Features:
Should the Bride be Beautiful?
In a world which says that
attractiveness is everything,
does the Church look any
different? Or have we all
succumbed to the cult of beauty?
There are many ways to assess how
important beauty and appearance are
in today’s culture. One is to look at
early episodes of
Top of the Pops.
Once upon a time, it was quite
sufficient for a pop star to have a
good voice and a bit of stage presence:
dodgy dancing, an unremarkable face
and questionable dress sense were
fairly standard. But today’s stars are
stylised beyond recognition. The
surprise of seeing glamorous stars
with no make-up on and wearing
jogging bottoms in the celeb rags
betrays how removed from reality
their usual airbrushed image is.
The music industry reflects our
society. The number of people
undergoing plastic surgery for
cosmetic reasons is rapidly increasing.
A survey by thelab.tv in 2005 found
that 63% of the 1,000 young girls
surveyed wanted to be glamour
models. The presentation of image
and beauty as a measure of a person’s
worth is insidious. Think of typical
films. The main characters are usually
the most attractive.
We see gorgeous people so often
that it becomes normal. Worse; a
number of books have been published
recently that describe the impact looks
have on one’s life and career. The
Beauty Bias: The Injustice of
Appearance in Life and Law by
Deborah L Rhode (Oxford University
Press) reports that people deemed less
attractive are less likely to be hired or
promoted, and are judged to have less
desirable personality traits such as
goodness, kindness and honesty.
Normal?
In a culture where exceptional beauty
is portrayed as normal, how does this
make the rest of us feel? Or what if
you have some kind of disability?
Joanna Jepson, a life coach, Anglican
priest and associate of London
College of Fashion, had a jaw
deformity in her youth that has since
been corrected through surgery. She
felt she was ‘less than’ acceptable
because of her appearance. ‘In school
I experienced a pecking order with
looks as the currency,’ she says. ‘You
learn and find out through the way
other people treat you where you
belong in the order of things. I more
or less had an emotional and physical
breakdown because of the exhaustion
of being bullied and abused [due to]
the way I looked.’
The impact on an individual in
regards to how attractive they are is
demonstrated by Katie Piper, a model
who was viciously assaulted by an
ex-boyfriend, who arranged for acid
to be thrown into her face. She
suffered severe burns and is extremely
disfigured. In Channel 4’s alternative
Christmas message of 2009, she said,
‘I’ve walked two different sides of life.
Before, I was always being chatted up.
Immediately after the attack people
didn’t want to get in a lift with me.
I’ve had doors slammed in my face.
Yet I’m not any different.’
Arianna Walker, the executive
director of Mercy Ministries UK,
works with many women who are in
deep pain, and often hate the way
they look. ‘Six years ago…at a
conference, this girl came up to me,
and she said, “I look in the mirror and
I hate what I see.” I said, “What do
you see?” She said a sentence that
changed my world for [the] next six
years: “I see a fat and ugly girl who is
worth nothing.”
‘The way the world views us, as
women, is very harmful. We’re
constantly presented with an
unattainable standard of beauty…it
becomes a really corrosive effect on
our identity, because we’re constantly
told we’re failing. I come across so
many girls who strive to be accepted
and who manipulate their body shape
and size in order to find an ounce of
self-worth.’
Biblical Beauty
The Bible does not seem to consider a
person’s looks so important. We know
that Jesus is compellingly attractive,
but it wasn’t for his physical
attributes. Isaiah 53:2 tells us, ‘There
was nothing beautiful or majestic
about his appearance, nothing to
attract us to him’ (NLT). ‘Jesus is not
someone who would be on magazine
covers today,’ says Brett McCracken,
author of the book, Hipster
Christianity: When Church and Cool
Collide (Baker Books). ‘What is truly
beautiful about our faith is Jesus being
broken for our iniquities, that
selflessness…that sacrificial love.’
So does the Bible say that we must
completely ignore what we look like?
Is it sinful for women to wear
make-up, fashionable clothes or
jewellery? Saint Paul seemed to think
so: ‘I also want women to dress
modestly, with decency and propriety,
not with braided hair or gold or pearls
or expensive clothes, but with good
deeds, appropriate for women who
profess to worship God,’ says 1
Timothy 2:9–10 while 1 Peter 3:3-4
declares: ‘Your beauty should not
come from outward adornment, such
as braided hair and the wearing of
gold jewellery and fine clothes.
Instead, it should be that of your
inner self, the unfading beauty of a
gentle and quiet spirit, which is of
great worth in God’s sight.’ These
passages can raise a great deal of
angst for Christian women in today’s
image-obsessed culture. ‘Often
women get in touch with me about
how they have this internal wrestle
with their desire to get involved in the
beauty industry…or just…caring
how they look and spending money
on clothes,’ says Jepson.
She argues that there is nothing
wrong with being drawn to beauty, in
and of itself; the problem is the way it
is used and distorted in our fallen
world. ‘Beauty in itself is an echo that
points to something beyond us,’ she
says. ‘It is an echo of Eden. Like
everything that God has made that is
a good gift, everything is also up for
distortion…beauty has become a
weapon, a currency, a kind of
self-destructive voice inside our head
telling us…“Your husband is never
going to fancy you above all others.”’
Perhaps the Bible’s instruction is a
warning about the reasons for
attending to our outer appearance. ‘I
think we should care about what we
look like,’ says Walker. ‘Wear
make-up if you want to. Look after
your skin and your hair. But…don’t
do these things so you can be
accepted and feel good, [but] because
you…are grateful for what God has
given you.’
Liz Warom, a Christian and the
founder of beauty products company
Temple Spa, sees no contradiction
between her job and her faith. ‘I
believe you only have one life, and
you have a responsibility to live it to
the full and look after the temple
which houses your life,’ she says.
‘That means doing your best, looking
your best, and using what you’ve
been given.’
Rather than dumping your entire
cosmetics shelf down the drain and
trading your wardrobe for a few
sack-like smocks, it might be worth
instead examining the motivations
and assumptions you have about
what you wear. Are you dressing to
attract the opposite sex? Or to look
‘cool’ or exclusive and separate
yourself out from the masses? ‘When
[appearance] is used as a way to elicit
a response, whether that be attraction
or jealousy or alienation, then I think
it is negative,’ says McCracken. ‘I
think it is tragic that we put beautiful
things to work in a mercenary way…
So often…we’re using things to meet
the goals of our prideful self. That
can be dangerous and damaging.
‘I think the Bible isn’t against
beauty…as Christians, we shouldn’t
just write beauty off as superfluous. If
you look at creation, flowers didn’t
need to be as beautiful as they are.
You see our God as a God who
appreciates unnecessary, extravagant
beauty.’
What the Bible, and the passages
of 1 Peter and 1 Timothy can do, is
give us self-esteem that does not
depend on how we appear on the
outside. ‘People are radiant and
beautiful because they are at home in
their own skin and who they are,’
says Jepson, ‘and they’re not trying to
be what they’re not. Some nuns I
lived with were beautiful and radiant.
It doesn’t come down to a normative
symmetry of bone structure.’
Super-Cool Church
Our image-conscious culture has
entered the Church. Cliff Richard
was a looker in his day, but your
typical preacher wasn’t. Now we
have some worship leaders and
pastors who are coiffed, styled and
handsome; the women, trendy and
pretty. Churches are architecturally
attractive and publications expertly
designed. As McCracken outlines in
his book, this new wave of beautiful,
trendy churches is part of a reaction
to the decline in faith in modern
society. He is sceptical of this new
approach, but the argument is that it
attracts more people. ‘Some of the
people who have responded
negatively to my book have said we
have to meet the culture where we’re
at, and dialogue on their level; if that
means dressing [how] they are
dressing, if it’s communicating the
gospel, it’s worth it,’ he says.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians
9:22-23, ‘I try to find common
ground with everyone, doing
everything I can to save some. I do
everything to spread the Good News
and share in its blessings.’ And
Joanna Collicutt McGrath, a clinical
psychologist, says that for similar
reasons, there might be justification
in being image-conscious – as long as
the products we buy are ethically
produced. ‘Our current society is very
obsessed by image, especially body
image, and as at all times in our
history, the job of the Christian is to
get into that society, inhabit it, but
point beyond it,’ she says.
But there are pitfalls to being a
super-cool church with a great image.
‘We have to…think why are people
coming here?’ says McCracken. ‘We
can’t trick them into thinking
Christianity is a great cool party. We
can’t hide the verses about denying
yourself, that’s what Christianity is.’
The effect of looking cool can
also alienate others. ‘I went to
churches where so many people were
dressed in a self-consciously hip way,
I felt like an outsider there and
couldn’t feel at ease,’ says
McCracken. ‘I think that’s really
unfortunate for a church to ever
exude that feeling.’
Blessing or a Curse?
There are downsides to being
beautiful. ‘In my early teen years, I
became obsessed with achieving
sensual beauty and gaining guys’
attention,’ says Leslie Ludy, author of
The Lost Art of True Beauty (Harvest
House). ‘I desperately wanted to be
seen as desirable. No matter how
many guys showed interest in me,
there were always scores of other
girls that got far more male approval
than I did. And inwardly, I was
miserable.’
Ludy was inspired by a woman
who had a different kind of beauty,
and asked for God’s forgiveness. She
says: ‘The world says that sensuality
equals beauty. God’s pattern for
feminine beauty is entirely different.
A woman who has been transformed
by Christ from the inside out will
shine with a loveliness and radiance
that lasts long after her outward
beauty fades.’
Not relying on our looks for
attention and praise can also help us
to be more reliant on God for love
and acceptance. ‘The gospel teaches
that we are ok not because of how
we look or what we earn or how
many friends we have or how clever
we are, but simply because God loves
us, and because of Jesus, God can be
on our side without compromising
his own integrity,’ says Collicutt
McGrath, who co-authored the book
Self-Esteem: The Cross and Christian
Confidence (IVP). ‘But it is very hard
for some people to receive this good
news at the level of feelings because
of their psychological history, even if
they know it in their heads…Part of
the journey into holiness – from flesh
to spirit – is to learn to accept this
unconditional love.’
Taking it further
Joanna Jepson gives talks and
coaching to women and teenagers on
body image and spirituality.
She can be contacted on
joeyjep@yahoo.com
mercyministries.co.uk
Mercy Ministries is a national charity
dedicated to providing a six-month
residential Christian discipleship
programme for young women
suffering from life-controlling issues,
such as eating disorders, self-harm,
depression, and the effects of abuse
in all its forms. Tel: 01535 642 042
Its director, Arianna
Walker, has written a
book on the subject;
Mirror Image; breaking
free from false reflections
(Presence Books)