God-Given Beauty
A Casualty of the War Against God
Roger Scruton told us that,
“Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it does not matter.” He was right. Wherever we look, from architecture to fashion, from social media to music, from painting to manners, we seem to be living in a world that not only rejects beauty but cultivates the distorted and tawdry.
More than Art
We see the rejection of beauty in much of the art and architecture produced and lauded by the elites today. Distortion and the celebration of the grotesque have elbowed their way to the forefront of artistic expression. A walk through any of our cities is an encounter with ugly, utilitarian buildings which prioritise cost over aesthetic value. Our urban landscape is increasingly one of soulless structures which belittle the human and create a sense of alienation.
These are the symptoms; the disease is about more than a few paintings or the violent and misogynistic lyrics of notorious rap songs. Underlying the race to the aesthetic bottom is a continual assault on genuine beauty – and on God Himself. The rejection of God’s existence, and the dignified nature of the life He created, leads to the cult of ugliness and distortion in our society. It is a cry of rage against God.
The rejection of beauty is an integral part of the rejection of all that has gone before. Having forsaken the true God, having blinded ourselves to His light, we dwell in a confusion of ugliness. The underlying message in every disordered and misshapen piece of modern architecture, art, music, drama or fashion statement is that there is no God.
The rejection of God’s existence, and the dignified nature of the life He created, leads to the cult of ugliness and distortion in our society.
Society does not see or accomplish virtuous or beautiful things because there is no longer virtue or beauty within. A materialist society which has rejected belief in God or the supernatural, or even truth itself, will inevitably turn from beauty, value the mediocre and do ugly things.
The Underlying Cause
This cult to ugliness exploded in the sixties when the rejection of biblically based moral standards gave rise to the celebration of rebelliousness and immorality. Behind this trend was a revolutionary rejection of all aspects of Christian civilisation. The unconventional was embraced and the civilised norms of public behaviour, which emphasised respect for the dignity of individuals, including how they present themselves to society, were abandoned.
Human beings are hardwired conformists, even the most rebellious conform in their rebellion. The conformity of the past was abandoned and the revolutionary conformity of the present adopted. The ‘60s rebellion against established norms has become an outpouring of the distasteful and slovenly in dress and manners today. People call attention to themselves by their delight in the shock value of outlandish hairstyles, make-up, clothing and behaviour. A nation once renowned for its stiff upper lip and its propensity to queue now suffers from emotional incontinence and pushes in.
The almost universal rejection of beauty has a pervasive corrupting effect on the family, our institutions and society as a whole. Everything moves towards drabness or flashy ugliness in cultural entropy. The average person may not go to extremes, but almost certainly will adhere to some form of sloppiness in personal grooming and conduct. We need only walk along any High Street to see the evidence.
The most prevalent acceptance of and even celebration of ugliness is in the prevailing modes of dress and manners.
The most prevalent acceptance of and even celebration of ugliness is in the prevailing modes of dress and manners. Whilst dishevelled clothing and thoughtless personal conduct is common throughout society, naturally enough it is amongst the young that the rebellion against beauty takes an extreme form.
Youthful Rebellion
This is most apparent in personal adornment, where there is often a deliberate choice to be ugly. Bizarre facial jewellery abounds, tongue studs, eyebrow, nose and lip rings, are everyday. Limbs, necks, and sometimes faces emblazoned with tattoos abound. Strangely coloured unkempt hair, and mismatched, ill-fitting clothing have become almost de rigueur amongst the young. Jeans are manufactured, sometimes expensively, to deliberately look worn out, ragged and ripped, and are eagerly purchased.
This is more than the natural rebellion of the young. Beauty is a casualty of the culture war. A leading American magazine assured impressionable teen girls that beauty standards, “are tools of oppression that reinforce sexism, racism, colorism, classism, ableism, ageism, and gender norms.” We are passing on our rejection of beauty, and profiting from it.
(Let's not forget that some go the other way, going to extremes to make themselves beautiful – with cosmetic surgery, doctored social media pics, never daring to set foot outside the house without immaculately coiffed hair, expensive clothes and layers of make-up. This in itself is damaging, linking self-worth with looks, and in some ways it’s not surprising that others reject this obsession with outer beauty.)
Such deliberate rejection of what people instinctively know to be beautiful, and their intentional acceptance of the ugly and distasteful is a calculated turning away from the natural of God’s creation. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Rom 1:20). It is ultimately a deliberate rejection of the Maker Himself, and a decided embrace of that which is not of Him.
It is ultimately a deliberate rejection of the Maker Himself, and a decided embrace of that which is not of Him.
God-given faculty
It is often said that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, that visual attraction is purely a matter of personal choice. This is equivalent to saying that everything is relative; there is no such thing as objective truth – all is subjective. Of course, to some extent it’s true that beauty is a matter of personal taste (consider, for example, a dandelion, a spider, a desert. Some would consider these beautiful, others not). But from time immemorial, humanity has had a shared experience of acknowledging and appreciating beauty. There is something deep within humankind that can readily distinguish between beauty and that which is visually displeasing. It is a God-given faculty.
The glory of God is reflected in the beauty of that which He created, and we respond to it. We know this when we are struck speechless at a beautiful sunset or an inspiring landscape. According to the great philosopher Thomas Aquinas, beauty is that which when seen pleases. We have an inner instinct towards beauty, we may not be able to define it, but we recognise it when we see it. Beauty should be reflected in what we create, in art, in drawings, paintings and sculptures, in architecture and music.
This is never more true than when it relates to ourselves, those whom He created in his own image. Outwardly we can reflect the truth, the beauty, and the goodness of God in how we dress and behave. More importantly, the true inner beauty of the soul which embraces its Saviour can become apparent even under the plainest or drabbest exterior. Beauty will out. We have all known the experience of meeting someone and coming away knowing that we have been with somebody who is close to God, or ‘far ben’ as we say in Scotland.
Our Call to Beauty
With the rejection of faith in Christ and the society which was built on the biblical faith, there has been an overwhelming rejection of the Christian idea of beauty being related to the divine, the good and the true. “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things” (Phil 4:8).
More importantly, the true inner beauty of the soul which embraces its Saviour can become apparent even under the plainest or drabbest exterior.
In the midst of the wilderness the Children of Israel were given instruction about building the Ark of the Covenant (Ex 25). In the midst of it was the Tabernacle, the place where they met with God. It was to be surrounded by the most beautiful curtain made of high-quality materials (Ex 26). This was to reflect the One who was inside.
We are taught that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (I Cor 6:19), the place where God dwells. When we surround ourselves with beauty and dress, and conduct ourselves with respect, we are showing that we are vessels of grace. In my opinion, to dress and behave in a slovenly manner is akin to draping the Tabernacle with any old, discarded hessian sacking.
So I'd say, the next time you scratch your head over some evidence of the ugly or slovenly in society, don’t condemn yourself by saying, “I suppose I’m just old fashioned and not up with the times”.
It probably means that despite the tawdriness of so much of what we see around us, you have managed to retain an appreciation of God-given beauty.
Rev Dr Campbell Campbell-Jack, 29/05/2025