Piercing parlors are a growth industry. For a fee, you can get holes pierced in your lips, eyebrows, tongue, nose, navel, and other, more private body parts. Then you can buy jewelry to wear in the holes. Piercing is becoming more common, especially among younger people. Tattoos are also popular. You can get just one small tattoo, if you like, but you can also get lots of tattoos that cover sizeable portions of your body. Piercing, tattoos, and other forms of body modification are increasing.

Why do so many people want body modification? For some, BodMod is a fashion choice. If your friends or favorite stars do it, you may want to do it too. It makes you feel more stylish or sexy. One young man says, "I just thought it would be cool to have. I didn't do it to be a rebel or anything like that. I could sure come up with better ideas than that to rebel."

Some people choose body modification just because they feel like it, without knowing why. When a church-going woman with a husband and children was asked why she got her navel pierced, she replied, "I don't know exactly why I wanted to get it. I have this certain image as a soccer mom, going to church and going to school, and the belly ring is a way to show a different side."

Other people don't choose BodMod so casually. It means much more to them. Many use BodMod as a way to deal with inner pain and take control. One woman, Laura, says, "It's been my experience that many people into BodMod have come out of abusive childhoods. I guess, for myself, I think of my piercings and tattoo as a way of reclaiming (or marking) my body for myself!"

For still other people, body modification is nothing less than their way of revealing their souls and connecting with the spiritual realm. They know that piercing, tattooing, and more extreme and painful forms of body modification were common among tribal peoples and pagan religions, and they want that same tribal and religious experience for themselves. "Body piercing and Tattooing are sacred rituals," says a BodMod enthusiast. "Through these mediums we can costumize our bodies and proclaim publicly that we are in control of our destinies. Any spiritual quest demands sacrifice if it is to have meaning. The pain of a piercing or a tattoo is the path for transformation. If it didn't hurt and wasn't difficult it wouldn't mean anything. To me a tattoo is my embodiment of my spirit and soul, as well as an important step on my spiritual quest."

Not only is BodMod viewed as part of a personal spiritual journey, it's considered a way to save the earth. As one of the thousands of websites devoted to body modification puts it, "Through the lost tribal arts, we believe we can reclaim our forgotten respect and understanding of nature by symbolizing that the body is sacred like our planet mother earth." There's even a group that calls itself the Church of Body Modification. It's officially recognized by the government as a religion. It has no doctrine of a Creator God. Instead, it teaches that we create a world of our own choosing. The mission statement of the Church of Body Modification declares, "Each of us is wise in our reasons. Each of us is powerful in authority over ourselves. Our bodies are the physical structure, our temple; the encasement of our own very personal dreams and experiences, our beliefs and our hopes. We stand absolutely firm on our birthright of ownership of our individual bodies... Together now we share a New World of our own creation."

Now, if you're sporting a ring in your eyebrow or navel just because it seems cool to you, some of these other reasons for BodMod may sound strange to you. If you're living a tame, safe life and want a little BodMod just to spice it up a bit, it may sound strange that some people see BodMod as a response to inner anguish and an abusive past. If you think getting pierced or tattooed includes pain only as an unfortunate side effect, it may sound strange that many people actually want the pain and embrace it as a sacred sacrifice. If you see no religious meaning in BodMod, it may sound odd to hear about body modification as a religion. But what if the people who make a religion out of it actually understand the meaning of BodMod better than you do?

But we need to ask: Is body modification just a matter of fashion? Is it just a recent fad? No, it's not a new fad at all. It has very old roots, and those roots go deep into pagan religion. Throughout history BodMod has been common in cultures that worship idols or nature or mother earth or self. Tattooing, piercing, cutting, branding, scarring, and mutilation have been part of pagan religions for thousands of year. Whenever the message of the Bible would reach a pagan society, whenever more and more people trusted and worshiped the true God, body modification would diminish and almost disappear. People who believed the Bible and trusted Jesus Christ understood that God created their body, that Christ paid for their body with his blood, and that God's Holy Spirit lived in their body. Their body was not their own but God's. It was wrong to damage, deface or distort it. Their body was treasured as God's handiwork and offered to God for his honor. As Christian truth replaced paganism, it moved people to abandon pagan body modification.

BodMod isn't just a new style. It's body language for a religious shift, a shift away from biblical Christianity back toward pagan religion and pagan sexual practices. The leading figures in the recent upsurge of BodMod are people who detest Christianity and delight in old pagan practices of self-inflicted pain and perverted sexuality. Other people may jump on the BodMod bandwagon without being aware of its pagan roots and the modern-day pagans who are driving it. But if we know what's really happening and what the Bible says about these things, we'll know that BodMod is not from God.

Let your body language proclaim that you are a child of the Father, purchased by the Christ the Son, filled with the Holy Spirit. Don't just ask what God will let you get away. Ask how you can best honor God with your body. If you look for loopholes in the Bible to let you do your own thing, you might say, "What's wrong with it?" But ask instead, "What's right with it?" Does body modification honor God and mark you as a holy follower of Jesus? If not, don't do it. Now, I know that not all BodMod folks are purposely plotting to fight God or destroy themselves. Some are genuine Christians. Maybe you trust and love Jesus but haven't thought much about body language. Maybe you're basically right with God but just need some biblical teaching, correction, and training in this area of your life. Up till now, you weren't really aware of the Bible's call to honor God with your body, and you weren't aware of the pagan meaning of body modification. Well, now you know. If you love the Lord and believe the Bible, then honor God with your body from now on. Make sure your body language says that you belong to Christ and that his Spirit lives within you.

The body modification movement includes a growing gallery of horrors. BodMod isn't limited to piercing and tattooing. Other, more extreme forms are also on the increase. Cutting, branding, scarring, even mutilation and amputation, are becoming more frequent. People who cut themselves say that watching themselves bleed makes them feel better. A 14-year-old boy says he wants to pierce his tongue, nose, and more private parts. "I don't really know why," he says. "In the past I have found that by inflicting pain on myself I could release a lot of anger and emotion without hurting anyone else. For about 4 months I would say that I was addicted to pain, I would slash my arms with a razor or a knife every time I became angry."