It's a bod mod cyberworld.....

It's a Bod Mod Cyberworld
by Andrew Careaga

(andrew@e-vangelism.com)

It's a slow night on Teens4Christ, an Internet Relay Chat channel on the Internet. Text scrolls by at a leisurely pace (for IRC) as chatters enter, exchange greetings, and exit. So Khan_Guru decides to liven things up a bit by telling his chat pals that he wants to get the image of Odie, the rubbery-tongued puppy from the Garfield comic strip, engraved on his shoulder blade.

No one is biting on Khan_Guru's bait tonight, however. LizLiz responds by describing a similar desire for a permanent marking.

"I want a tattoo of a pic I've drawn," she types. "I would want one as a permanent mark of my faith - kind of like the opposite of the mark of the beast."

"Well, Khan_Guru adds, "that's not the ONLY tattoo I want."

<Khan_Guru> One of those cool Hebrew ones that everybody was getting at Tomfest would be pretty cool... =) I wanna just walk in and say "Gimme the Henry Rollins." ;)^[i]

<Nuzzle> I'm gonna get either my tongue or my eye brow pierced next week!!!!

<Khan_Guru> Go for the eyebrow!

<LizLiz> I would got for the tongue most definately!

<Khan_Guru> Nah...the tounge is overdone.

<Khan_Guru> Eyebrow. =)

<ToMmY> why not staple your tounge to the inside of your cheek?

<JeSuSgRrL> ewww

<Nuzzle> see.. If I get my tongue I can hide it

<LizLiz> lol

<ToMmY> nuzzle: get a genital piercing if you want to hide it

<Khan_Guru> Yeah but the eyebrow is so much cooler... =)

<NY_Paul> ToMmY.....grow up

<Nuzzle> haha

<Nuzzle> I don't have the guts to do that.^[ii]

Not just for bikers

Such discussions make an aging youth pastor like me long for the good old days, when kids talked about simpler matters, such as pre-marital sex, and with much less candor than occurs in chat room pow-wows. But discussions of tattooing, body piercing and other forms of bod mod (body modification) are as common in Christian teen chat rooms as online Bible studies. Bod mod fascinates N-Geners, Christian and non-Christian alike. Clearly, tattoos are not just for bikers anymore.

The marketing world knows of this growing mainstream interest in bod mod, and is capitalizing on it. One of the latest incarnations of Barbie comes complete with nose ring and a butterfly tattooed on her stomach.^[iii] And among some Christian teens, tattoos are the hottest Christian fashion accessory since WWJD bracelets.^[iv]

Despite the heavy interest in bod mod among young Christians on the 'Net, many mainstream youth ministries have little to say on the topic. Evangelical Web sites focusing on apologetics and youth evangelism do a thorough job addressing the social issues that have defined the conservative Christian agenda of the past few decades - such as evolution, abortion and homosexuality - but they are strangely silent on body modification, the environment and other issues that concern today's teens.

A quick cruise through the major search engines - typing in any combination of keywords like Christian, tattoo, piercing, body art or body modification - also yields little fruit. The top site on many such searches is a young man's homespun Web site titled "The Truth About Christian Tattoos."

Right answers, wrong questions

Some of the most visible and most respected apologists in the evangelical community have nothing to say on-line to the Christian youth who is curious about body piercing.

What is wrong here?

Their answers, for one thing. All of these ministry Web sites promote biblical responses to a diversity of issues. The problem is, many of their on-line databases contain answers to questions few in the

Even the most progressive on-line ministries seem to be clueless about the nature of the Internet culture they hope to influence. Few Christian Web sites have anything to say about bod mod, cults, sex, movies and music, the supernatural, computers, cyber-culture, science fiction, or UFOs. While news media reports focus on pornographers, hackers and virus-makers, notes media critic Jon Katz, who writes for Slashdot (slashdot.org), cyberspace sojourners have other things on their mind - including spirituality. Next to sex and e-trading, Katz writes, nothing keeps a search engine humming longer than typing in spirituality, or religion.^[v]

Perhaps the leaders of most on-line ministries don't think body modification or UFOs are relevant to Christians. Yet they are subjects that captivate many in the online community. By ignoring them, the church risks becoming even more irrelevant than it is already.

A church that does not address the issues that matter to 'Net culture is worse than irrelevant. It is a church that ignores Jesus' instruction to be salt and light in the world (Matthew 5:13-16) - and that world must include the realm of cyberspace. To borrow a term from Blaise Pascal, a God-shaped vacuum in the Internet when Christianity is not present and active. We can be certain that something - mindless entertainment, cyberporn, or the allure of other religious groups - will rush in to fill that void.

In the words of one religion expert: "If churches won't address the interests and obsessions of real people, especially the young, then the cults and the alternative religions will." ^[vi]

A relational response

The apostle Paul's ministry was focused heavily on meeting people on their own turf, and on relating the message of the gospel to their lives. The Athens of Paul's day was tough territory for an itinerant preacher. It was a city given over to idols, and Paul's spirit was provoked within him because of it (see Acts 17:16).

Yet did he turn his back on the idolaters? No. He related to them. He went into their marketplaces. He went to Mars Hill, where the elite of Athens hung out to discuss the latest fads and fashions. When he spoke to them, he quoted one of their own poets, then related the divine wisdom revealed in their own culture to the truth of the gospel (see Acts 17:17-34).

In order to be relevant in cyberspace, the church must learn the culture. If bod mod matters to the 'Net Generation, then it had better matter to the church.

[i]. The reference is to multi-tattooed Henry Rollins, former lead singer for the punk rock band Black Flag and the Rollins Band.

[ii]. Partial text from a chat in the Internet Relay Chat channel #Teens4Christ. The original nicknames of the chatters have been changed, but their original spellings and misspellings are unmodified.

[iii]. Evangelical Press News Service, A@Move Over WWJD Bracelets C Christian Tattoos?@ 25 March 1999, posted on Maranatha Christian Journal (www.mcjonline.com)

[iv]. Evangelical Press News Service, A@Move Over WWJD Bracelets C Christian Tattoos?@

[v]. Jon Katz, AReview: The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace,@ Slashdot, 19 April 1999 (slashdot.org/books/99/04/13/195259.shtml), a book review of Margaret Wertheim=s The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1999).

[vi]. Rick Bauer, the leader of Freedom House Ministries, quoted in Terry Mattingly, AThe Web, the Cults and the Church,@ 2 April 1997, Terry Mattingly On Religion (www.gospelcom.net/tmattingly)

(Andrew Careaga is the author of E-vangelism: Sharing the Gospel in Cyberspace, published in 1999 by Vital Issues Press. He is also a youth pastor at Salem Faith Assembly Church in Salem, Missouri
(members.truepath.com/salem_faith) and writes for Christian Computing Magazine
(www.ccmag.com). He is currently at work on a new book, Digital Discipleship: Ministering to the Internet Generation, from which this article is adapted. He can be reached at andrew@e-vangelism.com, and you can read more about Andrew at his Web site, www.e-vangelism.com)

Notes: 1. "The Cyberchurch Is Coming: National Survey of Teenagers Shows Expectation of Substituting Internet for Corner Church," 1998, Barna Research Group, Oxnard, CA (www.barna.org/PressCyberChurch.htm) 2, George Barna, The Second Coming of the Church (Nashville, TN: Word Publishing, 1998), 65. 3. "The Cyberchurch Is Coming." 4. Robert Wuthnow, "Religion and Television: The Public and the Private," American Evangelicals and the Mass Media, Quentin J. Schultze, ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990), 205. 5. Jon Katz, Virtuous Reality: How America Surrendered Discussion of Moral Values to Opportunists, Nitwits and Blockheads like William Bennett (New York: Random House, 1997), 55-56. 6. Mark Moring and Matt Donnelly, "Christians in Cyberspace," Christianity Online, September/October 1999, 14. 7. The story of how the Internet affected the Worldwide Church of God’s doctrinal stance is detailed in "Interlude: The Network That Broke a Church," in Mark Kellner, God on the Internet (Foster City, CA: IDG Books, 1996), 129-133. 8. Jeff Zaleski, The Soul of Cyberspace: How Technology Is Changing Our Spiritual Lives (New York: HarperEdge, 1997), 111-112. 9. "Gospelcom Reaches Record Level in Traffic for February 1999," Internet for Christians, 1 March, 1999, Issue 78 (www.gospelcom.net/ifc)