We Are Image Bearers, Not Image Crafters

In the age of selfies and social media, one of the most common ways that we pursue personal honor or relevance is by projecting a persona that appeals to our particular community. In itself, this “image crafting” is not new, but the digital age facilitates it in a way that previous eras didn’t. When communities are primarily comprised of people who share physical space with each other, it is hard to control what people see of us. We can try to maintain a certain image—the plastered smile, the well-regulated children, the forced familiarities and compliments—but the possibility of being caught off guard is very real.

We Objectify Ourselves

In digital communities, however, we choose when and how to interact with each other. With a few clicks, a snap, and a swipe, we can manage what other people see; if we guard our image carefully enough, we can cover our flaws and accentuate our assets. We are not lying about our lives so much as editing them to present only what aligns with the preferences of our audience.

Image crafting takes as many forms as there are audiences to perform for. In spaces that honor academic achievement, we’ll make sure that our social media handle includes the appropriate letters after our name. (In places that reward marriage and family, we’ll make sure to include the appropriate letters before our name.) For contexts that value introspection and spirituality, we’ll post pictures of an open Bible and cup of coffee. And in an ironic twist, for contexts that honor transparency, we can even begin to perform at authenticity itself. Because transparency is rare in an age of image crafting, it’s also valuable, and exposing our unfiltered self can become a way to seek approval. To signal how little we care about what people think of us, we will parade our faults. We’ll storm and swear and delight in disrupting established norms—all while performing to audience expectations.

“When we know that our worth comes from God, it frees us from needing to seek it from other people.”

The main reason we participate in our own objectification is because it rewards us. Each like, each positive comment, each retweet and share confirms that we are valuable and worthy of honor. But the opposite is also true. As much as we enjoy positive feedback, think how quickly and radically your emotions shift when someone responds with a rude or negative comment. For some of us, it makes us want to get off social media entirely; for others it draws us deeper into it, causing us to fixate on having the final word. We feel embarrassed, confused, hurt, and even angry.

Why does it bother us so much? Why does someone that we may not even know have so much power over us? Why can’t we, despite our best intentions, just walk away?

Part of what we’re experiencing is the weight of public shame. As much as social media has given us the ability to gain approval from hundreds of people, it also provides opportunity for us to be embarrassed in front of hundreds of people. It’s not that one person has rejected us; it’s that they’ve rejected us in front of everyone else. And should they be able to sway public opinion against us, we face the real possibility of being ostracized. We face the very real possibility of being sent out with the trash.

That’s why it’s so important to find our source of honor and value in something other than people’s opinion—to seek what is truly honorable. If we don’t, our decision making will be skewed by a constant attempt to perform for them. Instead of having the clarity to weigh whether something is truly good, we’ll focus instead on whether other people perceive it to be good. Instead of asking, “Is this good?” we’ll ask:

What will other people think of me if I do this?
What will they say when they find out I went there?
How does sharing this article or product reflect on me?
Will he be upset if I say I don’t agree with him?
Will she be upset if I do?

And just like the Pharisees, we very quickly begin to make our choices about what is good to be seen by others.

God Is Our Image Crafter

In order to become discerning people, we also must separate our need for approval from our decision making. But to do that we’ll need a source of honor that is not dependent on how people perceive us. We’ll need a source of honor that doesn’t rest on presenting just the right look at just the right moment. And we find that honor, not in image crafting, but in the One who first crafted us in His own image.

“In order to become discerning people, we also must separate our need for approval from our decision making.”

Psalm 8:5 tells us that when God formed mankind in His likeness, He crowned us “with glory and honor.” From His own unlimited glory, He places on us an “eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). Even though we are not yet what we should be, we know what we were meant to be—we know the dignity, authority, and gravity of being made like Him. And when we know that our worth comes from God, it frees us from needing to seek it from other people. Instead of worrying about pleasing people with our choices, we’re free to approach decisions with clarity and courage, seeking good even if it disrupts status quo. But knowing that God has honored us by placing His image on us also inspires us to conduct ourselves in a way that is worthy of it. Through it, we learn both to honor our own God-given identities and to honor those around us.

In our current polarized culture, it can be tempting to disdain people who believe and act differently than we do. In a 1991 essay exploring how secular intellectuals view Christian fundamentalists (and vice versa), anthropologist Susan Friend Harding coined the phrase “Repugnant Cultural Other” to describe how easily we divide ourselves into categories of “us” and “them” and then proceed to stigmatize “them.”

When we encounter someone who holds a viewpoint we don’t agree with, we can begin to view their whole existence through the lens of our disagreement with them. Instead of getting to know them and engaging their ideas, we assume that we already know them because we know where they stand on a certain political or religious question. And the degree to which we disagree with them on this question becomes the degree to which we will disrespect and disregard their humanity. They become our cultural enemy with whom we can’t imagine having anything in common. We can’t imagine that they, like us, are people who love their families, walk their dogs, work hard at their jobs, enjoy a good book, and might just be working toward the common good (even if we disagree about what “good” looks like). By separating ourselves into categories of “us” and “them,” we can justify mocking them, misrepresenting their views, and (in extreme cases) condoning violence against them. But “when we engage in dehumanizing rhetoric or promote dehumanizing images,” writes sociologist Brené Brown in her book Braving the Wilderness, “we diminish our own humanity in the process.”

If we are to seek whatever is honorable, it must include seeking the honor that is inherent in God’s image bearers. We must recognize their intrinsic dignity and hold it in high esteem. There is no wiggle room on this. No matter how different a person may be from us, no matter what political, social, or moral views they may hold, no matter how strongly and vehemently we disagree with them, no matter their crimes, we must not dishonor the image of God in them. To joke about their death or destruction, to celebrate their pain and loss, to openly mock and belittle their struggles is to blaspheme the God in whose image they are created (cf. James 3:9).

This is no easy thing—especially when someone is not living honorably themselves, when they are not living in a way that is consistent with their identity as an image bearer. Somehow their hatred, pride, and deceit are able to draw parallel hatred, pride, and deceit from us. That’s why in his first epistle, Peter makes a point to call slaves to honor unkind masters, wives to honor unbelieving husbands, and all to honor the emperor—an emperor who at that very moment was seeking their lives (cf. 1 Pet. 2:13-3:2). In calling us to honor those who have, in all human logic, forfeited the right to honor, we testify to a greater reality: whether or not a person is living within the dignity of their identity as an image bearer does not change the fact that God has bestowed dignity on them.

In honoring them, we honor God.