Steve Bentley is a Michigan pastor of The Bridge, a church located inside a Flint Township shopping center. Because “mainstream religion has become ineffective and irrelevant,” he says is the motivation for opening Serenity Tattoo parlor within the church itself:
A Michigan pastor who says he’s doing everything he can to reach out to people who don’t feel comfortable at a traditional house of worship has opened a tattoo parlor inside his church. . .
Bentley, who has two tattoos, said he understands some don’t like the idea of Serenity Tattoo inside the church, but the pastor considers tattooing a “morally neutral” practice that he likens to getting one’s ears pierced.
“We are about doing church in a different way and being relevant to people,” Bentley told The Flint Journal. “You can get a tattoo in a clean environment. You can do it while still sticking to your moral code.”
Though the Postmodern Church is seeking to be relevant to today’s generation, it has rendered itself irrelevant and ineffective by de-emphasizing sound doctrine and the truth of salvation in Christ alone. Emergence has abandoned the biblical model of preaching the Gospel and replaced it with cultural relevance.
Though Christians are not commanded to keep the Mosaic Law, it ought to raise questions that there is such a command in Leviticus 19:28:
Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.
Is Leviticus 19:28 a moral or ceremonial command? God’s morality cannot change because God cannot change (Malachi 3:6). It appears to be moral being coupled with a command not to cut your flesh for the dead which is certainly immoral.
Though the New Testament does not specifically command against tattoos and piercings, it does establish a moral principle in 1 Corinthians 6:19,20:
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
The New Testament does not have anything to say about smoking cigarettes either, but even unbelievers are convicted in their conscience about smoking. Tattooing and body piercing are covetous, vain, and uncharitable practices in which Christians ought not to participate. These practices are often associated with rebellion. Abstain from all appearance of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22).
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are (1 Corinthians 3:16,17).
If you are still not convinced, all of these considerations ought to at least cause a Christian to doubt whether or not this is acceptable before God. And if there is any doubt in a Christians’ mind, this is all the more reason they should never get a tattoo or pierce their body:
And he that doubteth is damned . . . for whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23).
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/01/06/national/a114435S65.DTL#ixzz1jHAGVHuS