Selfies and the Western Religion

So we have another story about a young person who has suffered trauma and misery through a perceived lack of physical perfection. In 2008, Imogen D’Arcy, a 13 year old girl from Leeds committed suicide because she thought she was “fat and ugly”.

Danny Bowman has appeared on British TV and has talked openly and eloquently about his addiction to ‘selfies’. The 19 year old confessed that he took 200 photos of himself each day, played truant from school, wouldn’t leave his house for six months and even lost two stone as he struggled to take the perfect photo. He also tried to commit suicide but his mother saved him when he took an overdose. He had a deep craving for physical perfection and the social approval this would bring.

When will we learn to connect these tragic stories to the western religion that blights so many lives? When we believe deep down that we are just physical creatures then our horizons of happiness will always be focused entirely upon material criteria. It would seem that the aggressive gospel of Hobbes disciples young people to be incredibly insecure about how they look.

The Nazis glorified physical perfection and this led to the compulsory euthanasia of those deemed ugly and ungainly. The western religion is also prone to this devaluing of physically ‘inferior’ people. Idolatry always devalues some of God’s human creatures.

The good news of God’s kingdom should be clear. All of us are created in the image and likeness of God. Our value has nothing to do with beauty and physical perfection. We are loved by God, warts and all. Even those who are flatulent are loved!

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Mark Roques

Mark taught Philosophy and Religious Education at Prior Park College, Bath, for many years. As Director of RealityBites he has developed a rich range of resources for youth workers and teachers. He has spoken at conferences in the UK, Holland, South Korea, Spain, Australia and New Zealand.

Mark is a lively storyteller and the author of four books, including The Spy, the Rat and the Bed of Nails: Creative Ways of Talking about Christian Faith. His work is focused on storytelling and how this can help us to communicate the Christian faith. He has written many articles for the Baptist Times, RE Today, Youthscape, Direction magazine and the Christian Teachers Journal.

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