Fall 2021 13 TATTOOS AND CHRISTIANITY Tattoos Are Leaving Their Mark on Christianity By Maggie Walker Tattoos---hate them or love them, the art form is now prevalent in America. In 2020, over a third of Americans aged 18-29 had at least one tattoo. What used to be controversial has entered the mainstream. What thoughts do people have about tattoos today? Emma Waywood, a senior Social Work major, has gotten several tattoos, starting with a colorful wrist tattoo when she was 16 years old. “I wanted it to be a reminder to me about God’s providence in my life. It has my life verse on it, Philippians 1:20-21,” she said. “All of my tattoos I can point back to Christ somehow. I’ve made that a point with all the tattoos I have because I know that tattoos are here-there with the church so I wanted to be able to say, ‘well, all my tattoos glorify God.’” Waywood has several other tattoos, including one of 2 Corinthians 12:19 and one of her favorite names for God drawn from Jeremiah 23:23. Joseph Mattackal, a senior IT Management major, has a tattoo of a name on his forearm. “The tattoo I have is my mom’s name in Hindi,” Mattackal said. “ I wanted to get a tattoo for a while just because it was something I was interested in, but I was not interested in permanently marking my body for absolutely no reason. I felt there had to be a reason to have the tattoo, and my mom was a very important person to me. She passed away when I was 12; I wanted to get something to commemorate her by, so I got her name phonetically spelled in Hindi on my right arm.” Photo – Trey M Lahmers Photo – Trey M Lahmers Photo – Trey M Lahmers
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