The other day, I mentioned an article about a fallen Marine in which the deceased’s father made a rather strange comment about his son’s transformation from “thin child” to “ripped warrior.” I’m not going to rehash that subject. That same article actually sparked another thought.
The Marine in the article had said that he was a Christian. He even had a tattoo of a Bible verse. I find that interesting. Now, I really have no problem with tattoos. I don’t happen to want one myself, but I actually like them on other people. (I suppose my reluctance has more to do with low pain tolerance than anything else.) At any rate, if you want to take the Bible literally, then tattoos are forbidden. In fact, I know many Christians who do indeed believe that it is a sin to have a tattoo. In that case, it’s pretty ironic to have a tattoo of Scripture.
The problem I have here is that a lot of Christians want to simultaneously claim that “sin is sin,” that all of it separates us from God, while in fact also creating a hierarchy of sins. A tattoo is pretty forgivable, especially if you had it done before you became a Christian. And even if you do get one after becoming a Christian, we will still allow you to serve in the church–even be a leader or elder. However, if you do anything like (whispers) have sex before marriage, you might be asked to step down from leadership, stop volunteering with children or teens, or even be asked to leave the church. Even worse is being gay, having an ongoing “lifestyle” of sinful behavior.
I wonder whether the problem here is a one-time moment of indiscretion as opposed to having what someone might perceive as a life characterized by sin. Or perhaps the nature and type of sin is the problem. Either way, it simply isn’t consistent to say that sin is sin is sin, while evaluating each sin for its degree of badness.
