You couldn't have found a better way to make earrings less beautiful

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Fraser,
Trinity Reformed Baptist Church
Hamilton, New Zealand.

Perg, you repeatedly bring up animism as one of the building blocks for your theory, yet before I went to bed last night I thought about the cultures Israel was surrounded with while that law was given, and I couldn't think of any that were animistic. Whom did you have in mind?

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Tim Vaughan, 48 years old, member Redeemer OPC, Santa Maria CA.

Ha, sorry to make it sound unattractive.

I was trying to stress the link that many things that people do for beauty either scars or alters the body. My assertion is that we are allowed to scar, modify or alter the body for beauty, but not for tribal ritualism or animism.



Weight loss,
earings, nose rings, belly rings, lip piercings,
make up,
scarification,
plucking eyebrows,
and
tattoes

All of these things are body modifications and I think that these things are not sinful per se.


Though, I would say that Japanese foot binding made Japanese women very unhealthy in gait and this might be per se sinful as it cripples the body instead of merely scars or modifies it.

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Pergamum


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?"
-- David Livingstone

They worshipped the baals. And they performed rituals to try to control the spirit world. They believed in more than one gods and that these gods were active in the world and often needed to be appeased. They were pagan and probably animistic. If you delete and change every time I use the word animism and replace it with pagan, I don't think my theory suffers.

If there is a religious element to tattoes than a case could be made for them being sinful.





NOTE: One can even remember the dead perhaps with a tattoo by writing "Mom, 1955-2000" in sort of a perm. memorial. But this gets closer to the Leviticius passage and I am not arguing for this but only for regular butterfly tattoes, etc, that carry no religious meaning.

The Egyptians, Philistines, Hittites and many others didn't worship the Baals as far as I know. They were polytheistic rather than animistic which is why you have statues of Marduk, Dagon, Set, etc..

And if you change animist to pagan, then you're talking about pretty much everyone in the world except for a few small tribes that seem to have remembered the Most High, so your theory seems to read that the prohibition against tattoos was to separate God's people from those surrounding them. Yet you also say
Which seems to say the opposite.

You don't think it at all possible that the reason that the overwhelming majority of Christians, Muslims and Jews thought getting tattoos was wrong was because of those verses rather than
a) they were surround by people who got tattoos or
b) they were from cultures opposed to tattoos?

Marduk, Dagon and others were lower gods, i.e. demons, and this polytheistic religions were people can control their Gods through appeasement, offerings, etc has most of the traits of animism. The locals have names for their "gods" too, but they are still animistic.

Yes, I do think that many asian tribes, as well as Melanesian culture in general is more tattoe happy. And there are huge cultural variances that allow for tattoes minus animism to occur. The indians for instance like Henna and decorate hands for weddings, but this is temporary. If tattoes are wrong, then playing like you are getting tattoes is also wrong. And I am thus wrong because I just played with my son and gave him a "sticker tattoo" today (I am thus not "abstaining from all appearance of evil")..but my conscience is not troubling me.


Tim, if you suppport mutilating ears, noses, and maybe lips for rings, why would you not support other body modifications?

No, now you are grasping. You did not put a "stigma, a mark branded on the skin" on your son, which is the meaning of the Hebrew word.

Blue Letter Bible - Lexicon

And again, if animism means everything except monotheism, you use the word in a way the rest of us don't and communication becomes difficult!

maybe we should start another thread on the definition of animism then. Animism's traits include lower gods and trying to manipulate those lower gods rather than submitting to God. It appears that Christianity, Judaism and Islam (meanign submission) are unique in that they bow to God instead of try to use him to further their own aims. The ancient ner east Gods were manipulate by offerings.

I never got a tatoo because I didn't want any more identifying marks than I already have. Most here probably never went thru the slightly unpleasant ordeal of booking deputies looking you over for such things while asking if you went by any aliases. Now everybody will be leery of me, won't they? Except for the few that remember my description of the circumstamces. Great thing to have in your past, thank you Alexandria City courts.

Any of those things I think fall under the old metric of lawful, unlawful, or indifferent. If lawful or indifferent, then are they necessary or unnecessary? If unnecessary, then are they edifying or offensive to your brethren? I would follow that rule in determining whether to do any of these things.

I know some older (and even not-so-old) christians that stumble when they see tatoos or culturally unusual piercings, so I find them unnecessary and possibly offensive to my brethren, so I don't have any, but I believe that to be a personal scruple.... kinda like long hair on a man.

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Brad
PCA Member
Virginia

Pro 16:33 The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.

Isa 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

I think I will get my PB username and password tattoed on my butt - I forget it a lot.

Forearm would be a little easier for you to see, Pergs.

How about right hand or forehead!

No way, you need to save that space for the barcode and RFID chip implants.

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Josh Taylor
Verde Valley Reformed Chapel, OPC
Cottonwood, AZ

ha!

I remember the first time I met the late Dr. Robert Rayburn. We were in Switzerland, were I worked at L'Abri. I told him that I was planning to attend Covenant Seminary, at which he was still a professor, having retired from the Presidency.
I had very long hair and beard, a pierced ear, and a tattoo (I still have that). He never mentioned any of them and treated me well.

When I next saw him, in the classroom in St. Louis, nothing had changed. I did, however, lose the earring after a few months at Covenant. I also cut my hair (no longer much of a necessity).

This proves nothing other than the graciousness of this man whom I remember fondly as a father in the faith.

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Curt Lovelace
Pastor, Covenant Baptist Church (CBA)
Acton, Maine
Director, Lifework Forum
Sermons at SermonAudio.com/CBCActon
Blogging at Coffee with Curt

This is an issue of conscience, and one of wisdom. If a tat can get in the way of ministry don't get one. If it bothers your conscience, don't get one.

Taking the passage from the law condemning a pagan ritual isn't a good application for the type of tats being talked about now. People like how they look and usually get them to commemorate something (like a bunch of my friends who are in the USMC)--- Anybody here eat any bacon lately?

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Manley Beasley
Southern Baptist Convention
Lynchburg, VA

Wir sein pettler. Hoc est verum (We are beggars. This is true.).--Luther's dying words

I have a couple of tattoos myself. The first one I got, I just got because I thought it looked cool. The second I put a little more thought into it. This is the one I got on my shoulder:

http://www.apuritansmind.com/images/...ersRoseWeb.jpg

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JD Ketterman
Member of Grace OPC, Vienna VA

thats cool