Good Answers to Good Questions by Chris Huston

Author:Chris Huston
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-68047-991-1
Publisher: Covenant Communications, Inc.
Published: 2016-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

1 Corinthians 6:19

Your body is the temple of God; it belongs to God

1 Timothy 2:9

Dress modestly and avoid costly clothing

Question #27: Why don’t you have any tattoos/body piercings/cool hair coloring?

When we talk about tattoos, piercings, and hair colors that defy nature, we are ultimately talking about fads. Fads come in all types of colors, traits, and trends. They show up in clothes, hairstyles, and unusual behavior—everything from Depression-era dance marathons to the phone-booth stuffing of the fifties. Through the years we’ve moved from flower children to valley girls, from saggy pants to Tickle Me Elmo, and from flash mobs to the Harlem Shake.

In the end, fads are usually mindless and, if we’re being honest, more than a little dumb, but at the time they seem important and relevant. The best thing to be said about fads is that they are temporary. They flare up, burn brightly in the social order for a time, then disappear until they resurface as an object of mockery by the children of those who remember it all with head-shaking fondness. We see the pictures of the seventies’ fashions and mutton-chop sideburns, and wonder, “What were they thinking?” Those who lived during those times may look at their own pictures and wonder the same thing.

But fads have always been something from which we can easily recover—just another brief run of social foolishness, inevitably cured by changing your hairstyle or sending a box of your what-was-I-thinking wardrobe off to Deseret Industries or the Salvation Army. But then came the fad of tattoos.

The popularity of tattoos has exploded over the last generation—creating a $1.6 billion yearly industry. The numbers are convincing: As of 2013, only 14 percent of Americans have a tattoo, but for those between eighteen and forty the number hovers just below 40 percent for both men and women.56 And unlike other fads involving personal appearance, once inked into human skin, tattoos aren’t going anywhere. At least not without a fight. Tattoo removal typically requires 6–8 sessions scheduled about 7 weeks apart, at a cost of $100–250 per session.57

Recognizing the faddish nature of tattoos, body piercings, and other forms of extreme appearance,58 Church leaders have long counseled against such practices and against tattoos in particular.59

But what of those who received tattoos before making the decision to be baptized? For decades, Church members have been conditioned to see tattoos as a social and spiritual negative—something to be avoided—and sometimes we have extended that avoidance not just to tattoos but to the people who wear them. And now many in the Church must wrestle with an uncomfortable truth: because so many people in the world today have tattoos, many of those joining the Church have them too.

There is no gracious way to say this. I have seen instance after instance of Church members refusing to fully accept tattooed new members. Not that their refusal is outright, but I have seen judgmental members dish out a frosty warmth and pained handshake to those who are “tatted up.” And after our converts receive this unaccepting acceptance for a few weeks or months, they tend to drift away.

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