Reformed. Christianity. Evangelism. Modern Culture.
The next time you strut around like a rooster with your tattoos all emblazoned on your heavily biceped arm or six pack torso remember not to annoy the fashion police in Saudi. A BIG no-no is a Jesus tattoo (that is if you even know what he looks like). One soccer star lived to tell the story….
Saudi Arabia’s religious police have arrested a South American soccer star in a shopping mall in the Saudi capital for failing to cover up his tattoo of Jesus.
Juan Pablo Pino, 24, who plays for the An-Nasr professional team was wearing a sleeveless shirt while walking with his young pregnant wife in a shopping mall in Riyadh, reported Asia News.
“The tattoo on his left shoulder led to the insults of some local Muslims,” reported the Vatican Insider newspaper. “The incident attracted the attention of the so-called ‘police for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,’ who stopped the couple.”
According to the Qatar newspaper al-Sharq, religious police “put the player and his wife in a car and took them to the police station.”
Soon afterward, police contacted the soccer club and “Pino and his wife were handed over to them.”
In my opinion that tattoo could be an artistic impression of any one. Who told you Jesus has long flowing locks and a iron filings for a pastey beard? We do not know what Jesus looked like. We do not therefore as a matter of fact have a true likeness of His physical appearance. When an artist paints a picture out of his imagination and then says, “this is a picture of Jesus Christ,” he lies.
When we make such representation we imagine the human nature of Jesus to be separated from His divine nature. He is God and man in one person. We cannot separate the one nature from the other. If you try flaunting such a bearded effigy in Saudi Arabia next summer better have lawyers as good as Juan Pablo Pino’s. Just saying. 🙂
A Twisted Crown of Thorns ® 
“When we make such representation we imagine the human nature of Jesus to be separated from His divine nature. He is God and man in one person. We cannot separate the one nature from the other.”
True, and in no way defending Jesus tattoos or Jan Crouch and the other crazies of her ilk, but for the sake of balance it is not wrong to highlight the humanity of Jesus when appropriate. There are times in the New Testament when that is all we clearly see. Artistic portrayals of Jesus (of which again I am not particularly fond, but for the sake of clarity and balance) are not intended to teach us of Jesus’ deity, but because he was human he could be portrayed as such – indeed, the catacombs of the early church have what experts believe to be ‘representations’ of him. I don’t have them nor do I encourage them, but for the sake of fair representation, these portrayals do not constitute Nestorianism nor do they in and of themselves as some might allege, break the second commandment. They tell us that God became man, that he was with us, that he lived, bled, and died as we do. The danger is when we accept them as the complete picture.
Hmmm. We very often accept such depictions as the complete picture.
Unfortunately yes.