Crucified Skapegoats

Yesterday while I was drawing here at the coffeeshop, a guy came over and asked what my tattoos meant. I noticed immediately the cross necklace he was wearing, but he was being very non-confrontational. Polite and friendly. Above each elbow I have a pointy tailed red devil crucified on a cross. I’ve given many different answers to this question in the past.

man with Crucified Satan tattoos

One time at the amusement park Michigan Adventure I was with my niece and nephews when a lady behind us in line abruptly stated “Is that a devil on a cross? That’s not right. What do those mean??”
Not wanting to cause drama there in front of the kids I responded with, “It’s the devil, because that’s who SHOULD be nailed to the cross!”
Sorta shocked, she said, “Oh, well, I guess I can get behind that.” And nothing more was said. My brother  right after said, “That was slick.”

You can bet that back in the day when this happened in NYC I had no qualms getting loud and proud about my non belief. But I’ve calmed since. So I asked him if he wanted the quick answer because it’s kind of a deep topic.
“I just wanna hear what it means to you. I don’t mind whatever. We’re all adults here.” 
My explanation went pretty much like this:
“I was raised Christian, and taught that people’s wrongs, their sins, could be put onto someone else to pay for. I don’t believe that anymore. It’s a bad concept, taking your bad deeds and pushing them onto someone or something else who pays the price instead of you. Shifting the blame. In no way does that work. It defeats the whole purpose of punishment. It’s a scapegoat. So it’s crusifying the scapegoat.”

I told him how there’s some cultures where hey take a goat or a cow and the whole village puts all their bad deeds into the animal and they eat it, or banish it from town. Then all the people are cleaned of their wrongs. Jesus on the cross is just another version of that. And it’s not real. I understand why people want it to be true, but it’s just scapegoating.”

I could feel it churning up inside me to babble on and on, but I stopped there. He responded to me with “Thank you for that. I understand what you mean. I always enjoy hearing someone else’s perspective. Thank you.” Then we shook hands and that was all. 

It was later I realized, yup, they’re crucified scapegoats. 

And as I sit here now writing this, I’m overhearing two guys at a table next to me talking excitedly about their new church and how they’re trying to get more people to attend. All I can think about is how eager people are to be convenienced of scapegoating, and this will surely draw in people who want it.

FacebookTwitterRedditShare