A controversial new billboard depicting a tattooed Jesus Christ with his arms outstretched is creating quite the buzz in America's Bible Belt, ABC News reports. The tattooed man dressed as the holy figure sports tattoos that read "outcast," "addicted" and "jealous."
"I don't like the picture. I think it's very derogatory," a local-area resident told CBS affiliate KEYE-TV, while another called it "blasphemous" and "negative."
The billboard can be seen along a highway in West Lubbock, Tex., featuring an advertisement for the website Jesustattoo.org. The website features a short film in which Jesus works as a kind of reverse tattoo artist, receiving customers who reveal to him names of their sins tattooed across their skin. People of all kinds come to visit him, including a young disabled boy, and the Jesus character takes time to tattoo positive words on them like "brave" and "trust" instead, while Jesus receives the negative words onto his own body in the form of tattoos.
"He doesn't want us to be defined by the marks of our past," a narrator declares in the video, a statement which the website uses as its slogan.
The video itself has a positive message about Jesus Christ, declaring him a man of love and hope who helps others overcome their own struggles. Though some Texas residents took offense to the billboard, others like David Wilson, a senior pastor at Southcrest Baptist Church in Lubbock, took it as a thoughtful way to remind people about the message of Jesus once people get past its initial shock value.
"I thought that it was cleverly done because, basically, it's a visual of Jesus taking the sins of people and covering them and taking them from an outcast or something and giving them a new start, which is what the gospel is about," Wilson told ABC News. "I looked it up, and I said...this is perfect because it just draws people in here."
The filmmakers assure viewers on their website that their message is straightforward and not meant to be controversial. So far, they have 15 billboards that are meant to drive traffic directly to their site. They are not a formal church and not offering anything for sale.
"It really is as simple as it appears," they write. "We are a small group of people humbled by the love of Jesus. We are not a church. We are not selling anything. We encourage you to tell as many people as possible. That's it."
