But when a Christian tattoos a Bible verse or a faith-phrase upon her body, she makes her body into a text. She reverses the incarnation of Christ; in her de-incarnation she is making the body, what is prone to messiness and effluvia and decay, into a true and eternal Word. They are turning themselves into the Bible, or a part thereof.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s something laudable in this: stating that these truths are the ultimate and unchanging truths of who I am. Yet I also wonder if they represent a running away from our carnality, a running away from the things that Christ affirmed in the incarnation. I wonder too whether tattoos like these \u201d\u201d and all tattoos \u201d\u201d might sometimes work like frosting upon a store window \u201d\u201d presenting a surface that seeks not to externalize but to conceal what lies within. Does the person who stamps \u201cGod\u2019s Son\u201d\u009d upon his skin really believe it?<\/p>\n