Claimed by God

Opinions about commitment in the modern world abound: it is a victim of a throwaway society; few give themselves to it; most are wary of it; it is old-fashioned; it does not satisfy; and more. Perhaps people rush commitment to soon. Does something precede making a religious commitment? In an essay by Anna Nussbaum Keating allowing God to claim people seems prior.

The ways men and women make God’s claim of them tangible for themselves varies. One of those ways is tattoos. Many moderns react viscerally to them. Ms. Keating recalled an eighth-century church council had decided that “a Christian bearing a tattoo ‘for the sake of God’ was deemed worthy of praise.”

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Wiki-image by Tony Alter of Isaiah 60 tattoo CC BY-SA 2.0.