Religious imagery has a along association with tattooing, particularly Christianity.
Images of Christ, Angels, Mary and Saints are a popular tattoo subject. But what about when people get tattoos in opposition to organized religions? Declaring ones faith is a common meaning for many tattoos and perhaps more common than a tattoo standing in opposition to faith, but such tattoos do exist and one of the most frequent images used is that of a burning church!!
Church burning has been practiced for centuries, by those opposing the church and even by different branches of the same religion. More recently church burning has been associated with black metal and in this particular context Varg Vikernes. Vikernes, a Norwegian musician and writer, was strongly linked to arson attacks on churches in the early 90s and later sentenced to 21 years in prison for crimes including the burning of a church! Of course black metal inspired church burning is not necessarily the root cause of modern arson attacks on churches nor burning church tattoos. Instead the phenomenon of burning church tattoos is largely inspired by a persons own beliefs and dissatisfaction with organized religions!
At the same time however another meaning could be interpreted from burning church tattoos. Within Christianity flames are the symbol of the Holy Spirit, so instead of seeing the church as burning a person could interpret it as being encompassed by the Holy Spirit...
Would you get a burning church tattoo or is it perhaps to much of a controversial tattoo subject for you??
Would you get a burning church tattoo or is it perhaps to much of a controversial tattoo subject for you??
