The Weight Of Beauty
Michael Lawrence has come out with 2 articles on attraction here and here. The context is single men not dating godly women who they do not find attractive enough. As I’ve tried to understand what he’s saying I’ve come to represent it mathematically:
B = k E + (1-k) I
B represents our perception of Beauty on others, E represents external beauty, I represents internal beauty or conformity to Christ, and k is a number between 0 and 1 that represents the weight given to E. This equation is a gross oversimplification, but the idea is that the world and sin lead us to believe that k ought to be close 1, but really in line with true biblical beauty it ought to be much smaller.
Michael also speaks about how culture defines external beauty, based on the book The Beauty Myth (extract); however other research indicates that there is a substantial consistency in some of what is considered beautiful by different cultures. Similarly, what Michael has in mind when he speaks of how our view of the image of beauty is corrupted may also be overstated.
Michael is excellent in discussing that we can encourage and help develop in others biblical beauty as well as improve our appreciation of it ourselves. The need to challenge the messages of the culture is well made and illustrated by these articles, we do well to consider that instruction carefully.
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13 July, 2009 EUTC at 2:58 am
Interesting. I’m going to have to read Lawrence’s articles on this. This topic is something I often ponder, and at times discuss with my Christian male friends.