At 79 years old, televangelist Joyce Meyers got her first tattoo, which she argued was part of an effort to “honour God”.
“I have a nice little cross back there (on her back),” Meyers said after getting the tattoos in 2023. “And it says, ‘I belong to Jesus.’ And just for good measure, I put love on my foot to remind me to walk in love.”
Meyers is not the only one in the Christian community who has embraced tattoos. Several well-known pastors, authors and musicians have been following the trend. The list includes Max Lucado, who got his first tattoo at 70, Pastor Kingsley Okonkwo, Matt Chandler, and Carl Lentz.
A study by researchers from Baylor University and Texas Tech University showed that a number of Christian youths are also using tattoos as spiritual markers.
The findings of the study were published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. It was done by Texas Tech sociology professors. Jerome R. Koch, Ph.D., Patricia Maloney, Ph.D., and Baylor sociology professor Kevin D. Dougherty, Ph.D. The study was the first of its kind nationally and analysed the connection between religion and tattoos in the United States.
“What we’re seeing is that tattoos are becoming modern-day sacred objects,” Koch said in a media release by Baylor University. “They’re permanent, deeply personal and often worn as both a proclamation of faith and a private reminder of belief.”
The researchers noted that while some religious individuals are still generally less likely to be tattooed, younger generations with strong religious commitment are the most likely to mark their faith permanently on their skin.
“Religious tattoos represent a unique subculture within faith communities,” Maloney said. “They’re not about trend-following. They’re about identity, memory and meaning.”
For some Christians, tattoos are harmless expressions of identity. Among those who share this view is Susan, a Jamaican-born Christian, now residing in the US.
“I have tattoos because I like the look and the artistry behind them. For me, it was simply a personal aesthetic choice,” she told the Freedom Come Rain newspaper.
She said her tattoos do not define who she is as a person or her personal relationship with God. She insists that her faith is ultimately reflected in how she lives, how she treats others, and how she honours God in her daily actions.
“Each person should be able to make their own decision about things like tattoos, just as people make personal choices about other forms of body alteration—such as ear piercings, which many Christians have,” she said.
But Bishop Grace Ade-Gold said the Bible is clear that tattoos are not to be endorsed. She noted that this is stated clearly in Leviticus 19 verse 28.
“We are warned not to make any cuts on our body for the dead or to tattoo ourselves. We are warned not to do it. The fact that the Bible points to the dead means that there is a connection when we tattoo our body,” she said.
Image of the cross, the most common tattoo
For the Baylor University and Texas Tech University study, photos were taken by sociology students as part of a semester-long research project at a Christian university in the United States. Researchers analysed 752 photos by owners’ gender; whether the tattoos were religious in nature; and tattoo size — small (1 inch by 1 inch or smaller), medium (3 inches by 3 inches) or large (larger than 3 inches or more than a quarter of an arm or leg). The study also examined whether the tattoo faced the owner or faced out and whether those with religious content featured an image, text or both image and text. The analysis found that:
- Overt religious content appeared in 145 photos (19% of the total sample).
- More men in the photos (23%) had religious tattoos than women (17%).
- Of the religious tattoos on women, most (69%) were small and in more easily concealed locations. The most frequent sites of their religious tattoos were the wrist (23%), foot (18%) and back (18%).
- Men’s religious tattoos were more likely to be larger than non-religious ones (61% compared to 44%). The most prevalent sites for men’s religious tattoos were the upper arm (26%), forearm (21%) and back (19%).
- Half of the religious tattoos were images—the most common being the cross. More than one quarter were text, often Bible references, with a slight majority being New Testament references. But the Old Testament book of Psalms was most popular. Images with text comprised 21% of religious tattoos.
- Religious tattoos were more likely than non-religious ones to face the owner, with 26% facing inward, in contrast to 18% of non-religious tattoos.