Religious tattoos have been around for thousands of years but they haven't always been accepted as they are nowadays. During the Roman Empire the practice of tattooing was almost eradicated in so called civilized culture. Barbarians were the only ones that had tattoos, and to be seen with a tattoo was an offence punishable by death.The Romans believed that the body was to remain in its purest form and tattoos had no place in this belief. Roman soldiers came across many tattooed barbarians in the expansion of the Roman Empire and as a result soldiers began bringing tattoos back into the civilised world. As Christianity emerged it brought with it the secrecy of an underground religion in a Roman state of intolerance. Christians began tattooing crosses on the underside of their forearms as a secret sign to other Christians. This was a bold statement of their faith, although secret, a Christian caught with a cross tattoo would be killed immediately.
Throughtout history it has become commonplace for tattooed individuals to be set apart or outside society. But times have changed. There is a new breed of modified bodies who call themselves evangelical Christians. More than a millennium after church authorities condemned tattooing as a sin, evangelical Christians are inking their bodies with images of crosses, sacred hearts and angels.
For a small but growing subculture within evangelical Christianity, religious tattooing is becoming more and more a form of expression of individuality, identity and faith. Abiding by the principle that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, conservative Christian churches have often set limits on bodily expressions. As far as tattoos go, the Bible has different decrees open to different interpretation.
