just that when people are simply unable to passively (or, dare I say it, actively!) nurture a part of someone's identity the rest of the psyche can begin to question its validity. Curiously, it seems that the most important part of my identity, that which is rooted in Jesus Christ, is the one which should be thriving the most in this environment. It is, however, a constant struggle to feed that into the dying parts of who I am because the feeding line is a complex one. When something is so deeply rooted (metal for example) and it is unable to be nurtured effectively within the context of the deeper core (Christ) everything begins to suffer. 


We are a relational people, this is not a post encouraging people to attempt the nurture of personalities which they cannot effectively relate to but rather to suggest a new approach. 


When you recognise something within a person which you perhaps perceive as lonely, rather than either ignoring it or *shock horror* mocking it in a jovial manner think about the impact your words or lack thereof are having on that person. If you feel able, maybe ask them something about it, appear interested in something that they are rarely able to talk about or that you know they might be desperately wanting to talk to someone about (be it a gig, a new computer game, a new album, book, date, whatever). You don't need to be over-sensitive, most people can take a jibe or a stereotype, but don't let it overstay it's welcome. There is always a line to these things.


On the note of nurturing, metal and being relational there is always a chance that someone is going to show up in the new intake of first years who I can invite round to listen to metal with me. It's unlikely but you never know! It's going to be interesting next week, I think I'll post tomorrow discussing 'Moorlands Orientation Week Protocol' which could prove controversial!


For now I leave you with love,


The Rambler
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(Obscura - The Anticosmic Overload)

The Witness of Ink...

I’ll start this post as I mean to go on, I have tattoos. I am getting more tattoos. I do not consider this a contradiction to my faith. Right, now for the meat…

I have come up against some opposition with my tattoos, some say they don’t like the aesthetic nature of them (perfectly okay, everyone has their tastes) but they are willing to concede that it is my body and that there is nothing inherently wrong or sinful about a Christian getting tattooed. Others will claim that there is indeed something sinful about getting tattooed, either citing proof texts or invoking the importance of image. I hope to address some of these arguments in this post and I am more than happy for people to comment and either agree or disagree, let’s get healthy discussion going =]

Proof Text 1:

‘You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.’ Leviticus 19.28 (ESV)

Well… At first this seems like a pretty clear cut issue, but let us remember the first rule of giving a proof text; make sure you understand the context! If your agenda still makes sense with the surrounding verses included and the context recognised, your proof text is legit. So let’s try that shall we, just the two verses leading up to it:

‘You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.’ Leviticus 19.26 – 28 (ESV)

‘You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it.’

Hmm, we still kinda do that… oh, and doesn’t Paul say something about everything being permissible, not everything being beneficial and not causing your brother to stumble?

‘You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes.’

Occult stuff is covered heavily in the NT and elsewhere in the OT, seems like an obvious one really and most certainly not confined to Levitical law.

‘You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard.’

When did you last shave?

‘You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves.’
Wait… I find no references outside Levitical law to this… Um… Well, I guess I should stop shaving!

It is important as well to remember the context, the Israelites had just escaped from Egypt and were trying to remove themselves from the pagan practices of the Egyptians. One of these was to cut themselves on behalf of a dead relative to release the lifeblood. The restriction was to prevent pagan practice, the concept of tattooing as a witness wasn’t there (more on this later).

So it seems the argument from the Old Testament ends in either accepting it as an invalid argument or never shaving… Let’s move on.

Proof Text 2:

‘Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit!!!!’ 1 Corinthians 6.19 (ESV)

This is the only part of the verse that is ever quoted, the whole verse looks like this:

‘Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.’ 1 Corinthians 6.19 – 20

Wait, so what was he talking about that goes contrary to this?

‘Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.’

Critique

Although the context is sexual immorality, it does not mean that it isn’t true for other things and the prohibition of tattoos is for this reason.

Well, look at what Paul said, ‘EVERY OTHER SIN a person commits is outside the body’, so even if you consider tattoos a sin (which you won’t unless you also consider shaving a sin), the prohibition is not supported by this defense with the context being sexual immorality.

So it seems to me that Paul was not thinking of tattoos when he wrote this, if he did consider them a sin against the body he surely would have included it.

Non-Biblical Argument 1:
 

Getting tattoos is a form of self harm.

Well first of all people tend not to tattoo themselves… but let’s put that to one side. All I will say to this is ‘do you have piercings or do you consider them sinful?’.

The other question to ask is the difference in the nature of self-harm to the nature of tattoos, self-harm is often carried out in order to distract the harmer from some greater problem or difficulty. Tattoos are, from a Christian perspective, a form of witness and not a distraction from seeking help elsewhere or addressing personal problems. A poor link to make.

Non-Biblical Argument 2:

They don’t look very nice.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Many people don’t like long hair on men nowadays (many didn’t like it on me!) but hey, Jesus had long hair! (Poor argument I know, but go with it.)

Segway time… Who looks on the outside? Man. Who looks at the heart? God. What do you want someone who looks at the outside to see? Christ. Who is to say that tattoos cannot be an effective witness? The question someone with tattoos often gets is, ‘can I see your tattoos?’, then ‘Cool, what do they mean\what are they?’ – if I have a cross and ‘consummatum est’ in plain view I can’t really avoid the gospel message can I now!

This is not to say that tattoos are not for everyone, they are certainly still more effective as a witness in certain sub-cultures, but it is also not to say that if you have tattoos you must wave them around at every opportunity. The world is still coming around to accepting people with tattoos and not making character judgements. This does mean it can be harder to get jobs if you don’t dress appropriately (why I will not get tattoos I can never cover up), however if you’re sensible, you shouldn’t have a problem.

Tattoos are not a sin, you may not like the aesthetics but then some may not like the aesthetics of glasses and would rather wear contacts. I would ask two things of those who oppose Christians getting tattoos if you have been convinced by my arguments:

1) Please don’t make judgement calls about people with tattoos if you don’t know them, treat them the same as any other individual you might meet.
2) Remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that the ink in our skin is not only a form of permanent worship but a permanent witness to what Christ has done in us.

If you have not been convinced of my argument, feel free to comment and state your position but let us be respectful =]

Finally some advice for Christians with tattoos:

Although it seems like a good idea to show them off, it can hinder relationships. Remember that you have to recognise where you are and be appropriate for the situation. If you know that flashing tattoos in a certain context will cause offense, don’t do it. Just like you might dress appropriately for an occasion, cover up appropriately.

So to conclude, if you’re one of the priest’s from the line of Aaron and you’re thinking of marking your skin in any way which identifies you with a pagan religion/practice then I wouldn’t recommend it. Otherwise, it’s up to you.

For now I leave you with love,

The Rambler