Pastor Kingsley Okonkwo, the founder of David’s Christian Centre, has addressed the criticism he faced after a video revealing a new tattoo on his arm circulated online.
In an interview with News Central Africa, Okonkwo challenged his critics, arguing that their objections were based on personal or denominational preferences rather than clear biblical doctrine.
“There is no scripture that says a child of God cannot have tattoos. So people are doing personal preference… that’s not how this works,” he said.
The cleric demanded that anyone criticising his choice provide explicit scriptural evidence to support their stance.
Okonkwo also expressed disappointment, linking the controversy to a broader resistance to cultural progress within some African Christian circles.
“They must give me scriptural proof or bibilcal prove to back this up, but nobody has come out to do that,” he said.
“Nobody can tell me why tattoo is bad. This kind of thinking is saddening for me because in Africa, when are we going to catch up with development if we are still thinking jeans are now bad; a pastor cannot wear jeans?
“I can give you 10 good people that have tattoos, you can give me bad people that have tattoos, so what are we going to do now? Are we going to be in bondage to the bad people?”
He extended his critique, suggesting that such a rigid mindset is why many Christians disengage from vital sectors like politics.
“This is the same reason why some people don’t want to go into politics, so we have left it for the people we think are dirty. So who is going to go there? That has been the mindset of the church: we avoid anything that looks bad, and we complain,” he said.
The cleric, who recently marked his 50th birthday, shared a video of the tattoo process on his official Instagram page. The clip opened with a voice-over of John 3:16, a scripture widely regarded by Christians as central to the Gospel message. As the video progressed, the tattoo was revealed to bear the same verse written in Roman numerals, “III: XVI”.
What began as a celebratory birthday post quickly escalated into a heated social media conversation, dividing opinions across different levels of society.