We Jews have what appears an absolute prohibition in our Torah. “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:28). There is some debate as to what constitutes a permanent mark and prohibited content of that mark. The prevailing custom is the ruling of Maimonides who viewed the prohibition as absolute, something idolators do but we avoid as a boundary from them. In any case, we try not to make our statements that way.
Once the mark is placed acceptance varies. Holocaust survivors have numbers on their forearms. Their survival and its documentation is a form of honor. Even among WW2 sailors, the Jews avoided this, so for us it's a 21st century cultural shift. Don't know yet how it will play out.
I have a suspicion that we are seeing two other patterns buried under the denomination and age categories, which are social class and political leanings. My entirely unsupported intuition is that tattoos are associated with two social groups: working class men (and to a lesser extent women) with a conservative slant, and a particular slice of upper middle class women (and to a lesser extent men) who fall into the spiritual but not religious camp, with more liberal political leanings. Would be really interesting if those could be teased out by breaking down the survey by income and politics.
Breaking down tattoo status by income and politics is a really good idea, in my opinion. I was having a similar thought about whether tattoos are just normal in different social settings, and so denominations that overlap with social groups where tattoos are normal will have more tattooed members.
I also wonder about how tattoo status lines up with attendance at religious services, a topic Ryan has interrogated with respect to education and income. If church attendance correlates with conscientiousness, which is why it correlates with income and education (as some have argued), then you might expect a negative association with tattoos in the United States*.
*I'll have more to say on the USA vs. other places in a separate comment.
What a delightful read. I suspect the increased love of ink among younger adults is related to a struggle for self-identity, which I wonder if mightn't be linked to generations raised solely for the purpose of earning as much money as possible (going to a "good school" to get a "good job" - how warped). Yet I only have anecdata to support these musings.
In my early days of evangelicalism, I was taught Lev. 19:28 (no marks or tattoos). I never felt a need to pierce or tattoo my skin - serving Christ provides all the identity I need. A documentary on the Hillsong implosion contended that if you wanted to rise in that church you should have a prominent tattoo you can show during sermons. Yet they preach being gay is a state of permanent sin - Lev. 18:22 is near Lev. 19:28, and it's a lot easier to say "no" to a tattoo than to deny one's innate identity.
What does it mean that Jesus sent out the Twelve and forbade them from carrying the many markers of identity (Lk9)? I read it as people shedding their prior group belonging and devoting themselves fully to Jesus. How do we help people find their God-given identities in Christ?
As I've mentioned before, organised sport in Australia plays many of the same roles as churches do in the US. An observation I've often made is that footballers are typically heavily tattooed. By contrast, triathletes (my sport) have either one tattoo (a calf tattoo indicating completion of a full ironman) or none.
I think a key trend shown here with increasing prevalence of tattoos in younger cohorts is that as things become more normal, the more normal people do them, so you'd have the least uptake of the newly-normalized traits in the groups who remain the most separate culturally separate: here, Jewish and LDS. This can be a self-reinforcing cycle. As Richard notes, if there's an absolute prohibition on something you're not going to do it even if it becomes common, in part to maintain that boundary of separation.
This leads me to wonder how this varies in different geographic regions, both in the United States and in other countries. As tattoos are more normal, does any association with religious denominations start to fade away?
For instance, elaborate tattoos including facial tattoos are an important part of Maori culture, and common among the Maori in New Zealand. These tattoos may be an outgrowth of traditional Maori religion, but today the vast majority of Maori are Christian. So I'd expect Mormon and Methodist Maoris to be equally tatted up. Relatedly, tattoos are very common in the Caribbean islands, for both sexes and across social strata, and have been for a long time. On my island, the percentage of folks with visible tattoos I see at Mass is the same as what I see at the grocery store, and well over 50%.
Joshua notes that tattoos might be tied to social class or political leanings in the USA, and I agree this sounds plausible. But this might also have a geographic component, with places that have a longer history of tattoos being common (like coastal regions) having less association between tattoo status and any other characteristic. I know that there is probably not enough data to do this, but I'd be interested to know whether there are differences among geographic regions in the USA with respect to the prevalence of tattoos and how that might intersect with religion.
I'm also really surprised to hear of the high number of your evangelicals with tattoos. Given the number of people choosing to deconstruct their faith later in life I wonder if there will interesting stats for tattoo removal / cover up specifically for religions themed tattoos a decade of two from now.
And because of multiple comments about income, HERE YOU GO:
https://ibb.co/5Wm4B1Wn
Yes, folks with lower levels of income are more likely to have a tattoo.
We Jews have what appears an absolute prohibition in our Torah. “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:28). There is some debate as to what constitutes a permanent mark and prohibited content of that mark. The prevailing custom is the ruling of Maimonides who viewed the prohibition as absolute, something idolators do but we avoid as a boundary from them. In any case, we try not to make our statements that way.
Once the mark is placed acceptance varies. Holocaust survivors have numbers on their forearms. Their survival and its documentation is a form of honor. Even among WW2 sailors, the Jews avoided this, so for us it's a 21st century cultural shift. Don't know yet how it will play out.
I have a suspicion that we are seeing two other patterns buried under the denomination and age categories, which are social class and political leanings. My entirely unsupported intuition is that tattoos are associated with two social groups: working class men (and to a lesser extent women) with a conservative slant, and a particular slice of upper middle class women (and to a lesser extent men) who fall into the spiritual but not religious camp, with more liberal political leanings. Would be really interesting if those could be teased out by breaking down the survey by income and politics.
Breaking down tattoo status by income and politics is a really good idea, in my opinion. I was having a similar thought about whether tattoos are just normal in different social settings, and so denominations that overlap with social groups where tattoos are normal will have more tattooed members.
I also wonder about how tattoo status lines up with attendance at religious services, a topic Ryan has interrogated with respect to education and income. If church attendance correlates with conscientiousness, which is why it correlates with income and education (as some have argued), then you might expect a negative association with tattoos in the United States*.
*I'll have more to say on the USA vs. other places in a separate comment.
I will always click ♥️ on a post that contains "My entirely unsupported intuition..."
What a delightful read. I suspect the increased love of ink among younger adults is related to a struggle for self-identity, which I wonder if mightn't be linked to generations raised solely for the purpose of earning as much money as possible (going to a "good school" to get a "good job" - how warped). Yet I only have anecdata to support these musings.
In my early days of evangelicalism, I was taught Lev. 19:28 (no marks or tattoos). I never felt a need to pierce or tattoo my skin - serving Christ provides all the identity I need. A documentary on the Hillsong implosion contended that if you wanted to rise in that church you should have a prominent tattoo you can show during sermons. Yet they preach being gay is a state of permanent sin - Lev. 18:22 is near Lev. 19:28, and it's a lot easier to say "no" to a tattoo than to deny one's innate identity.
What does it mean that Jesus sent out the Twelve and forbade them from carrying the many markers of identity (Lk9)? I read it as people shedding their prior group belonging and devoting themselves fully to Jesus. How do we help people find their God-given identities in Christ?
As I've mentioned before, organised sport in Australia plays many of the same roles as churches do in the US. An observation I've often made is that footballers are typically heavily tattooed. By contrast, triathletes (my sport) have either one tattoo (a calf tattoo indicating completion of a full ironman) or none.
I think a key trend shown here with increasing prevalence of tattoos in younger cohorts is that as things become more normal, the more normal people do them, so you'd have the least uptake of the newly-normalized traits in the groups who remain the most separate culturally separate: here, Jewish and LDS. This can be a self-reinforcing cycle. As Richard notes, if there's an absolute prohibition on something you're not going to do it even if it becomes common, in part to maintain that boundary of separation.
This leads me to wonder how this varies in different geographic regions, both in the United States and in other countries. As tattoos are more normal, does any association with religious denominations start to fade away?
For instance, elaborate tattoos including facial tattoos are an important part of Maori culture, and common among the Maori in New Zealand. These tattoos may be an outgrowth of traditional Maori religion, but today the vast majority of Maori are Christian. So I'd expect Mormon and Methodist Maoris to be equally tatted up. Relatedly, tattoos are very common in the Caribbean islands, for both sexes and across social strata, and have been for a long time. On my island, the percentage of folks with visible tattoos I see at Mass is the same as what I see at the grocery store, and well over 50%.
Joshua notes that tattoos might be tied to social class or political leanings in the USA, and I agree this sounds plausible. But this might also have a geographic component, with places that have a longer history of tattoos being common (like coastal regions) having less association between tattoo status and any other characteristic. I know that there is probably not enough data to do this, but I'd be interested to know whether there are differences among geographic regions in the USA with respect to the prevalence of tattoos and how that might intersect with religion.
I'm also really surprised to hear of the high number of your evangelicals with tattoos. Given the number of people choosing to deconstruct their faith later in life I wonder if there will interesting stats for tattoo removal / cover up specifically for religions themed tattoos a decade of two from now.